Free Republic

COLUMBIA, SC — THE GOOD THING about Brad Hutto is that he doesn’t try to convince us that Lindsey Graham is a liberal. Which is to say that, unlike the six opponents Mr. Graham easily swept aside in the Republican primary, and unlike the reality-show self-promoter who is self-financing a quixotic independent campaign against him, Mr. Hutto is not unhinged from reality. To the contrary, Mr. Hutto has had a respectable career in the state Senate, where, despite being part of an ever-dwindling minority party, he has had a significant amount of influence on public policy — sometimes for good,...

COLUMBIA, SC — Onetime Republican Thomas Ravenel officially is running for the U.S. Senate again, this time as a petition candidate. The S.C. Election Commission certified the 10,000 signatures required for the former S.C. treasurer and reality TV star to be on the ballot in November as a challenger for the seat held by U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2014/08/06/3604749/thomas-ravenel-signatures-certified.html?#storylink=cpy

COLUMBIA - Former S.C. Gov. David Beasley is expected to announce today that he is jumping into an already-crowded pool of candidates for the U.S. Senate seat that will come open when Fritz Hollings retires at the end of this year. Beasley, 46, a Republican who was defeated for re-election in 1998, has called a 1 p.m. news conference in Columbia. GOP sources say Beasley has already told a number of people that he will make the race. The former governor would neither confirm nor deny that in a telephone interview Tuesday from Darlington, S.C. But he did say, "I'll...

Inez Tenenbaum offers Democrats their best hope of hanging on to the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Fritz Hollings, experts say. The only question is, can the state superintendent of education pull it off in a state that has been trending Republican for the past 10 years? The GOP holds the governorship, controls both houses of the General Assembly and has a lock on four of the state’s six congressional seats, as well as the other U.S. Senate post. Tenenbaum faces a tough road. “In South Carolina in 2004, she’s going to have an uphill fight,” Winthrop...