Back during the Republican gubernatorial primary campaign, after one of the many debates someone asked us if we watched. Internal response was, “Why the fuck would we?” External response was, “No.” It might have had a little bit to do with the candidates, but a whole lot to do with the office and level of political polishing. For most debates for higher office, they’re totally stone-cold boring and contain no new information. Just a competition to see who could most artfully chop up their stump speeches into timed segments. So let’s kill the debates.

Most of the presidential debates, and they began in the summer of 2007 for chrissakes, were just exercises in waiting for the freak candidate to say something weird or drinking games for people who find it hard to get obliterated without rules and points. In races with a lot of people, many candidates say very little and even less of actual import. They would be better served with covering themselves with bumper stickers and turning about for the cameras.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Vince Sheheen decided to a new twist on an exceptionally old trick — did the staff get high and approve this? — by challenging GOP nominee Nikki Haley to fucking Lincoln-Douglas debates. A whole mess of ‘em! And stories were written far and wide. This comprises the vast majority of all action regarding debates. Candidate A proposes something a little out of the ordinary. Candidate B says bah to that. Then so many news stories. It’s just a method to generate news coverage. As a result, most of the people who actually give a damn are those who are directly involved, and nobody else cares.

In that way, more than 90 percent of all political debates between candidates are little different than the presidential nominating conventions. No, they’re actually very much worse. Conventions have political memorabilia to buy, the occasional famous person sighting, entertainment by famous people (this applies mostly to Democrats, or to your definition of “famous”) and those wonderful hospitality parties thrown by big corporations and special interests that have the open bars and free food. Debates, even high-level debates, don’t come close. The best swag you’ll bring home is a press pass bought off some writer at the hotel bar. And about 90 minutes of sheer boredom.

Lower ballot race debates could be worthwhile, but if you’ve had to sit through multiple city council debates or watched State House candidates go at it in some back room in BFE with 11 people attending, you’d agree that the news value is negligible. Columbia would be better served by having the city candidates debate in front of the Metro desk reporters and save everyone else the trouble.

But here’s the connection between the debates and the conventions: as former DNC chairman Don Fowler taught us at Carolina, conventions never help a campaign and if they have effect, it’s bad. Fowler pointed to RNC ’92 in Houston and his own DNC ’88 in Atlanta as examples. The same goes for the debates. They’re only particularly newsworthy and have an effect on the campaign if somebody seriously fucks up, as in George H.W. Bush in ’92 in Richmond (looking at his watch) or Al Gore in 2000 (le sigh).

Discussions, like among the Pub Politics crew or the fabulous C-SPAN broadcast of William F. Buckley and George McGovern from several years ago are different matters altogether. People sitting down with different points of view and talking about them can elicit interesting commentary and analysis. And jokes that aren’t pre-scripted. Operatives, former pols, reporters who are allowed an opinion — Lee Bandy at the Dan Rather thing in ’08 was great — these are people close enough to the action to really know what’s going down, but removed enough to actually say something worth listening to.

But these candidate debates, they’re moribund, they’re out cold. It’s toe-tag time.

The approved one-sided story. It’s not an everyday occurrence, but not unusual for your average daily newspaper. Like, say, The State‘s story today on the elections. Put that one through your noggin: you have to write a story about Democratic prospects in November from the perspective of the Democrats (and one Republican), while trying not to make it sound like a news release. Pain in the ass. However, stepping away can give you some insights.

For instance, how state Democrats are putting the best face possible on an election cycle that could end up as a spectacular failure. The first thing the average person would look at is the Alvin Greene debacle, added to the inability to run a full slate of statewide candidates who are properly funded and have a puncher’s chance. Independent gubernatorial candidate Morgan Bruce Reeves has received more press than several statewide Dems. So what do you do? Play up the four with a chance and hope for the best.

Democrats have put up a field of candidates for statewide office this year the party thinks is as strong as it has had since the days the party dominated South Carolina.

Robert Barber, Ashley Cooper, Frank Holleman and Matthew Richardson represent a long-sought mix of fresh faces and new ideas the party has been longing for, say political observers.

Add to that combination a good dose of political competency, youth and experience, and the party thinks it is onto something in the fall.

Sometimes you just have to put on your best face and keep on trucking. Certainly those four are good candidates. They might even have had a chance in a state that is trending a tad more purple, like North Carolina or Virginia. In 2006 or 2008. But this is 2010, a Republican year in a Republican state. So many members of the GOP want to run for office, the primaries were jumping.

Competitive primaries, far enough out from the general to allow a closure of ranks, get your candidates’ names out there and gets the party voters energized. It says a lot about the political climate of South Carolina that so many Democratic nominees were uncontested and that known quantities decided not to get close to many of the races.

