South CarolinaPing
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Posted on 09/06/2009 7:50:41 AM PDT by Amish
The State is reporting that state Rep. Tim Scott, a Charleston Republican, has raised $150,000 for his run for Lieutenant Governor.
Like gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley, Scott had a big fan in Gov. Mark Sanford. Unlike Haley, he should be able to weather the association with little fallout.
This is shaping up to be a war between regions for the GOP primary, with Orangeburg, Florence, and Lexington offering up candidates. Which means, at least right now, we should expect lots of campaigning on the Grand Strand and in the Upstate.
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as reported in "The State"
Scott opens bid for lt. governor with $150,000
Freshman Rep. Tim Scott, R-Charleston, has raised $150,000 in his bid to become lieutenant governor.
Last year Scott became the first African American Republican elected to the Legislature in more than 100 years.
He is a former member of the Charleston County Council, where he served 13 years.
Scott is likely to be joined in the field in Republican field by Florence County Councilman Ken Ard, Lexington Rep. Ted Pitts and Orangeburg attorney Bill Connor.
According to the latest reports with the S.C. Ethics Commission, Ard has $102,000 on hand, Connor has $38,000 on hand and Pitts has $11,000 on hand.
S.C. voters will go to the polls in June to select the Republican and Democratic nominees for lieutenant governor.
Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, a two-term Republican, is expected to run for governor.
It’s not going to happen, that’s just the reality of the situation. If you want a Democrat to win that race nominate Scott. If you don’t, nominate someone else. It’s really that simple.
Let’s see where the GOP will be in the long run if we keep giving the middle finger to non-Whites (both candidates and voters). Brilliant. We wouldn’t have Zero as President had our party done a better job with bringing non-Whites over in the past 3 decades.
You’re so right. We can’t win elections on the basis of white men alone.
South Carolina ping
Dubya had 16% of the OH black vote in 2004. Having SOS Ken Blackwell played a part in that. Obama racked up 96% of the black vote. If Kerry received 96% of the black vote, Dubya would have lost.
Rep. Scott won in a district comprised of a majority of White voters beating other White candidates, too (and ran unopposed for the general, but got more votes than his GOP predecessors regardless). If he sees an opportunity to go statewide, especially in a year that is likely to be good for us, why not go for it ? Lt Governor is as good a place as any. This party is desperately in need of qualified Black Conservative candidates, and he is most certainly one we should get behind. If he wins and does a good job (unlike the execrable current Lt Gov), he could be Governor or Senator within the next decade.
Yeah, OH had 2 Black GOP elected officials in ‘04, both Blackwell and Jennette Bradley, the then-Lt Gov.
The problem I have with him is he is directly responsible for bringing in the Indian company that does Charleston County’s IT work. He screwed over US citizens and increased costs.
Just because they have elected an affirmative action president doesn’t mean that we need to start running our own affirmative action candidates for the sake of affirmative action purposes.
For starters, I’m not aware of what district Scott represents but I’m aware of what Charleston is. Charleston is a vista apart from the rest of South Carolina. It is a town full of snotty stuck up people who think they are God’s gift to the world and who turn their noses up towards the rest of South Carolina. I’m not surprised a black Republican could get elected in Charleston. It just gives them another reason to justify their snobbery, even if all of them have only black waitstaff in their homes, etc. That he can get elected in Charleston doesn’t mean he can get elected in the rest of the state.
I’ll use Alabama as an example, because I recall you being familiar with the northern unionized part of the state. Analysis of voting returns between 2004 and 2008 shows that at least half of all whites that voted for Kerry (and Kerry, not Clinton or Gore) voted for McCain this time and this is even when they put Griffith in Congress and stayed Democratic at all other levels of the ticket. They also voted in the primary at margins greater than 75% for Clinton with Obama struggling to make it into double digits in many of these counties. We know why that happened and there’s really no way to beat around the bush on it. If Obama had managed the same white turnout as even just Kerry, he would have been within 15 points and if he had managed Clinton’s white turnout, he could have come close to winning it.
That’s just the way it is. We know full well that there are a number of white people that simply will not vote for a black candidate for such a high office no matter their beliefs and will maintain that stance until they die. We basically have to wait for them to die.
