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.

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.

As we said on Monday, and as The State wrote today, S.C. Republicans walked up to conventional wisdom, started a game of Rochambeau and, as Eric Cartman would say, kicked it square in the nuts. The State allies conventional wisdom with experience. That doesn’t work. Candidates tend to run on experience when they have nothing else to use — “Vote for me, because you’ve elected me the last times.” No, two things that almost always carry the day are money and name recognition.

It didn’t work for Speaker Pro Tem Harry Cato, or for Reps. Keith Kelly and Jim Stewart. House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dan Cooper just about lost in another massive upset. Rep. Mike Sottile, who had a ton more money and running against a guy who lost his past three elections, also had a close win. Will Folks missed out on his chance to coordinate with Gov. Mark Sanford and S.C. Club for Growth by two years. If he launched his hit list strategy this year — and kept Howard Rich’s money in the state — it damn well might have worked, instead of failing spectacularly.

The reason why this sort of thing happened can be explained rather simply. In mid-term primary elections, the advantage goes to the motivated. The teabaggers were motivated, and constituted about 40 percent of Republicans voting yesterday. When a lot of House elections are determined by 1,000 or fewer votes, that makes a big difference. But there’s a problem for the GOP in general that this group wielded so much influence.

In elections where Democrats can be competitive — governor, superintendent of education, perhaps attorney general and comptroller general — that’s a major detriment. Teabaggers aren’t a “silent majority.” They even aren’t a majority of Republicans. When you have candidates being elected by the right of the right, those candidates are going to have to run from the margins to keep their volunteer, fundraising and voting base. That’ll turn off a lot of independents. All Sen. Vince Sheheen has to get is a simple majority in the general election.

Naturally, the state GOP will be strong in the long term, but we’ll see if this primary is going to hurt it in the short term.

By the way, we doubt Gen. Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau ever was involved in an activity of swinging kicks to the groin.

Every once in a while, The Post & Courier will come up with a gem. Monday, it was the story about the split that happened in the Charleston County Republican Women’s Club. If you weren’t aware, there seemed to be a fight about rules, and that left a group of members to leave and form a new group — the Charleston County Republican Womens Club Inc. It’s the “Inc.” that counts, and the lack of an apostrophe, apparently. We’re used to seeing this sort of silliness happen on the left, something that gave rise to this bit of inspired comedy:

See, these kind of splits are more common on the extremes, with communists and fascists. People are so wrapped up with a doctrinaire ideology, any perceived divergence from that is cause for walking out and starting a new party or group, or forcing out others. The deliciousness of this is that it doesn’t seem ideological at all. It’s just a series of personality problems. And rules. Oh, the rules.

Mary Ann Taylor, interim president of the federated group, said the group splintered partly because its former president, Kay Long, had served in that office longer than the federation allows. “What it cooks down to is I believe in bylaws,” Taylor said.

Long, who is president of the Charleston County Republican Womens Club Inc., said the group requested a waver from that bylaw three years ago but never heard back from the state. “We just presumed that everything was OK,” Long said, adding some women in the new club also like the idea of not having to share half their dues with the state and national federation.

Even better, recently both groups scheduled their meetings across the hallway from each other at the same time at the Country Club of Charleston.

Cathy Tyler was explaining how much more she liked the Republican atmosphere in South Carolina than in her home state of Michigan when she realized she was in the wrong room.

She went to the Charleston County Republican Womens Club Inc. meeting, but she meant to attend the Charleston County Republican Women’s Club meeting.

So she walked across the hall on the second floor of the Charleston Country Club.

The funny, it doesn’t stop in this state.

At the S.C. Republican Party Silver Elephant event on Saturday, most of the statewide campaigns were out in force with stickers, palm cards, all the basics. Later on in the evening, and while attendees left, something else was being passed out. It was one of those fake dollar bill attack jobs that have become cliché these days. It was ripping U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett, returning to that old line of how he voted on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (it’s a tarp!).

Who exactly was doing all this? The people passing out the pieces appeared to be young volunteers, so no help there. Well, it’s a political thing — there had to be a “paid for by” bit on it. Sure enough, it says “Paid for by BailOnBarrett.com.” We get home and think, OK, let’s look up this site and see what we can find out. But that’s the problem. It’s not there.

