Electability

I was appalled when, on Wednesday morning, I read this headline in the Post & Courier:

Democrat Archie Parnell, who once beat his ex-wife, easily wins SC primary

No, it wasn't glaring red, but it might as well have been.

Sadly, it doesn't take much to get to this point when our own Democrats are so willing to jump in and push good candidates -- and elected officials -- off the ship.  Bakari Sellers, who has turned from a decent and caring public servant to a famous celebrity, was among the first to try to shame Parnell into stepping down.  Either no skeletons in his closet, or no plans to run for office.

Apparently, republicans have realized that all they need to do is to dig up (or invent) some dirt on a candidate who threatens their feifdom, and then step back and let us Dems pummel that candidate into the ground.  Lordy, the best they could come up with was college party videos of Jon Ossoff, who scared the crap out of republicans in Georgia last year.  They couldn't have done it without us.  While most Dems continued to stand by Ossoff, enough backed away to give his republican opponent the win.  That's all it takes.  Remember Hillary?  Thirty years of republicans flinging mud, with James Comey putting the icing on the cake and leaving him, and us, with feelings of nausea -- and with Donald Trump.

Focus, Democrats!  Focus on the issues here, because we stand to lose good candidates who MIGHT JUST WIN unless we get distracted by rumor, innuendo and the occasional irrelevant fact.

We are the party where we stand by people who have had tough times in their lives, made horrible mistakes, and come out better for it.  We don't need to support people who live bigotry and misogyny; we can leave that to the republicans.  We have enough good Democrats who will fight for us.  But we have to accept that they may be flawed.

We need to stop looking for the perfect candidate, because that is our Achilles heel:  the strength that becomes our vulnerability.

In fact, we don't even have the ability to look a gift horse in the mouth and say, "Aw, thanks."  As when our own Dimitri Cherny made the outrageous decision to run against Mark Sanford in the republican primary.  It was hilarious to watch the republicans (who have used the open primary system against us a number of times) squeal about how unfair it was.  What wasn't as much fun was watching our own party have conniptions over what they saw as Dimitri jumping ship.

Because in the cold light of day, there was absolutely nothing for us to lose in Dimitri's candidacy.  At best he might topple the horrible Mark Sanford, who has been like a piece of chewing gum stuck to the feet of South Carolina for decades.  At worse, he would... what?  lose?  In fact, he did lose, but the three percent of votes that he got just might have been what lost Sanford his cushy job.  To that I say, "Thanks, Dimitri."  Of course, now we need to garner some enthusiasm for Joe Cunningham instead of cowering over the fact that he will be running against a right-wing wacko Trump supporter.

Meanwhile, the DCCC, in an effort to prove their irrelevance once again, is currently sniffing around, looking to put the money they suck from us whenever they can into candidates that are "electable."  It saddens me to say that Nancy Pelosi, once my hero, is now so desperate to win in November that she is leading the charge against candidates that may be too progressive to be electable.  Pelosi: once a progressive firebrand herself, the woman who held the damn bag of cats that was the Democratic House together to pass Obamacare.  I have until this recent news defended Nancy with every breath I had, and continue to believe that it is ageism and misogyny that has been behind the push to push her from her position of party leader in the House.  And yet this picture of Pelosi seeking to support Democrats who appear safe -- electable -- and pass on those who aren't afraid to talk about significant change, that is the real threat to the Democratic Party and our success in taking back Congress.

We had Bernie "the socialist" shake things up in 2016.  In 2017, among other headline wins, Danica Roem became the first transgender elected official.  People are electing Muslims and gays without fear these days.  And yet we continue to have a party afraid to support "progressive" candidates.

On the other side, we had a child molester in Alabama who nearly beat an amazing Democratic candidate.  Thankfully, Doug Jones didn't have any scandals that could have been dug up.  And don't forget the current "president" of the United States, who ran happily on being capable of every possible crime that could be committed (including shooting someone on Fifth Avenue). While good Democrats stayed away from Hillary, muttering about "emails," "Benghazi," and never proven financial crimes.