How many black statewide officials have we had in the South?. I count the guy who beat Ziegler, Wilder and that Attorney General in Georgia. Hardly impressive. That Attorney General is running for governor and apparently, blacks don’t like him because of that whole Genarlow Wilson case and they’re ready to put King Roy back in even though he represents the only chance of Georgia having a black governor for decades. And Wilder, Wilder had been a well known quantity to Virginia voters for 20 years, still almost lost and have the advantage of 95% of black voters.
Scott ain’t gonna win the black vote, will struggle to break 10% in South Carolina and in the meantime he would cost enough white votes that the Dems would run someone who would call themselves a “Blue Dog” and magically take the seat. That’s just the reality and will be for probably another 15-20 years. I think my son’s generation will have to be established in the community (given that they’re more tolerant on race) before there is a chance of a black governor in most of the region.
This is also why I want Davis to win the Democratic primary so bad. Davis getting that nomination is basically a gimme for us. Most of our primary field is pretty generic or just worthless but against Davis, any one of them except Moore probably pulls 60% easy.
Having said this, I am not opposed to recruiting non-White candidates, I think we should go after Catholic Hispanics with vigor and I am impressed with that Cuban who’s gonna be running against Crist, however, we need to accept that the black population right now is not fertile ground for Republicans. They are conservative like Decatur union member is conservative. They may be conservative on values issues but on economic policy they are liberal as all holy hell and will continue to be for some time because that’s what every black church preaches.
You confuse affirmative action of the Democrats vs. Republicans. The Dems recruited someone unqualified for such an office (both U.S. Senator and President). I don’t think the original intent of affirmative action is a bad thing, it was about casting a net for people that were qualified, not merely lowering the bar to scrape the bottom. If you’re doing the latter, that is wrong, no matter how you cut it.
South Carolina has never had a Black elected statewide since Reconstruction (the last was, IIRC, also for Lt Governor, when 2 Black Republicans were elected in a row, Alonzo Ransier & R. Howell Gleaves from 1870-76), so this is an excellent opportunity for Rep. Scott to make history again. Secondly, he could get elected simply with the “R” after his name, because all but one statewide office in SC are GOP-held. Do I expect him to win a huge chunk of the Black vote ? Nope, but if he starts to up it from a base of 10% as most Republicans average out to, he could up to 20% or maybe 25%, and getting 1/4th of the vote is a substantial breakthrough.
We’ve already had in Texas, not 1, not 2, but 3 Black Republicans holding statewide office of their own accord (Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson, Justice Dale Wainwright & Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, the latter a candidate for Kay Bailey Hutchison’s Senate seat), carried across by the partisan preference, so there’s no reason why Scott cannot accomplish that in SC. I would think it would’ve been far more difficult for the Black Democrats in GOP/Conservative leaning states (Wilder in VA, as you cited, Thurbert Baker & Mike Thurmond in GA - the latter two managing to hold on despite the clear GOP lean in the state, and Baker holding on is especially remarkable given he was appointed to the office vacated by a Republican, and he and Thurmond have won 3 elections in a row since 1998).
AL of either party has never run a Black candidate (outside of Judicial), but I’m quite sure that if we did on our ticket, the GOP preference would carry them across. I agree with you that the best scenario for us to win the Governorship next year is if the Dems put up Artur Davis. But it has less to do with his ethnicity and a bit more to do with the fact that he is the most liberal member of the Congressional delegation, and if he were Caucasian, he’d be just as unelectable statewide. Where there may be a backlash next year against Black candidates solely because of the distaste for Zero, we still should not let that deter us from running qualified candidates that are Black. I think the bulk of the voters are discerning enough to distinguish between a good Black GOP candidate that reflects the majority view of a given state vs. a Democrat who doesn’t. The country has come a long way, especially the South, and we should keep pressing onwards with a positive agenda and reaching out to as many groups as possible with candidates of different ethnic backgrounds without selling out our principles. It’s not about scoring a temporary win in ‘10, it’s about building for the long run.
What are you going on about? Are you suggesting racists would vote ensure election for the white democrat (not guaranteed the dem will be white anyway) in November. Bah.
Getting a black GOP statewide official in the South would be a coup.
If Republicans could ever get say 25% of the black vote in the South the democrats would never win there.
You insult him be calling him an affirmative action candidate. He appears to be as or more qualified than the other potential candidates for LT Governor.