The domain was registered with GoDaddy.com on February 18 of this year, through domainsbyproxy.com, which allows a registrant to hide their identity. Very curious. It would seem that the site was registered only as a way for a campaign to keep its hands clean.

We were told that Atty. Gen. Henry McMaster‘s people was behind this latest effort. And no wonder, with the evening’s straw poll showing a near-deadlock between Barrett and McMaster for the gubernatorial nomination.

Whoever is behind the effort, it would probably be a good idea to actually set up a site, since this is obviously clear political message laundering.

During a significant portion of our lives, we covered sports for a living. More often than not, a nosh wasn’t available, but for college games — even covering Blinn College football games — there would always be something. It’s an old joke that sportswriters live and die by the food at the events they’re at. For instance — Carolina football’s catered spread was woefully lacking. The Gamecock basketball set-up was much better.

So, naturally, downshifting into the sportswriter lizard brain, we have to again rave about the catering at the S.C. Republican Party‘s Silver Elephant Dinner. As Brad Warthen talked about, we did, “annex a salad.” But it wasn’t his — it was one from one of the open spaces. Still tasty. The dessert wasn’t bad, either. It was a custard creation in an edible bowl with fruit and whipped cream garnishing. Mmm.

U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett and U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint were not in attendance, which certainly took away from the spectacle. It would have been great to see them in action. U.S. Sen. Lindsay Graham seemed to do a good job, alternating, as we said in a tweet, between red meat and vegetables. Gov. Mark Sanford‘s speech was largely forgettable, as is typically the case. Lt. Gov. André Bauer, Atty. Gen. Henry McMaster and Rep. Nikki Haley gave their well-honed speeches, and didn’t deviate too far out from what was expected from them.

Former presidential adviser Karl Rove‘s speech was, well, too long. But that’s just us — we tend to zone out when being lectured to. However, it started out pretty well, and his recollections of former RNC chairman Lee Atwater were classic. Actually, his remembrances were the best part of the speech, along with his closing story about getting a gentleman of more than 60 years old an exemption to join the Marines and be a medical officer in Afghanistan.

Of course, those of us with an obsession for numbers were waiting for the straw poll results to come in. The announcement went pretty quick — we were unable to jot down all the numbers — but the end up of the gubernatorial poll was striking. Barrett took the poll with 37 percent, followed by McMaster with 34.2, Haley at 18.4 and Bauer rounding out the field with 10.4 percent. Considering that Bauer has a money lead of about half a million dollars more than Haley, getting beat this bad by the field may say a few things about the viability of his campaign (insert bromide about Bauer being counted out and bouncing back).

Also winning were Ken Ard for lieutenant governor, Alan Wilson for attorney general, Mick Zais for superintendent of education, Converse Chellis for state treasurer and Richard Eckstrom for comptroller general. Unless someone was quick with the pen, we’ll have to wait until the sun rises again to search for the exact numbers.

As for the straw poll, we’re of two minds on this. One is that the people voting are committed to the party and people like them are very much more likely to vote in the Republican primaries. The second is that there are a lot of people out there without the money, time or inclination to come to an event like the Silver Elephant Dinner, and they could have a very different outlook on these statewide races.

Regardless, it was a solid event and with the exception of the UStream feed going down and Warthen’s computer not wanting any part of the convention center’s wifi signal, it appeared to be a pretty successful evening for the state GOP.

Being the most conspicuous member of the attendees, and even the motley crew of bloggers at the S.C. Republican Party Silver Elephant Dinner has its advantages and disadvantages. But, the evening has been interesting so far.

First — open bar. We don’t think we’ve ever seen that at a Democratic event, and it’s a nice touch, especially since we didn’t have to spend bank to get here like everyone else in the room. Also, the food was great. The green beans could have been a little better, but the chicken, mashed potatoes and mushrooms were tight. The catering people really did their jobs.

Second — seeing all these candidates, consultants and people I only know from their donations on disclosure reports has been quite interesting. (Hey, hey, Gov. Mark Sanford just walked past blogger row. No eye contact.)

