The April 10 reports from Columbia mayoral candidate Steve Benjamin and District Four candidate Leona Plaugh have come in, but the ones for Councilman Kirkman Finlay III and Tony Mizzell have not. The results are below. Also, we were told that blogger and drunken foot-smasher Adam Fogle was installed as Benjamin’s campaign manager. What. the. fuck. OK, the kid was a broadcast journalism major at Georgia Southern in the grand metropolis of Statesboro, Ga., then ran a blog in Georgia before he was hired by the Quinns to, naturally, write a blog. We simply can’t believe this. Sure, Benjamin’s likely to waltz to a win on the 20th, but putting a blogger as your campaign manager just seems like a dumbass thing to do. If someone wanted to make us their campaign manager, we’d tell them that they’re obviously smoking the diggity dank and to reevaluate what they’re doing.

Mayor
STEVE BENJAMIN
Contributions: $67,779.62
Expenditures: $46,846.64
Cash on hand: $58,725.26

Significant contributions
Dick Smith Motors, $1,000
Auto dealer
Jack Van Loan, $100
Five Points Association
Zeke Stokes, $50
Consultant
Harvey Starr, $50
USC professor
Richard Harpootlian, P.A., $1,000
Law firm of the former S.C. Democratic Party chairman
Dick Harpootlian, $1,000
Former S.C. Democratic Party chairman
Andy Brack, $100
Editor, the Statehouse Report
Stephen Wukela, $500
Mayor of Florence
Columbia Firefighters Local 73, $502.06
Union
Marshall Meadors, $500
Former state Senate candidate
The Blue Marlin, $500
Restaurant
Stacy Brayboy, $100
Consultant
Capital Legislative Solutions, $500
Consulting firm

Significant expenditures
John Adams (printing), $412, $1,915, $3,221, $222
Joiquim Barnes (canvas), $563
Ike Williams (canvas), $563
Red Carpet Communications, $1,000
The Copy Shop (door hangers), $1,220
Richard Quinn & Associates (consulting), $10,000
Bob Wislinski (fundraising), $1,400

KIRKMAN FINLAY
Report not yet online.

County Council, District Four
TONY MIZZELL
Report not yet online.

LEONA PLAUGH
Contributions: $9,105
Expenditures: $13,363.88
Cash on hand: $798.24

Significant contributions
None.

Significant expenditures
Rod Shealy, $7,284, $3,991

We’ve found ourselves perplexed over the recent months regarding the interesting political flexing going on by Steve Benjamin‘s campaign for mayor of Columbia. The man ran as the Democratic nominee for attorney general in 2002, and counts among his strongest supporters top Midlands Democrats. And yet, it’s not a cut-and-dry situation.

Benjamin hired the local political consulting firm Richard Quinn and Associated to run his campaign. This is the same firm who ran Atty. Gen. Henry McMaster‘s race against Benjamin in 2002, and is running McMaster’s gubernatorial campaign. Naturally, that’s giving Benjamin a free pass on RQ&A’s in-house blog, The Palmetto Scoop. Really — Wheels McGee has been at every Benjamin event we’ve ever attended, which is a tad odd for a GOP political consultant and blogger.

In the meantime, he’s also hired several people who were a part of President Barack Obama‘s campaign during South Carolina’s Democratic presidential primary (Craig Schirmer and Laurin Manning, among others). Early Thursday morning, Benjamin’s campaign announced it would start running a radio ad playing up his Obama connections in the Democratic-leaning capital city.

COLUMBIA, SC – Steve Benjamin’s Mayoral Campaign broke onto the airwaves this week with a radio ad featuring a 2007 voicemail left by then Senator Barack Obama.

“I’ve saved this voicemail for well over two years now,” Benjamin explains. “It has been a personal inspiration for me because I still believe in what we can do when we work together. I still believe in hope.”

The radio spot, Benjamin’s first, went into rotation this week and can be heard on radio stations all across Columbia and at www.stevebenjamin.com.