I didn’t now Bush got 16% of the black vote in Ohio. That would mean he may not have won the State (and thus the election) otherwise.
I’m not suggesting it. I am flat out saying it. Election results from 2008 suggest that a majority of white Kerry voters in states like Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana voted for McCain in 2008.
They voted for Kerry for godsake who ran to the left of Obama and not Obama who tried to portray himself as a different kind of Bill (who these voters liked) and many of these voters sent Blue Dogs to Congress so it’s not like it was a “we’re Republican now” vote. Everyone knows full well why that vote went down as it did and knowing the Alabama GOP like I do just as the Dems have there 15% or so that will jump ship over a black candidate and we have roughly the same. Keep in mind it wasn’t even 10 years ago when the amendment to remove the unenforceable racial marriage ban went before the voters and 40% of voters voted to keep that symbolic unenforceable ban and knew damn well what they were voting on. It doesn’t inspire confidence.
And yes, getting a black GOP statewide official in the South would be a coup but I’m also telling you that, at least now, there is not a Southern state where this is possible and in a legislative election year like 2010, I don’t want to bank my ticket hopes on whether or not whites will pull the lever for a black candidate especially when in states like SC a lot of their Dems do portray themselves as conservative when they run for office.
And as for the part about affirmative action. I don’t care if he is qualified the fact that you are saying “Barack Obama.....we need to get our own black officials” is an affirmative action statement and to be honest with you, Southern whites, especially in the Deep South, will not start warming up to black candidates until affirmative action goes bye bye. To get white support a black candidate will have to be against affirmative action and if they take that stance then all of the sudden they won’t be able to get that 25% of the black vote for the GOP you claim is possible because almost without exception, blacks support AA because they benefit from it.
Azalea, did you bother to read my post to yours above ? I just told you THREE Black Republicans hold statewide office in Texas, all elected individually, therefore your conclusion that Black Republicans can't win in the South is already debunked.
Texas.
And if Georgia can elect 2 black rats they could elect black Republicans too.
"I don’t care if he is qualified the fact that you are saying “Barack Obama.....we need to get our own black officials” is an affirmative action statement and to be honest with you,"
I'd like to see the Republican party slowly build their support with black voters rather than simply write off millions of voters and concede them to the enemy. A key part of that is having visible black officials.
I WOULD NOT support him if was unqualified or if there was another candidate who was better. In this case he actually looks like the best candidate.
AzaleaCity's contention that it's "affirmative action" when you run qualified minorities is ridiculous. The whole point of affirmative action is to get whatever 'minority' is available for a slot, regardless of whether they're as qualified as white applicants. If they're qualified in their own right, it's not affirmative action. Freepers who wanted to run Condi Rice for President after she was in over her head as Secretary of State were practicing affirmative action. Freepers who want to run Michael Williams in Texas because he's the best damn CONSERVATIVE LEADER in the state, period, are not practicing "affirmative action". They'd be begging him to run if he was a white guy, too. The fact he happens to be black is simply an added bonus in a party that needs more minorities.
You are 100% right. Scott is clearly the best candidate now in the race for Lt. Gov.
Sharp that you picked up right away on the two black Dems in statewide offices in Georgia. You must be a political junkie like me to have that at your fingertips.
Hopefully State Melvin Everson gets the nomination for Labor Commissioner and takes down one of them.
I hope Michael Williams becomes a US Senator. It would be quite a coup to have a black conservative speaking out against Obama’s policies. With Jim DeMint, the media could dismiss him as another white southerner. With Michael Williams, his statements will make front page news.
Yup. ;)
Me and most of the posters on this thread would fall into that category.
Everson versus Thurmond, that could quite possibly be the first statewide race between 2 black major party candidates in the South.
The other one AG Baker is running for Governor where it looks like he’ll lose the primary to retread Roy Barnes.
Regarding Tim Scott and the SC Lt. Gov. race, I think that it would be wrong to oppose a qualified candidate out of fear of some voters eschewing black candidates in the general election. If Tim Scott is our most qualified conservative for the nomination, then we should not vote against him because of how we think some racists may vote. And if the predictions of racism deciding the election prove true, as occurred when Dixiecrats in LaSalle Parish and surrounding parishes refused to vote for Bobby Jindal in 2003, then may I remind you that not only did we end up with the last laugh there (with Jindal’s easy victory in 2007), but we proved to minority candidates and voters nationwide that it is the Democrat Party that requires that minorities ask for permission before running.