Third — the Columbia Convention Center is jumping tonight. Not only is Silver Elephant going on, but the S.C. Democratic Party‘s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner (oops — forgot it’s always before Ye Olde Fish Fry, but the SCDP convention was earlier today), and it appears that there’s a prom going on downstairs. The Vista is clearly the place to be. Also, hearing Karl Rove sharing anecdotes about Lee Atwater is pretty entertaining.

We’ll see what happens as the night goes on, and if we can make it home without our enemies (frienemies?) throwing us in the back of a van, a la “Thank You for Smoking.”

There have been some interesting things going on recently with the S.C. Republican Party, not the least of which is former party treasurer John Cattano ripping on the party from the child’s blog. But, if you believe all of what he wrote, you aren’t getting the full story. It’s a little more interesting than that.

Sources within the SCGOP told us over the weekend that Cattano was ousted for “bringing drama to the
job,” and that the move wasn’t as amicable as party staffers first indicated. Those sources tell us that Cattano bumped heads with party chairwoman Karen Floyd after he indicated that he and friend Curtis Loftis would run against incumbents Converse Chellis and Richard Eckstrom. While one part of the duo’s plan worked, sources say that Cattano could not acquire a personal loan to finance his campaign due to the failure of his past businesses.

“Cattano didn’t agree with the direction of the party. He believes the party should work in primaries. He was going to run against Eckstrom, but he’s flat broke and unable to secure a loan after he ran his company into the ground,” a source close to the situation told us.

We’re told that Cattano and Floyd had a heated exchange after Cattano demanded that she support him for comptroller. The exchange came just days after Cattano tried strong-arming Kershaw County Republican Party chairman Chris Oviatt into clearing the field for HD-79 candidate Sheri Few. Cattano reportedly used Floyd’s name without her permission, saying that he was speaking on her behalf. Floyd is said to have become very upset with the situation.

“Cattano and Floyd just have different beliefs when it comes to playing in primaries. The drama became so intense that she had to let him go,” a source said. We were also told that Cattano is “making it his mission” to go after Floyd.

The whole situation seems crazy. After all, if you’re the guy drafting the budget, wouldn’t you do something about it then? And if the money being spent for work isn’t going out to firms in the state, it would have to be spent to hire people to do it in-house, which would also mean shelling out cash for benefits and the like, in addition to a salary.

We have an eye for patterns and trends, and something a little strange was going on in the Upstate earlier this year. For a while, Sen. Lee Bright was going about appointing cronies to magistrate positions. In December, we put it thusly:

Naturally, it raised some eyebrows in the Upstate when Bright, with Sen. Glenn Reese, brought in campaign supporter Rob Chumley to fill Brian Taylor’s seat. Here’s a twist: remember how Bright and a number of other candidates in ‘08 were a part of a structured grouping of candidates, consultants and third-party groups? Bright’s primary opponent, then-Rep. Scott Talley, was targeted. Rep. Keith Kelly, who won his primary, was targeted, as well. Guess who is running against Kelly for the GOP nomination next year? Chumley’s father, Bill. And Bill Chumley is paying Bright’s consultant, Chris Sullivan. Nothing weird there, right?

Then there was the strange case of David Snow, who became a victim of this patronage experiment. As this fall’s special extended session was wrapping up, at the end of the day, Snow was relieved of his duties as he was closing up his office. From what we’ve been told, that effectively severely limited Snow’s ability to do anything relating to access to the office. Enter James West, who gave a grand to the Bright campaign last year, as well as the Reese effort. West, to the best of our knowledge, has no legal experience.

Then there’s the last one, with John Rollins being forced out in favor of Tina McMillan, wife of Jim McMillan, who is running against Rep. Rita Allison in the District 36 primary. Amid reports that Allison is being targeted by the same groups who were afoot last year, there’s this interesting fact: Sullivan is running Jim McMillan’s campaign, as well. Mind you, the couple gave $1,000 each to the Bright campaign (Tina personally, Jim through his company).

But, McMillan didn’t make it. The plan to move him in to Allison’s district and steal that one was knocked down in a meeting by the S.C. Republican Party executive committee on Monday. He simply wasn’t living in the district in time. This sort of head-slapping oversight just reeks of previous mistakes by the Bright-Sullivan alliance.