This takes an extraordinary amount of hubris, considering that his consultants ran U.S. Sen. John McCain‘s Republican presidential primary campaigns in this state not once, but twice. Quinn Sr. was a close, unpaid advisor on McCain’s campaign for president in 2008. Then there’s something else.

Interestingly, the child, who seems fit to consider the majority of Republicans in the General Assembly as socialists, has been slurping Benjamin since the very outset. Baldy ran a line of smack against former Speaker of the House David Wilkins, writing, “Anyway, given how ferociously Wilkins promotes (and protects) his reputation as a “Republican,” we were a bit surprised to see him hosting a fundraiser earlier this week for uber-liberal trial lawyer Steve Morrison, who is running for mayor of Columbia, S.C. on the Leftist Lying Bastard ticket (j/k … it’s a non-partisan election).”

Mind you, he never says things like this about the Quinn firm and its relationship with Benjamin, even while assailing RQ&A when it comes to Innovista. It’s often said that a man is judged by the friends he keeps. Another old bromide is “actions speak louder than words.” Benjamin’s words try to play up his connection to Obama. But his actions in regard to people like the Quinns, Folks and Fogle say so much more.

And at this point, we’ve been totally soured on Benjamin, Morrison and City Councilman Kirkman Finlay III. Somebody put a call in to Aaron Johnson.

Rep. Nikki Haley has made her time in the House by bullshitting her constituents, who apparently haven’t been paying close enough attention or been getting involved enough to call her on her hypocrisy. Of course, her buds (Will Folks, the S.C. Policy Council, [because his boss heads SCPC] Adam Fogle, the S.C. Club for Growth, &c.) won’t do anything to show what a shit campaign she’s running for governor.

If Haley had decided to bide her time in the House, she probably wouldn’t be caught in so many traps. But, she creates them for herself and then steps into them and acts like nobody will pay attention. That’s too bad, because the House leadership is done with her crap. When you get called out in public by the leadership of your own party, that could be a clue that you don’t know what they hell you’re doing.

Tuesday, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Dan Cooper, decided he had enough and called a spade a spade.

For months I have held my tongue while Rep. Nikki Haley traveled the state touting her “opposition” to taking federal stimulus dollars, but after reading her Feb. 12 guest column in this paper I felt compelled to set the record straight. Here are the facts:

While the majority of state legislators opposed President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan on principle, we realized that if South Carolina did not accept the federal funds then the hard-earned tax dollars of the families we represent would be spent in other places, like New Jersey and California. In other words, we would be paying the price and getting nothing in return.

Rep. Haley knew that. This legislation was thoroughly discussed, and the issues were very clear. On March 9, Rep. Haley joined 107 other legislators voting for an amendment to the budget bill to accept the stimulus money. The very next day, she voted for the budget bill that included the stimulus money. On the third and final reading of the bill, it passed overwhelmingly with a voice vote.

It was only two weeks after she announced her candidacy for governor that Nikki Haley changed her tune on the stimulus. She then began to publicly question everyone else who had joined her on multiple occasions in voting to accept these federal funds. And despite all of her double talk, the truth is Nikki Haley’s rhetoric just doesn’t match her record.

Haley has taken steps in recent years to get in tight with the Sanford cabal. Now that organization is falling apart, she’s up the creek. It should be a lesson to others who sell out for for out-of-state dollars and perceived influence. Put your constituents and your district first — not political pals.

Maybe it’s just us, but it seems like the gentleman who likes to roll over people’s feet got a little owned Monday evening through some Twitter exchanges. Couldn’t happen to a better fella.

GinaNSmith: Spent the day flying around S.C. w/ Gresham Barrett for a story. So windy that little plane was flying sideways! Glad 2 b back on ground!

PalmettoScoop: @GinaNSmith I’m sure you’ll straighten it all out in your “objective” story about @GreshamBarrett.

GinaNSmith: @PalmettoScoop excuse me?

