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Maybe, but probably not. The Rats OWN the black vote in South Carolina, lock, stock, and bullwhip. Beasley got exactly zero political capital in the 1998 governor's race for his flag stand. Instead, his conservative flag-supporting base, and people who didn't like the flip-flop, deserted him and either stayed home or went third-party (as did I). That handed the race to a weak Democrat candidate, Jim Hodges.

Beasley decided to go along with the original request of the NAACP to pull the flag off the top of the Statehouse dome and move it to the Confederate Soldiers' Monument on the Statehouse grounds. That's fine and dandy. (If he'd come out for that in the first place, I wouldn't have had a problem with it personally--it's the sudden finger-in-the-wind flipflop that turned me off.) As soon as he said he'd go along with that, the black leadership down here started screaming that that wasn't good enough, the flag at a soldiers' memorial was not appropriate and it had to be banished from the Statehouse grounds *entirely*, and because he didn't support that, Beasley was still an evil white racist Republican. Uncle Jim Hodges got 90%+ of the black vote, same as always, and ol' Dave lost the votes of hardcore flag supporters.

Net result: Weaseley flip-flopped himself into unemployment.

He will get no residual affection from blacks in SC for his flag stand. None. Jim Hodges got all the credit for getting the flag off the dome, because it came down during his term in office. And to the race pimps, the fact that it flies over a monument to tens of thousands of dead Confederate soldiers means that there *was* no "brave stand," to them it's still unfinished business.

Beasley may win, and I may hold my nose and vote for him. But I'll do it reluctantly, and only after hearing if he's learned anything about really "taking a stand" from his 1998 disaster.

}:-)4

Well, I might imply that your ancestors might have been confederate veterans. As a Pennsylvanian, I have quite a different opinion, but this is a political, not a historical discussion.

Was there anything else Beasley did wrong? As late as the summer of 1998, I recall he was regarded as safe.

...or went third-party (as did I). That handed the race to a weak Democrat candidate,...."

Listen to yourself. Just another lesson demonstrating what happens when the good becomes the victim of the perfect.