I don't know how much more proof we need that voters want radical change.  They want to hear about their own lives and needs.  Donald Trump didn't win (he really didn't) on grabbing pussy.  He won because he lied about giving everyone health insurance and good jobs.  And now we have solid proof that the republican party has not only failed in those goals, they have actively legislated killing health care and job creation.  They convinced some of us that a $14.00 a week increase in our paychecks was a win, but psychotic economic policies have caused the price of gas to go up over $1 a gallon since the maniac-in-chief took office.  Social services are being cut to fatten the pockets of Trump, Ryan and McConnell, and all their rich buddies.  Trade wars with our once-friends will eat up more of our miserable incomes while Jeff Sessions and the cabinet of deplorables works to make sure that, from education to employment, we won't have a chance at a level playing field.

Archie Parnell is serious about winning this thing.  And he is damn close.  All it takes for him to lose is friends like Bakari Sellers, and us.

I did not support Parnell in his special election primary last year.  Rather I supported a young, smart, African American woman.  Big name Democrats came out in droves for Parnell, because he was "electable."  It is a shame that we do that to ourselves, keep women and minorities from representing us because we are afraid they won't win.  Talk about your vicious circle.  But when he was chosen, he became by far the best candidate, and I continue to wholeheartedly support him.  I'm glad he has the guts to stay with it, rather than hand this victory to the republicans.

On June 13, BuzzFeed published this friggin' headline:

National And State Democrats Won’t Support Archie Parnell In South Carolina

“What Archie Parnell did is inexcusable and deeply disturbing, and he should drop out of this race immediately.”

Well, there's a surprise.

Farther down in the article was a video posted on Facebook by Parnell.  The same video was published by the Post & Courier before the primary, and before their egregious post-primary headline.  I would like to post the video here, but can't do it from Facebook.  I urge you to listen to Archie talk about his decision to continue to run, in its entirety.  This is the kind of candidate we should throw our support behind, enthusiastically.

You know what, we might get hoodwinked.  But at some point we need to trust what we see with our own eyes.  And if we don't, for sure we will be the ones to lose.

Forgetting to Show Up

In Arizona, republicans just won the special election for US House, and it is my fault.

It is also Rachel Maddow's fault, and Stormy Daniels' fault.

After amazing wins in Alabama and Pennsylvania, we seem to have been lulled into a sense of complacency.  Persistent hyped up talk of a "Blue Wave" and the powerful get-out-the-vote movement by Parkland shooting survivors were momentarily energizing but, after all, this is midterm year and we Americans just don't pay much attention.  So many special elections competing for air time with the Trump train wreck.  And now we have primaries leading up to November's election.  So exhausting. 

Is it any wonder we can't seem to take our eyes off Stormy Daniels and Trump's tweets?  Once again we have been happily led by American media to the lowest common denominator of the entirety of our politics, our government and our democracy.  It appears the future of our republic hinges on a pee tape and a payoff.  Meanwhile, who can keep up with the daily dastardly deeds of the Justice Department, Congress, and the "president's" cabinet?

Don't blame me for being tired and discouraged.  MSNBC and CNN cover the same damn story with the same damn quotes -- and "presidential tweets" -- hour after hour.  Who can stand listening to that nasty sound coming from the puckered mouth of the tantruming toddler-in-chief?  New White House scandals aren't much different than old White House scandals.  It has been established that Trump can shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue, Scott Pruitt can carry out his heist in broad daylight, and Lindsey Graham will change his mind daily about the importance of defending our democracy.  We have, since November of 2016, marched, emailed, and attended town halls, only to learn that republicans in Congress -- and a few shameful Democrats -- don't feel much of a need to even bother to justify their greed and collusion with their wealthy constituents, much less change their votes.

On the momentum of the Woman's March and Indivisible, a lot of incredible people have stepped up to run for office this year.  There has been a lot of enthusiasm for this movement to turn over Congress and state houses, but I fear it is dwindling.  Of late our minds have been wandering.  With this brutal winter and reluctant spring we seem to have lost the fervor we had just months ago.  Yes, we are glad Democrats are running for office.  But we just don't have the energy to stand right by them and fight for them.  We just want this embarrassing nightmare, of Trump and pee tapes and cabinet members destroying our country from their soundproof telephone booths, to end.

I fear that, instead of charging that last mile to November, we are closing our eyes for a little nap.

I know I have taken my eyes off my democracy because I can't tell you who is running in my state primaries.  I know we have Democrats running in races here in South Carolina that have gone uncontested for far too long, and we even have more than one candidate in many of them.  When our candidates show up, isn't it our responsibility to get excited about it?  And more than our responsibility, shouldn't it be our privilege?