Except that Texas is not really a Deep South state anymore. It has a high number of immigrants from other parts of the country and it is also only like 12% black. Using Texas as a barometer for anything other than Texas is simply a bad comparison because Texas is so unique and doesn’t really fit a type.The same could actually be said for Virginia. Texas is also a really bad example because Obama outpolled Kerry there and Obama actually had white support there in the primaries, which illustrates it as a terrible comparison when trying to deduce a potential income in Mississippi or Arkansas.
One of the reasons I think Baker has worked in Georgia is because he was a Zell appointee and because, until recently, he had been very successful at pandering to white voters while keeping black voters in line and on his side. Apparently that game is now at an end though it was a very remarkable career. When Georgia finally gets a black governor, that person will have a huge debt of gratitude to Baker for helping to make it possible.
However, I’ll stand by my statement that black candidates in certain states would be electoral suicide for either party in 2010. I’m hoping the ADP thinks differents and nominates Davis but given that most of the big machine heavyweights realize that Davis is probably the only thing that will give us the legislature as long as those districts are gerrymandered, they’re all coming out against him.
I can’t say for sure that South Carolina is one of those states but if I had to pick states that would be on that list I would definitely include it. You know, eventually it will change but I do believe it will take a few decades.
Look very carefully at what you’re saying. You’re basically saying that Williams is such a great thing because somehow having a black person criticize Obama is more meaningful than a “white Southerner”. See, that’s the exact kind of affirmative action attitude that I am criticizing. The whole, get a black guy just because he’s black mentality. Why are statements from a black politician criticizing Obama any more meaningful than those from a white politician?
Problem was that you said no Southern state was a Black Republican possible statewide, and that isn’t the case. Of course Texas is still a Deep South state, even if it has aligned to the GOP. The fact that it has three noteworthy officials with a low Black population in a very Conservative state is all the more remarkable, despite the media stereotypes.
Baker was indeed appointed by Zell, but yet he has managed to win 3 times since. Michael Thurmond didn’t have the benefit of an appointment, and he won in his own right 3 times himself, the first time partly on the strength that the state was still voting Dem. They both clearly won enough votes from people who vote Republican, since the Black Dem vote alone couldn’t carry them. So clearly a state with a GOP majority could just as easily elect a Black Republican. It’s just a matter of finding quality and qualified candidates. We will have at least two in SC & GA, both being State Representatives.
#1, because they can’t trot out the tired, old race card. #2, most Blacks never HEAR a differing opinion from Black elected officials. Because ALL the Black federal officials are Democrats, they all spout the same party line, defending Zero to the death. Having a strong, independent Conservative Black man, and authentically Black, not a “Halfrican” raised in White privilege, stand up to Zero unapologetically is extremely important. We have to start making the breakthroughs and build up more and more numbers of non-White Republicans that can carry on with our values and ideals, because relying exclusively on Whites and White candidates when the country is undergoing a racial demographic shift is suicidal, and conceding it to a party that would have us headed towards a third world dictatorship to force their delusional and deadly utopian “vision” upon us by force of law or gun (a la Detroit) means this country will cease to be as we know it.
Texas and Georgia are two different states although the fact that Georgia has been electing black candidates statewide there does seem to suggest it is possible. However, there has never been a situation where a white Democrat has run against a black Republican on a statewide level in Georgia so we can’t say how that would work out. Despite my whole distaste for the idea of running Everson just to have a black opponent for the black guy I do think it’d probably would be best that this be the statewide race you’d try a black Republican. for because in races where both candidates are black there will be no Bradley effect.
However, in Alabama, the answer to that one is an unequivocal no. You can see with the vigor that Goat Hill has had in trying to kneecap Davis just how likely they think it is that Davis can win.
And without having the party registration numbers from Georgia or knowing how that works (I’m sure you remember that we don’t register parties in Ala) I would think that Georgia probably still has a majority Dem registration like every other Southern states unless the rural counties have been turned like in South Carolina.