SCSenatelawyer: @GinaNSmith didn’t get the memo? Unless you’re biased in our favor you’re not objective. :)

SCSenatelawyer: @SCSenatelawyer and I didn’t mean “our” as I’m a mcmaster guy

LoganJames: @GinaNSmith I’m also interested in his explanation. If you’re gonna take cheap shots, at least make them understandable :/

GinaNSmith: For the record, we’re writing profiles on each of the 10 gov candidates. Each candidate gets their own story. We’re hanging out w/ em all!

GinaNSmith: t fair reporting? Oh well. Thanks for letting me vent.

GinaNSmith: dSCSenatelawyer hi. Yeah. I find it hillarious when BLOGGERS who get paid under the table question our objectivity. What the heck do tho …

GinaNSmith: dSCSenatelawyer hi. What do those guys know about fair reporting? Oh well. Thanks for letting me vent.

wesleydonehue: @GinaNSmith you’re not direct tweeting him. you need a space between your d and “scsenatelawyer”

wesleydonehue: @PalmettoScoop You’d think that after @ginansmith’s ass kicking of Gov Sanford, you’d learn not to screw with her. I did.

scott_english: @wesleydonehue @GinaNSmith What Wes said. Also Ubertwitter is good.

The elections to the U.S. Senate of Lindsey Graham in 2002 and Jim DeMint in 2004 sent men with decidedly different styles and base constituencies to Washington. Graham, his power play as a House manager in President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial notwithstanding, has an m.o. for working across party lines and drawing support from moderates. DeMint has a reputation as a standard-bearer for activist conservatives.

The foundation has been laid for tension, and Graham’s consultants’ blog, The Palmetto Scoop, went after DeMint in comments on a post about Graham’s support, or lack thereof, of cap-and-trade legislation.

Ouch. Does Graham approve of this? And if so, what does it say about the current state of relations between South Carolina’s senators? Also, there could be spillover into next year’s state elections. You would think that Atty. Gen. Henry McMaster‘s people wouldn’t be looking to rip into and freeze out the guy who will be at the top of the GOP ticket, and someone who’s pretty popular with the type of Republican voters who show up for the primaries.

Atty. Gen. Henry McMaster officially filed his papers to run for governor on Monday, making official what has been assumed in South Carolina political circles for months. And months. And months.

According to his initial report, S.C.’s “Macker” has $630 in his campaign account, but it should be assumed that he will be moving his $1 million+ over the the gubernatorial effort relatively soon. The only interesting contribution comes from the College of Charleston‘s John Crotts‘ boat company. You’d think that Henry Mac would indulge us with better fundraising sources, considering the stories we’ve heard on background. Guess not.

Already, the campaign has had a false start. McMaster’s consultant’s blog (which is run by seriously one of the most inept people we’ve ever met in politics, and that’s saying something, considering we know people in the S.C. Democratic Party leadership) wrote:

“I am proud to announce Henry will be signing the Americans for Tax Reform’s No Tax Pledge today,” McMaster spokesman Brad Henry said Friday. “As we all know, lower taxes create economic bounty.”

McMaster is the first gubernatorial candidate — announced or unannounced — to sign the ATR taxpayer protection pledge, which requires “candidates and incumbents [to] solemnly bind themselves to oppose any and all tax increases.”

Oh, really? Because when it came to the pledge to conservative activist Grover Norquist‘s group, this is what we saw — you know, on the ATR site:

Two Republican candidates in the South Carolina gubernatorial race, Congressman J. Gresham Barrett (R-03) and Atty. Gen. Henry McMaster (R-SC), signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge this week. The Pledge commits signers to, “oppose and veto any and all efforts to increase taxes.” To date, 34 U.S. Senators and 172 members of the U.S. House of Representatives have signed the Pledge. Additionally, seven governors and over 1,100 state legislators have signed the Pledge.

That was posted on July 31, when the kid who thinks it’s fun to get wasted and roll over people’s feet wrote that McMaster was the only “announced or unannounced” candidate to sign that pledge. Man, oh, man. It’s 10 months out from the primary and McMaster’s joke of a staff is already making mistakes. We can’t wait to see what they come up with next.