In the age of Google, it doesn't take all that much energy to find out who the candidates are for, say, governor and go to their websites and click on "Issues" to find out where they stand.  And if the words on the screen all seem very similar, you can find moving pictures of the candidates on youtube.  If you follow candidates from Facebook or their website, they will probably let you know when they are speaking, and this is a great way to get a feel for whether they are speaking for you.

Here is another great advantage to showing up.  It lets other people know there are candidates they should be paying attention to.  Our Democratic candidates are not going to get a lot of publicity here in SC unless we create the crowds and the fervor that will make it impossible for media to ignore.  You can do that!

Wow.  I don't do exclamation marks all that often.  It felt weird, but in a good way.

We have for far too long tamped down our enthusiasm, tried not to get our hopes up, hidden our progressive ideas for fear of being attacked by the rageful right-wing.  We have listened to a Democratic Party that has exercised caution instead of confidence in its candidates.  They have held back funds in races they could have helped win, like that close race in Arizona.  But in a year when an endorsement by Donald Trump can lose a race for a republican, isn't it time for us to take to the streets for our candidates?   Why are we continuing to allow the pundits who led us to Trumpland get away with telling us we don't have a good chance of winning the Senate?  Or the governorship?  Or the statehouse?

Because the fact is, if we turn up, we can win.  And as long as our three branches of government continue to so blatantly work against 98 percent of Americans, we can bring all but the mad and the obscenely rich to our side.

The South Carolina primaries are June 12.  Here in SC we can choose to vote in either the Democratic or republican primary, but with so many candidates running on our side, I believe most of us will be wanting to vote on the Democratic side.  And you can get a list of all the candidates on your ballot at Ballotpedia.

How cool is that???

It would really tickle me to hear on June 13 that more Dems showed up to vote in the primary than republicans.  And to be honest, it would incite fear into the republicans, which would be a bonus for showing up.

If your favorite candidate is running uncontested, show up anyway.  There are lots of other choices to be made.  Show up and show some enthusiasm.  Because it is the enthusiasm that will grow that Blue Wave and wash the corruption and crazy out of our government.

That nap I took was refreshing.  And now I am ready to get back in the fight.  I plan on spreading the word on races across the country, like that one between Beto O'Rourke and the hideous Ted Cruz, and here in SC where we can get rid of the phony Mark Sanford, "you lie" Joe Wilson and gun-slinging Ralph Norman.  And in our own state capitol, we've got a governor and state legislators that need to be retired.  Guys like Peter McCoy have been skating by while holding his party line for far too long; show up at the Democratic primary and shake things up by voting for his opponent.

Paul Ryan may have pretended to ignore our calls and postcards and rallies, but it is because of our energy that he is heading for the hills.  We don't need the DCCC to come out from hiding in order for our great candidates to win.  We have been winning without their help.  We can make that Blue Wave happen.

If we show up.

South Carolina Primary Day

Tuesday, June 12

  

The Rare Ability to Piss Off Everyone

Party republicans here in SC are whining about the primary process.  It appears that they no longer like the open primaries that they have in the past used to great success.  In fact, they are so up in arms that they are finally moving toward changing to a closed system.  Democratic party officials, not to be outdone, are pissed off that a Democrat colored outside the line.

The big brouhaha is over former Bernie Democrat Dimitri Cherny, who has switched party affiliation in order to primary Mark Sanford in US House District 1.  The problem for republicans is that Cherny is using their own game against them.  The problem for Democrats is that he isn't playing the game by the rules.  The rules that republicans have consistently broken in order to win, and which has over the years given them control over all branches of government, including of late the Supreme Court.

Back in 2010, a smart and unscrupulous republican realized that if certain key state districts could be won and legislatures handed over to republicans, that would enable them to control the upcoming redistricting.  What resulted was the bizarre gerrymandering we have today, wherein most Democrats are swept into one huge district, and many other districts have a comfortable republican margin.  Read the brilliant book Ratf**cked by David Daley for the incredibly ballsy details behind Project REDMAP.  And note:  REDMAP 2020 is in the works.