Last week was not exactly the best for S.C. Democrats, who had to bear witness to three different events that weren’t entirely the doing of U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene. But, oh, did Greene and his campaign come up big. This guy and his people just don’t stop providing entertainment.

Greene’s epic freakout
We got it around noon on Saturday, and it began to go viral a few hours after that. Charlotte’s WCNC television sent a crew down to Manning to talk to Greene about his recent indictment (bad incident 1A) regarding the incident when he allegedly showed porn to a Carolina student in one of the worst pitches for tail since our last appearance at Bar None. The epicness is epic, as the kids say.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

The Post & Courier‘s Brian Hicks does a fine job taking on the actions of the S.C. Democratic Party‘s reaction — Chairwoman Carol Fowler reiterating that Green should drop out, and lands a Forrest Gump reference on the candidate himself.

“My lawyer is dealing with that,” Greene said before hanging up.

That’s all he had to say about that.

But Friday’s statement shouldn’t be all the Democratic Party has to say about this. The party has fouled up several important races around the state, yet still wonders why it seems to be the permanent minority in South Carolina these days.

Green’s SCDP executive committee appearance
While the SCDP has publicly come down for Greene to step aside, it still played host to him at its executive committee meeting on Thursday. Free Times was on hand for the spectacle, in which we get friendly clapping, more candidate-in-a-pod behavior (30-second speech, no questions, no comments) and more people looking to get high-end jobs on the low-end campaign.

Greene’s speech clocked in at around 23 seconds, which is consistent with what his campaign adviser Felipe Farley had predicted weeks ago, when he noted that Greene wasn’t going to be doing any long barnburners on the stump.

When Greene finished, one of his newer advisers stood up.

“I would like to say that Alvin isn’t being short with you -– my name is Georgean McConnell and I’ve been working with Alvin -– and we have a speech committee and so forth and so I didn’t want him to get into no debates tonight or anything, because it’s really not fair since he’s been very cooperative with us.”

McConnell works at the University of South Carolina School of Music in the Center for Southern African-American Music as the gospel music ambassador. She went on to describe Greene as a quick learner and a knowledgeable person.

“So I think, in a very short time, you’re going to be seeing a very different Alvin Greene,” she said.

A-ha. Nope, looks like more of the same. Not that we’re upset about that one bit.

Gunn checks out
While the Greene sideshow has been running for some time, the abrupt announcement by Rep. Anton Gunn that he was leaving the House and taking over the regional U.S. Department of Health and Human Services post was the absolute bomb. Gunn’s a competitive Democrat in a competitive district, though a district that would tend to go Republican more often than not. His departure brought a lot of speculation about other issues, like whether his close ties to President Barack Obama were seriously hindering his reelection hopes or that he would simply be a victim of high Republican turnout.

Either is possible, but we think we could make a good case that a ficus plant would make a better member of the House than GOP nominee Sheri Few. The consideration that no other Republican this side of the padded-room set decided to run and win the nomination may suggest that local Republicans felt Gunn was solidifying his position as the HD-79 representative. Maybe because it seems Few will run on a regular basis, anyway, it just wasn’t worth another tough primary battle.

Whether any of these statements were factors doesn’t change the fact that this is a major blow for replenishing the stock of good Democratic candidates and for overall sanity in the General Assembly.

In light of what Sen. Hugh Leatherman wants to do with capping tuition increases, it’s funny to think about the sort of world that would happen if the S.C. Policy Council would get its way. After all, the SCPC has seen little of any government – public sector – spending that it likes. And it seems to have a hard-on for defunding all public education in South Carolina, whether it’s K-12 or higher ed.

Now, we’re pretty sure of our audience. We’re pretty sure y’all trade in argumentative fallacies, logical fallacies, the sort of ways about speaking of one’s position that are easily broken apart by level-headed thinking and basic common sense. But those arguments are the bread-and-butter of politics. They’re what you’ll see in handouts, mail pieces, advertisements, stump speeches and stand-up comedy routines.

So let’s have some fun with the Policy Council.

One big player this year, and probably in the GOP presidential primary race, is former U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Newt’s a big fan of alternate history, along with writing partner and author William R. Forstchen. Let’s do a bit of alternate future, aye?

Beginning, the SCPC gets what it wants. Government in South Carolina, as we knew it, is gone. No statewide law enforcement, regulation, everything. The Palmetto State falls into “failed state” status as much as we all learned in early-level political science classes. The federal government, fed up with our antics and devoid of S.C. federal officials who will cooperate with the federal government, gives up on us. We devolve into a weird combination of post-1992 Somalia, 18th century Russia and plutocratic rule and a theocracy.

South Carolina does have a government, at its basic form, but it’s really strange. Ceding to people who have been involved, we have multiple capitals. Amalgamated Industry & Agriculture, the corporate group that handles everything dealing with money and commerce, buys the State House complex and handles disputes in Columbia. The rest of the United States and the world consider this the “Commerce Capital.”