Oh, and before McLovin accuses us of being on the take from Barrett, he should probably make a few phone calls. You see, we’re not getting paid by any gubernatorial campaign. We just have a problem with idiots getting in positions of power. Like the guy who runs a political blog and has a fake driver’s license from Hawai’i.

The all-but-announced campaign for governor by Atty. Gen. Henry McMaster has been busy in the past several days, trying its best to score a preemptive critical hit on Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer. It’s consisted of blog comments, tweets, blog posts and pushing information on reporters.

Earlier, McMaster aide Trey Walker, who rarely (as in damn near ever) posts anything not related to the Attorney General, tweeted that Bauer ascending to governor in the event of Gov. Mark Sanford‘s resignation would be a “catastrophe.” That tweet, reported here on Friday, made it into Sunday’s New York Times:

Mr. McMaster is a client of Richard M. Quinn, one of the state’s powerful political consultants, who said the attorney general took his official responsibility too seriously to act in a political way. But Mr. McMaster’s staff did not stay totally above the fray. In a late-night Twitter message, Trey Walker, a McMaster aide, suggested that Democrats would “love to run against” Mr. Bauer. He then said Mr. Bauer should not be permitted to take over the governorship: “Cannot allow a disaster to be replaced with catastrophe.”

Rival Republican political aides pointed to the message as evidence that Mr. McMaster’s decision not to investigate Mr. Sanford was in his own interests, because an investigation could hasten a resignation.

Mr. Walker said he stood by his comments but was speaking as a longtime political operative, not as a representative of Mr. McMaster.

We don’t know why RQ&A associates have such a history of screwing up in ways like this, but it’s not too hard to call Walker’s response to the question total bullshit.

We can add to this the post made on RQ&A blog The Palmetto Scoop in which firm associate Adam Fogle makes the seriously bizarre claim that Senate Republican Caucus director Wesley Donehue and consultant/blogger Will Folks are both working on behalf of Bauer, in one way or another. Fogle even said that Donehue had a lot to gain from Bauer becoming governor, which doesn’t make sense to us, since he is operating U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett‘s campaign Web site. Also, it would seem that Folks would gain more from a victory by Rep. Nikki Haley in next year’s primary, since he has a prior relationship with her and runs in the same political circles as she does.

Let’s not forget the ads from the 2006 Mike Campbell campaign that were leaked to Politico last week, in yet another attempt to damage Bauer a year away from the primary. Our opinion on that particular move is easily summed up by Bauer consultant Chris LaCivita, who said in the piece that the staffers leaking the ads “are more interested in waging cheap political attacks than focusing on the people of South Carolina in a time of true crisis speaks volumes. And the fact that they are sending out ads that never aired demonstrates a pathetic level of desperation.”

This is the second time McMaster’s people have been pushing hits on primary opponents, with the last being on Barrett. It’s very interesting that both the Bauer and Barrett operations have been quiet thus far (LaCivita’s leaked email the only exception), keeping their powder dry and letting the nascent McMaster operation flail about in the darkness, when no one but political insiders are paying attention.

What’s so absurd is that nothing needed to be done, at all. Sanford has never given any indication that he will step down, and the Attorney General’s public statements have been pretty par for the course for someone in his position. If the people working for McMaster had held back, he would be looking pretty good right now. As it stands, he looks foolish for trying to stay above the fray while his charges behave like middle schoolers in search of their next prank.

Considering how we’ve gotten under the skin of the whiny three-year-old at FITSNews lately, we’re thinking he’s the douchebag that started @WolfeFacts this fine early morning on Twitter. Of course, it could be the guys at Richard Quinn & Associates, considering the facts we laid out about their consultant-in-chief, and the Internet activity they’ve already been up to by redirecting a Web address from Sen. Shane Massey to Rep. Rex Rice.