Closer to home, and back to the republican snit over Cherny registering as a republican, we have indeed had our own questionable candidates.  Back when I was a new and naive blogger, there was Alvin Greene, who despite being totally unknown, handily defeated Vic Rawl in the Democratic primary.  Greene had no prior political experience or ambition.  A closer look (and there were lots of those) found him to have right-wing views on major issues and a couple of pending obscenity charges.  Before the primary he had done no campaigning.  Boy, were our faces red.

The media tried to come up with a number of lame excuses for why his candidacy -- and win -- were legitimate,  from Rawl only campaigned with robocalls and emails, to Greene's name was first alphabetically and on the ballot.  The most logical reason that an Alvin Greene could end up competing against Jim DeMint for the Senate is that he was a republican plant.

Then we have the twenty-year perennial candidate Ben Frasier, who popped up every couple years like Punxutawny Phil to primary a Democrat here in Charleston.  Each election season he dropped in with questionable residency and the ability to disrupt credible races and drain a candidate's financial resources.  He infuriated party elders like Jim Clyburn who accused him of being a plant, but was unstoppable.

Both the Alvin Greene and Ben Frasier fiascos left Democratic Party officials skittish, to say the least.  When Jay Stamper attempted to run against Lindsey Graham in 2014, rumors about his legitimacy had Dems running for cover.  He was not even allowed to introduce himself at a Charleston Democratic group meeting.  At the time, he seemed to me just the kind of candidate that could beat the republican:  fearless, smart, ballsy.  In other words, just the kind that republicans would fear and that Democrats... would also fear.

Stamper was running as a Democrat.  So it is not surprising that Dimitri Cherny would get at best the same kind of welcome as did Stamper.  Given that we actually do have two Democrats running in the primary for SC House District 1, it would make sense that we want our voters to show up for that particular primary.  Cherny has suggested it would be cool for Dems to choose to vote in the republican primary so they can vote for him.

I love you, Dimitri, but that's not going to happen.  What is more likely to happen, however, and what has republican panties in a bunch, is that he can throw a wrench into their primary, which with Dimitri now has three candidates.  I find that absolutely delightful.  Cherny is likely to appeal to younger and/or angrier voters, and given the third candidate, a woman, there is indeed a possibility that Sanford will not easily walk away with a primary win.  And even a win will leave him with republican voters who voted for one of the other candidates.  For once in his graced political life, Mark Sanford might end up breaking a sweat.

The neat thing about Cherny's run is that he just might get some people to get engaged on issues.  Sanford mumbles and bobs-and-weaves his way into sounding like he agrees with just about every stand, and then goes into Congress and votes 100% party line.  As a recent notable example, he happily showed up at town halls last year and expressed total understanding and sympathy over those who did not want to lose Obamacare, and then voted for each of the horrific repeal bills.  Most recently he voted for tax cuts for the rich, his true constituents.   And while he is smart enough to be against drilling off our own coast, he totally supports oil and gas company rights to drill every-damn-where else.  Leaving his supporters back home thinking he is on their side, with no one to challenge him.

The way I see this is:  Sanford wins, and has to go against a Democrat without as united a front as he has had in the past; OR, his republican opponent wins and without the name recognition leaves the Dems with a more level playing field.

OR, Dimitri Cherny wins.  And in the general election we have a Bernie Democrat running against... a Democrat.

No wonder republicans are so pissed off they are actually planning on changing the system.  But Dems, how about lightening up?  Take a page from the truly successful republican playbook and make lemonade out of this strange lemon.  You could just end up winning.

Gullibility

I turned on the TV last night, and there was that crazed, ugly man screeching.  "And more people like me now than they did before the election."  Or some such bullshit.  I turned him off.  But I knew that, even though all the polls say otherwise, his lie about his popularity had its impact.  The ugly crowd loved it.  And because of that, it chilled the rest of us.

Oh, yes, we have laughed at the stupidity of those who believed his lies.  But they voted for him, and there he is.  Which makes us feel really vulnerable.  And when Dems feel vulnerable, we just might do some dumb things.

Yes, the Trump base is easily manipulated; his right-wing fans, led by their fear and envy will follow child molesters and indeed, continue to love Trump if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue.  But we liberals are also easily manipulated, by using our values and our guilt against us.  We don't have to look farther than the Clintons to see the truth to that.