A strong band of armed social conservatives claim part of the power vacuum for itself, establishing a ruling order in the Upstate to handle every vice and everything you do with your naughty, naughty genitals. Originally located in Greenville, a breakaway, fundamentalist group establishes a new religious government in Spartanburg. So now you have two groups of statewide religious police checking up on you. Be careful, brother.

The Grand Strand is ceded to North Carolina, and Hilton Head is ceded to Georgia. Too many people were having trouble figuring how to work Yankee-heavy areas into our new combination of free markets and religious fundamentalism. Yankees who feel like they belong apply, and are given permanent resident status, as long as they absolve all fealty to the Big Ten, the NBA and anything regarding to sports north of Baltimore or west of Austin. Being a hockey fan is considered a capital crime.

Congress, working slowly but worked into a frenzy because of the developments, sends Georgia and North Carolina national guard units to run border patrol. Initially, powered by Twitter and Facebook, many moderates, liberals, intellectuals, artists and other sorts took off for Charlotte and Savannah before the borders close. Rural residents and sportsmen who know the border regions and are friendly to criminals who become known as “RINOs,” “Democrats,” “educators,” “reporters,” “musicians,” “good-time Johnnys” and “those who are too big for their britches” are under special scrutiny from the Upstate moralist squads.

As the situation unfolds from the mountains to the river, Charleston figures out what’s up, organizes a government unto itself and rejoins the United States, a historical irony by itself. A city-state of a fashion, the Commonwealth of Charleston maintains its connection to America, but with an independence that befits the Holy City and its denizens. CC takes within its bounds all of Charleston County, and parts of neighboring cities and counties. The Jasper County port situation, to put it mildly, becomes a little more complicated. And by complicated, we mean issues with all-powerful corporations, multiple governmental entities and firearms. Wait – nevermind. That’s exactly how it is now.

Oh, the more things change….

South Carolina has interesting dynamics. When we were in high school, the best of the best consultants were Democrats, which proved itself when the donkeys laid a whuppin’ on the elephants when those guys were around. Most have left the Palmetto State for great jobs in the District. Brain drain, the S.C. Democratic Party has it.

The S.C. Republican Party, however, is in a renaissance of talented young people. Just recently, the SCGOP retained its “First in the South” primary status.

We have big news to celebrate this morning. I just arrived home from Kansas City where at the RNC summer meeting, our First in the South Presidential Primary was secured for 2012. This was a major victory that we’ve been working toward for months, and around the clock.

I want to specifically thank our executive committeewoman Cindy Costa and our executive committeeman Glenn McCall for all their hard work. This wasn’t a simple task by any stretch of the imagination. But as South Carolina has proven over and over again, we aren’t afraid of a tough fight.

Then, the Campaigns & Elections magazine, Politics, mentioned local consultant Wesley Donehue as a 2010 rising star.
As we’ve been often saying, the Democrats have a long way to go these days to keep up with the Joneses.

It ain’t easy out there for a Democrat. The leadership isn’t leading, candidates aren’t stepping forward to run for office and all too often, party members are reduced to delaying maneuvers in the General Assembly. And then there’s the Alvin Greene debacle, showing no chance of slowing down while entering into its second month of mirth for some and misery for others. The miserables, they keep looking for someone else beside Greene (and the Green Party candidate — it’s all anti-Green(e) over there).

The last best chance was likely Linda Ketner. When her former staffers and volunteers began canvassing he state for signatures to put her on the ballot, she seemed interested and intrigued. But when it finally came down to it, she told her erstwhile followers to lay down their clipboards. She wasn’t going to expend the time and capital needed to fight U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint and his gigantic warchest. But Thomas Nast didn’t depict Dems as donkeys for nothing. Stubbornness ruled the day for a few in the Lowcountry, and they reeled in their line and cast it back into the water.

They were looking for an academic at the Charleston School of Law. Alex Sanders? He did mount a decent campaign against Lindsey Graham in a bad Democratic year. No. They went to — who? — professor Constance Anastopoulo. She is originally from Virginia, has a firm in Charleston, went to school at Virginia and North Carolina, appears to be an excellent trial lawyer and according to ratemyprofessors.com, her students like her. We haven’t heard of her, and she has the online profile of a General Assembly candidate, so an independent run for U.S. Senate with any legitimate chance is probably a bit too much at this time.

She seemed to agree, and said in a statement, “While I am flattered by all of the phone calls and e-mails, I am fully committed to my work and my students at the Charleston School of Law.” Alright, guys. Y’all couldn’t find serious candidates for U.S. Senate, the First District and the Third District, Fourth District, secretary of state and got lucky when two decent candidates — Matthew Richardson and Robert Barber — got into the attorney general and comptroller general races. Yet, you keep beating the bushes like madmen looking for a replacement candidate.