Either way, we could give a shit over here at WR. Our life is all out there, and we weren’t the type of skinflints that populated the Young Republicans at USC while we were having some good times at South Carolina’s flagship university. Within seconds of the brain trust running the operation discovering that we knew about it, they shut it down. Smells a lot like an RQ&A gig after that.

But, go ahead and bring it. Unlike you guys, we aren’t working for any elected official, so it’s fine when we write what we do on the Internet. However, y’all are going after WR when your clients would rather you be doing your job by trying to get them elected.

“It’s been widely reported, and that makes it fact-esque.”
– Stephen Colbert

Recently, there has been an interesting back-and-forth between FITSNews and The Palmetto Scoop regarding a statement allegedly made by Speaker of the House Bobby Harrell in a meeting soon after the S.C. Republican Party convention.

On June 3, Will Folks pulled one of his typical moves — “reporting” something that everyone knows is total bullshit. That time, he wrote that Harrell slammed what has been called the “Ron Paul wing” of the state GOP. Naturally, whoever talking to him lied, or he simply made it up. Even Rep. Eric Bedingfield called the story inaccurate in the comments on the post, writing, “This is not the way I remember the discussion going. Yes, there was some complaining by folks whose names didn’t get called out by the Gov.( By the way my name did get called out for supporting the Gov’s veto’s.) but with regard to the Speaker’s comments on the vocal groups in the room I must take exception. The Speaker only commented to say that we can’t over look even a vocal minority because we are all part of the Republican Party. I don’t believe I heard him have any derogatory comments about Ron Paul people.”

Then, Adam Fogle responded after people gave him information directly refuting the post, including House Republican Whip Bill Herbkersman, who is quoted as saying, “Nothing like that was ever said. It’s not the arena for that type of conversation. In a whips meeting, you talk about who the whips are. There’s no room or time to talk about anything else.”

Folks, who has a skin thinner than phyllo dough, couldn’t leave well enough alone, went after Fogle without even directly addressing what Fogle said. It’s truly an brilliant piece of writing — spending 341 words saying exactly nothing, kind of like his former employer.

Of course, it was only a matter of time until the smarter people that actually talk to Gov. Mark Sanford‘s former liar-in-chief led him to totally change his tune, writing, “In fact, these sources tell FITS that Harrell was actually defending so-called ‘Ron Paul Republicans’ against an ‘anti-Sanford rant’ by Horne, who was reportedly angered that Gov. Mark Sanford singled out individual lawmakers for praise in his convention speech.” So, a glaring inaccuracy gets corrected five days later? Maybe, just so Folks can rip on Harrell for supposedly having a bias against women in power. It seems that whenever a woman in power who agrees with Sanford is questioned, the questioner obviously hates women. For a guy that’s ripped on the NAACP for allegedly taking a similar argumentative tack, that’s an incredible level of hypocrisy.

Maybe he’s just trying to get back in with Rep. Nikki Haley’s gubernatorial campaign, considering that we knew more about what was going on with her gubernatorial bid a long time before he did, and, unlike the Peyton Manning fetishist, we have never been on the Lexington representative’s payroll. But, either way, it would be better to lead with facts than just being fact-esque.

Richard Quinn & Associates resident blogger Adam Fogle appears to have painted himself into a corner. While aggressively pimping his firm’s candidate for governor, Atty. Gen. Henry McMaster, he went on and on about how U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett was given the Bronx cheer at a South Carolina “tea party” for voting for the latest stimulus package.

Now, apparently, he is the “chairman” of a group running 60 second ads asking Gov. Mark Sanford to accept the stimulus money to fund education and law enforcement.

The South Carolina Taxpayers Alliance is putting out an advertisement urging Gov. Mark Sanford to accept the $700 million worth of stimulus money.

The group says the ad will begin airing on Tuesday in hopes of changing the governor’s mind.

Chairman Adam Fogle says his group agrees with Sanford about the stimulus being a bad idea, but he hopes he will change his mind so the money won’t go to some other state who may not need it as much as the Palmetto State.

Looks like just the beginning in Henry Mac’s problems as he makes the long run toward the primary.