Way back when Bill was governor and running for president, the right wing tried to nail him on his obfuscations and infidelities.  When that didn't work, they shifted just a tad to his wife.  And they hit the jackpot.  Not because she was guilty of a damned thing, but because she was a woman, and a strong one who fought for the ideals the right wing hated.  They couldn't win on the sex stuff, or the not-inhaling business, but they scored with Hillary's legal career and business dealings.  And they took down as many people close to her as they could.

Again, not because she was found guilty of anything.  The attacks and innuendos worked every time, for thirty years.  Was she the smartest crook for getting away with the crimes they had been accusing her of all these years?  Or was she just the nerviest criminal, getting away with dirty dealings in plain sight?  The result of thirty years of accusations is that we Dems forgot who Hillary actually is and felt uneasy about her; we couldn't tell you why, but we just didn't trust her.  Or we remembered that we heard something about something she did that was shady.

Instead of remembering her lifelong battle for children's health and her fight to bring independence to women in third world countries, we remember that we laughed at her pantsuits and changing hairstyles.  We criticized her for staying with Bill, and you know we would have criticized her for leaving him.  But the fact that she had financial dealings made it so much easier to accuse her of crimes, to question her honesty in every sphere of her life.  To walk away feeling that there was just... something... we didn't trust about her.

And during the 2016 election season, instead of listening to her speeches, we listened to every damn pundit talk about how she was as unpopular as Donald Trump, and we watched as the media flooded us with Trump's campaign rants and Hillary's email investigation.  Remember when CNN and MSNBC carried Hillary's stump speech live?  No, you don't, because it didn't happen.  It didn't take a bot or a troll to turn our heads; whatever possessed James Comey to publicly carry water for the republican email witch hunt (and we have yet to find out what exactly motivated him to go so far against his principles and the law), the media was happy to spread the bad news. 

A few years ago, there was a guy who was beginning a campaign to run against Lindsey Graham.  He was smart, he was funny, he was unafraid.  And you know that he had to go.  It didn't take much.  Rumor had it that he wasn't even from here, and that he had had some shady financial dealings, and -- oh my god -- he had pranked some republican or other.

In the same circumstances, republicans would have ignored the "accusations," or laughed at them, or defended them.  But we Dems wouldn't let our guy run.  We couldn't stop him, but we damned sure wouldn't help him.  To the point, I am still embarrassed to say, that he was not allowed to come and introduce himself to a group where candidates had always been invited to stop by.

A few days ago, I was talking to a friend about the candidate who is running against Joe Wilson.  You remember Joe Wilson, the ignorant piece of work that shouted "You lie!" at president Obama during a speech to Congress.  He is being opposed by the most wonderful woman you could imagine:  smart, strong, activist, and someone who stands up for our values and our lives.  My friend's problem was that she had heard that she was once a republican.

If that is all it takes to back off from supporting a Democratic candidate, we can honestly say that we are doing the work of our opponents for them.

I can't get very excited about the bots and trolls crawling around Facebook.  The Russians aren't doing any more to us than actual republicans have been doing to us since Reagan's handlers brought together big business and the moral majority, the latter of which was neither moral nor a majority of anything other than bigots.

We could use a good dash of cynicism, and a lot more intelligence as we approach the 2018 election.

We have so much information at our fingertips, there is no reason we should be spreading rumors.  And when we run across something that sounds suspect, it takes seconds to go to Google and look for confirmation.  We know the major media outlets and, yes they have biases and make mistakes, but they are the fastest way to discount a blatant lie.  And when media gets a detail wrong, let them know it.

Candidates have Facebook pages and websites.  They are often on Youtube.  If you hear something about a candidate that makes you wonder, check it out, don't just spread it around.

And most important, we need to remind ourselves what we are doing here.  We are voting for candidates that will work to promote issues we believe are important.  We are not voting for the candidate with the least controversial college years, or the one who has never made a mistake.  We are voting for people who will go to county council or the statehouse or congress and fight for all of us.  And should our candidate lose the primary, we need to fight just as hard for second best, because second best is going to be a whole lot better than what the other party is offering.

The republicans know they could lose their power in November.  What republicans do when they are afraid they are going to lose is, they double down.  They fight with more viciousness and greater lies.  And because we are a country being ruled by billionaires, there is lots of money being funneled into the coffers of anyone willing to do their bidding.