You know, it’s a stretch to call any Southern state save Texas and South Carolina categorically Republican. They are Republican at the national level yes but they’ll usually vote for their down home good ole boy blue dogs and many of the voters are economic populists and social conservatives and the majority of them do break Democratic for down ballot races. It’s one reason Montgomery remains as it is and why that system won’t be broken unless there is some kind of shock to the system like Davis dragging down their entire ticket.
Republicans hold most statewide offices in Alabama (and Mississippi).
It’s only a matter of time before the legislature and local offices turn.
You would think so but you have to understand how the state runs. We don’t register voters by party and so you declare the day of.
In most rural counties voters declare Democratic on primary day and in most urban counties they declare Republican. Now, interestingly enough, for the presidential primaries when no local races were on the ballot, many more people in urban areas opted Democratic and many more rural people opted Republican. They could afford to vote their true affiliation because sheriff wasn’t on the ballot though some of it was also genuine Democratic voters who liked Huckabee because of his populist rhetoric.
That’s the thing. In this state you’ll have to break the county courthouse ring system to ever have a chance of Republicans controlling more local offices (and municipal offices are non partisan so forget about it) and most of the county courthouse rings prefer to operate as one party operations because they were all built in the era of the one party system.
Now, if we could take the legislature it would go a long ways towards breaking some of the rings because then rural voters would have a reason to vote in a Republican primary but right now the districts are gerrymandered to ensure that rural white Democrats who call themselves conservatives can, with the black Democrats, comprise a majority in both houses and they also draw the districts to try to ensure that outright white social liberals in the cities can’t get elected thereby ruining the “white Alabama Democrat” label in the state.
Todd is a big problem for them right now but I suspect Reed & Hubbert already have the person who’ll take her out selected.
If you live in a rural county in Alabama, your state legislative representation, your sheriff, your county commission, your clerk, your local judges, your constables and all these other offices get decided in the Democratic primary and to vote in the Republican primary is to forfeit your vote. By the same token, in a majority of the high population counties, those races are decided in GOP primaries and if you vote Democratic you forfeit your votes. One notable exception is Geneva which somehow is a Republican county at primary time but even so, 80-90% of Geneva residents vote in the GOP primary while at state election time, GOP turnout is around 60%
Simply put, the system won’t be changing anytime soon as long as Goat Hill Dems get away with the Blue Dog card and because of court rulings we cannot register voters by party (and also if we tried people would raise all holy hell because a large number of Alabamians do vote in the opposing primary to get a say in who their local officials are)
Tennessee is quite similar to AL in that aspect, we don’t register by party, either. We just broke and are in the process of undoing the 140-year uncontested control of the Democrat party and to take control of the local county election commissions. Once that is formally busted, the GOP will take its rightful place as the established majority, in line with the voting preference of the state.
AL had a much longer road to travel, given that there WAS no GOP opposition prior to the mid ‘60s, and the breakthroughs we made were stymied by George Wallace until 1986. Look at here in TN that as long ago as 1969, we become the first state in the South since the 1890s to elect a GOP Speaker to lead one of the bodies. When the Dems won narrow control in 1970, they kept their jackboot on our neck for the next 4 decades until this past January (though it still remains not fully removed). We only had to close a narrow gap that was never wider than 1/3rd down...
In AL it was far different, as there were practically zero Republicans in the AL legislature even as recently as the 1970s. You’ve had to go from zero to an eye towards half in barely thirty years. We still chip away at each election, both the specials and the generals, despite the long 4-year gap between legislative elections (which has benefitted the Dems), and inch ever so closer. You have the current Senate majority comprised of a good chunk of old timers who hold on due to the power of incumbency (much akin to how the NY GOP held the State Senate even as the party collapsed elsewhere downballot and upballot). Once those guys retire or can be aggressively targeted, they come to us (look at Parker Griffith’s Senate seat - as soon as he vacated it for Congress, we took it, and North AL has been a problem for us, we haven’t taken the Congressional district there since the early part of Reconstruction).
Barring total disaster, the GOP will inevitably break the hold on power going downwards, they’ve already established solid control of the statewide races, federal, and legislature is next, and once that is won (which it will be majority GOP by 2022 at the very latest), the trickle-down effect all the way to the county level (where the preference is GOP for statewide and federal) will be the last to fall. But make no mistake, it will happen, and the Dems can only stave it off for so long, and time grows short for them.
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