It’s too late, kids. Should have been working on 2010 right after the 2008 races were over.

The clouds parted, the sun shone down and angels sang Tuesday morning when it became known far and wide that Carol Fowler is stepping down as chairwoman of the S.C. Democratic Party. It’s odd to see a party chair that doesn’t bust their ass, or whip others’, to recruit good candidates and fill up the party coffers, but then that’s been Fowler’s legacy as the head of the SCDP. In 2008, when U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham was vulnerable and it was a big Democratic year, was she able to get a legitimate candidate to run? No. This year, she was seemed content for the party to not come close to fill out the slate and to allow two nobodies vie for the chance to lose to U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint.

It’s actually the flubbing of the Senate Democratic primary that has led to the end of her time at the top. She says that’s not the case, but really — after several years of bollixing up the works, the foul-ups this time are putting an end to state Democrats’ frustrations.

For a few weeks, some Democratic fingers have been pointed at the party’s leaders, and Fowler specifically, for not doing more to prevent Greene from running and for not bolstering the candidacy of his opponent, Vic Rawl, a Charleston County Council member and former circuit judge. Most of the criticism has taken place quietly as party members focus on getting their party’s nominee for governor, Vincent Sheheen, elected.

O, Lord. This one paragraph shows the typical short-sightedness of some in the party. The point wasn’t to prevent Greene from running or endorsing someone else in the primary. It was to help get competent, qualified and well-financed people to decide to run for higher office, particularly at the top of the ticket.

The funny part about all this is that despite Republicans loving the schadenfreude of watching the SCDP trip over itself on a regular basis, we’ve also talked to some elephant types who miss challenging battles with the Dems. After all, with a Democratic Party in atrophy, the GOP is left to do what’s been l’habituel over the past few years — fight among itself. There’s a longing for the administration of Dick Harpootlian. Then again, everyone misses Dick — he’s a one-man news machine, a wartime consigliere par excellence.

If the people making the decisions are smart, they’ll choose someone who can recruit, raise money and go at the Republicans. Then maybe we’ll have general elections that are actually interesting, instead of watching the state GOP split in the political mitosis that always happens when one party is way more powerful than the other.

Former Congressional candidate Linda Ketner admits on her Facebook page that she didn’t hear about the petition campaign to get her on the ballot until late Tuesday. But if the vibe we’re getting is real, then she may well be riding into the U.S. Senate race this year on a wave of signatures. With still-relatively unknown cipher Alvin Greene carrying the Democratic nomination, a lot of state Democrats have been casting about for someone, anyone else. Even on Saturday, stories were still coming out about lack of party support for Greene.

The money people behind Ketner’s close race against U.S. Rep. Henry Brown in 2008, former finance director Doug Warner and former treasurer Tasha Gandy, are going deep into dissatisfaction among donkey types with the way the Senate race currently shapes up. And the hour of reckoning is quick at hand. At least 10,000 viable signatures have to be delivered by July 15. According to the Charleston City Paper, “[Warner] said [Ketner] promised to give it serious consideration if the group was able to find the 10,000 signatures necessary to get her name on the ballot in November.”

It should come as no surprise that Ketner has less of a shot at beating U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint as an independent than even if she had decided to run and win the Democratic primary. First, some people are going to vote straight ticket, and those votes are lost. Second, DeMint is the next-closest thing to unbeatable. What the Ketner effect could do is help down-ballot Democrats, especially the statewide races. Otherwise, this is just an academic exercise by the Democrats, and Republicans have nothing to worry about.

Thursday evening, the S.C. Senate Republican Caucus’ Wesley Donehue, S.C. Senate Democratic Caucus’ Phil Bailey, Free Times‘ Corey Hutchins, Winthrop University’s Scott Huffmon and the child got together for “Happy Hour” at Wild Hare. It ended up being pretty funny.

Unless Supt. of Ed. Jim Rex has an election leprechaun running around with a pot o’ gold and votes, it looks like Sen. Vince Sheheen can now be called the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor. Shortly after noon on Friday, attorney and lobbyist extraordinaire Dwight Drake ended his campaign.

I got into this race because I believed that South Carolina’s families deserved much more than they were getting from their Governor. We are facing the toughest times in a generation, and we can only take that on with dedicated, experienced leadership that is focused on putting our people back to work and building a better future for our kids. I have ambitious ideas for getting our state back on track, and I have the knowledge and experience to put those ideas into action.

But a statewide campaign for office is not just about these things. It also requires resources – campaign dollars to run in a competitive primary and in a competitive general election.

This comes on the heels of former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mullins McLeod dropping out of the race and endorsing Sheheen. As of now, Drake has not announced an endorsement, but anybody paying attention to the race knows the Democratic race has been decided.