We need look no further than the ridiculous and ugly ads that were run against Jon Ossof last year, when republicans realized the seat wasn't going to be easily won.  And, for those of us who weren't so easily manipulated by videos of college parties, they horrified us by pointing out that Ossof lived just outside the district in which he was running!

Archie Parnell's special election campaign ran pretty much under the radar, and to our delight, he lost by only 3 points.  He is running again in November, and now he has the attention of the republican party.  And they will throw everything they've got at him.  I imagine they will start with attacking him for being a Goldman Sachs elite.  Oh, the irony, but it works every time.  Just like accusing someone of having been a republican works just as well as accusing someone of being a liberal.

Much as the right wing has promoted the fiction that Hillary is crooked, they have spent years frightening republican voters with the image of Nancy Pelosi and her liberal -- read, evil -- agenda.  Mark Sanford did it when he had to run against a smart woman a few years ago.  Couldn't have possibly beaten her on the issues, so he ran against Pelosi.  And NOT the issues Pelosi represents.  He ran against a woman that the republican party had invented over the years as a symbol of the devil.  You know, like they do with Hillary and Elizabeth Warren.

I recently watched supporters of accused pedophile Roy Moore state proudly that they would support him over a Democrat, the word spoken in a tone that clearly implied sins far worse that pedophilia.  I see that we have tried to move away from the word "liberal" and we on the left are preferring to call ourselves progressives.  Until the right-wing focuses their laser linguistic experts on it at least. 

We have let the right wing control our message through their  attacks and innuendos.  Yes, those repeated attacks make their supporters more unthinkingly and rabidly loyal.  And they make us on the receiving end defensive and queasy.  We find ourselves backing away from Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi, two of the strongest defenders of Democratic values.  We also lost Congress because candidates backed off from Obama, believing the hype that the Affordable Care Act fight had rendered him toxic.

We don't need to convert Trump supporters to win in 2018.  We need to find candidates that will fight for all of us and throw our support behind them.  That means we need to know where they stand on the issues, and not be manipulated by the rumor mills, whether they come from Russian trolls or republican trolls.

We need to encourage debate throughout the primary season, because here in South Carolina, that is the way we Dems will be heard.  We need to cheer on the candidates who have the courage to step up to run knowing that they will have to fight rumors and lies, and knowing how hard it will be to even be heard.  And after the primaries, dammit, we need to get together and fight for the winner.

Hone your instincts.  If you hear something that doesn't sound right, check it out.  And keep going back to the reason we are doing this.  We aren't voting for best looking or best personality.  This is about our values.  This is about rights that have been decimated, and about taking them back.  This is too important for us to allow ourselves to be manipulated.  And we are better than that.

Our Dysfunctional Family

A good friend and Democrat called me to account for myself yesterday.  She wanted to know, given the complaints I've made about the Democratic Party, why I didn't become more involved.  A fair question, but one that I have mulled over quite a bit, so I was happy to try to give her a good answer.

First of all, I am not a gregarious, or even terribly sociable, person.  I am content at home, working in the yard or curled up with a good book.  A few years ago, I began to attend Democratic functions.  In my fairly long life, I have done that from time to time, but never among such a group of committed, smart and strong women friends as I have here in Charleston.

For awhile it felt good.  I got to meet people that were running the Democratic Party, some candidates, and some who were in government.  But after a time, it became just something I had to do.  That's not on anybody but me.  It is who I am.

But I am also a retired psychologist and an avid reader.  I am committed to learning and observing, trying to make sense of the insanity that is politics, and writing to try to convey what I see in an effort to help turn the tide of corruption and deceit.  I stand somewhere between the typical voter and someone a bit more knowledgeable, so if I don't know that something is happening, chances are the typical voter doesn't know.  And as a life long Democrat, I would like to see a strong Party help us all move forward.

The "election" of Donald Trump was the last straw for women who have been used and abused by male politics.  From wages to reproductive rights to child health care, women have been the dog whistle of the right that nobody talks about.  And too often because of that, it is women that are thrown under the bus by Democrats.  There is no better proof of this than the fact that Bernie Sanders stumped for a candidate that, otherwise progressive, said he could not support a woman's right to an abortion.  Imagine a progressive supporting a candidate who admitted that he believed African-Americans should send their children to different schools, or that gay men and lesbians should not have the right to marry.

On January 20, the County Party held its organizational meeting.  You may recall that it was also the one-year anniversary of Trump's reign, and that on that Saturday a year ago, women marched in protest.  Maybe County Dems scheduled their meeting unaware of the conflict.  But wouldn't it have been something if they announced very publicly that they were changing the date so that we could all get to Brittlebank Park and support the women's movement?

It was the movement that began with the Women's March one year ago that has given voice to #MeToo.  I am neither surprised at those voices, nor am I surprised at the backlash.  The hashtag allowed women to speak up without fear of reprisal, but the next step is debate.  And the one after that is action -- consequences that protect the woman and send a message that a behavior is unacceptable.  Yes indeed, Roy Moore is a whole different can of worms (literally) than Al Franken, but our political stage acts out what is happening at fast food restaurants, high schools and homes throughout the country.  If the Congressional Ethics Committee really did its job, a hearing would have been the way to go, but for Franken to have gone through the charade and been given a slap on the wrist so that members of the Senate could continue to protect their own, it would have been wrong.

Women need to keep speaking up and speaking loudly, or this movement will never get past Hollywood and Washington, to the women without power who need it most.

There are an awful lot of more subtle ways that women are getting pushed aside, and if we are unwilling to look at our own state politics, we are not going to move forward.  Thanks to groups like Emerge America in South Carolina, women are being not just encouraged but assisted in their decision to run for office.  Women are leading, but if men ignore or minimize the candidates in South Carolina, our voters will select the man in the primary, and general election voters will choose "R."  That's on the state Democratic Party.  The one that, to my knowledge, has never been led by a woman.

Republicans know how to message their sick policies, and they know how to unite behind that message.  The other thing they really know how to do is choose their tokens.  Nikki Haley, both a minority and a woman, killed two birds with one stone.  She is smart and attractive, and knows how to toe the Party line, with style.  The republican party knew that putting up a woman would defuse criticism of sexism in the party, just as parading Tim Scott neutralizes accusations of racism and eases any feelings of guilt by white republican voters.

Lately, in fact just over a week ago, Nancy Mace won the race for state house representative for District 99 against Cindy Boatwright.  Nancy is Nikki in the making.  A woman who made a name for herself at the Citadel and has been polishing her conservative image ever since.  When she was unable to defeat Lindsey Graham as a challenge from the right, she settled for moving down to state politics.  Before she moves up again.  And the republican party is going to groom and support her any way they can, because she is going to do their bidding, happily, when she wins.

Could the State Democratic Party have done more (anything) to help Boatwright?  They think not.  And yet we Dems know we are on the right side of the issues.  And we know that far too many voters stay home, too many don't even know there is an election, and surely don't believe it matters.  Where there was a solid get-out-the-vote grassroots movement, here in Charleston, Boatwright won the votes.  Did the County Democratic Party help make the difference in Charleston?

Republicans don't back off when the evidence shows they can't win.  They double down.  And sometimes they win.  If they don't win, they make sure we all know it was some sort of victory anyway.

Brian Hicks wrote a brilliant and hysterical opinion piece yesterday about the republican race for governor here in South Carolina.  You may not be surprised to hear that the primary contestants promise to provide a clown show.  The issues for us should be clear, the republican positions ridiculous.  On the other hand, every-damn-one in South Carolina will know who they are.  As we should have learned from Donald Trump, the only bad publicity is no publicity.

For Democrats in South Carolina, unless the Party steps up with TV ads, billboards, and well publicized events, our candidates will be the best kept secret of 2018.  And that will be a shame.  Great candidates -- and we are fortunate to have lots of them this year -- still need help making headlines.  It would be a shame if, when states like Alabama are able to send a Democrat to the Senate, we are unable to change the color of our local, state and federal government.

We need leaders who are unafraid to shout out the issues and point out the hypocrisies of their republican opponents.  We need the ugly antics in the State House and in Congress made public, daily.  Fund raising emails might work better if they are linked to a candidate; otherwise we are going to donate directly -- if at all.  Issues and republican Newspeak need to be explained -- for example, republicans should not be allowed to do the damage to small businesses they get away with while claiming they are the party of small business.

Boeing and Mark Sanford understand that voters still watch TV.  Even as I fast-forward through commercials on the DVR'd local news I can't miss the polished anti-union or pro-candidate messaging from the right.  Debates -- primary and general -- get the name and the message out.  It was shameful that in 2014, PBS refused to air a debate between Brad Hutto and Lindsey Graham; the forum that was aired instead of a debate allowed Graham the upper hand and was so polite as to be ineffectual.  I truly hope that does not happen this year.  We need our party to push for debates anywhere and everywhere they can put our candidates' faces and ideas in front of the public.

Mark Sanford and Tim Scott know when to show up.  And how to get publicity.  And when to stay quiet.  And they have republican staff that knows how to get their names in headlines in the Post & Courier, and in the local Beaufort and Myrtle Beach newspapers.  They have buffed their down-home images so that every white haired lady except me and my friends believes there isn't a day that they don't do a good work for the people of South Carolina.

I may be wrong.  If candidates believe they are getting what they need from our Democratic Party, I would like to know.  I would also like to know what candidates believe the Party could do for them in 2018.  This, like #MeToo, is a talk we need to have.  Because, more than anything, dysfunctional families need to talk.   

Don't Blame Us, We Just Live Here

Last night, there was a candidate's forum at Johns Island Library.  The two incumbents, Tim Scott and Mark Sanford, refused the invitation to appear.  That left candidate for US Senate, Thomas Dixon, and candidate for House of Representatives, Dimitry Cherny.

Republican incumbents have a lot of power in this state.  We may be hearing a lot of trash talk about Hillary not meeting the press, but here in SC, republicans in office won't do anything that will shake up their cushy offices.  Take questions from the people?  Debate their opponents?  Actually allow us to hold them accountable, like for the worst Congress ever?

And they get a lot of help in staying in the shadows.

SCETV has refused to hold debates this season, claiming that the seats are not hotly enough contested.  Gee, that's an odd spin on democracy, isn't it?  Don't give the opposing party coverage and then claim it was because not enough people were interested.  Well, the "compromise" SCETV reached after receiving petitions with nearly 1,000 signatures, was that the Democrats could choose to appear on the weekly Palmetto Scene.  Some concession, right?

So folks like Sanford and Scott can go on making public appearances in the name of their offices, on the public dime, and with as much media coverage as they like.  Good luck getting any of the local TV stations to mention upcoming events, or past events, that involve a Democratic challenger.

What's to do?  For one, the SC Democratic Party, should not be acting like what it got for its candidates is a compromise.  It is merely a bone tossed to 1,000 hungry dogs.

Jim Clyburn is running for re-election.  We all know Jim Clyburn.  He has indeed in his long tenure done great things for the state and the nation.  But he has become fairly complacent.  It is unlikely that he will return an email, but his staff has become my de facto pen pal, sending me annoying emails that begin by addressing me by my first name, as though we are indeed buddies.  If they don't outright begin by asking for money, they ask stupid questions like:  "Hillary or Trump?" as a ruse for then asking for money.

We need Clyburn to get the hell out here and start stumping for our candidates.  We need his staff to alert the news media that he will be here with insert terrific candidate's name here.  He may like being a honcho in the House, but we need for him to have some good Democrats in there with him.

And the sad thing is that this year is about as close as we are going to get.  People are fed up by an obstructive Congress, but they don't know why.  They don't know that Tim Scott talks about how he is going to help us all and then votes against a living wage, extending unemployment, raising social security, making health care accessible.  Mark Sanford is the weasel who never actually takes a stand that isn't convoluted (He doesn't like the outrageous things Donald Trump has said, but he will vote for him if he shows his tax return.).  He shows up for public meetings and pretends that he supports whatever will be good for the community, and then goes back to Washington and votes for lowering taxes and cutting needed government services.

I talk about Thomas Dixon and Dimitri Cherny because I know them both.  They have put their hearts and souls into this campaign, into letting people know who they are and what they stand for.  They have done this in spite of a pathetic lack of media interest, lukewarm commitment from the state party, and absolutely no help from the most powerful South Carolina Democrat in Congress.

So when I get those dumb emails from Clyburn's staff, that sound like they want to know my opinion about something absolutely self-evident, I have begun leaving comments about what is relevant to me.  Yesterday I answered "yes" to Hillary over Trump, and then added under comments, "Jim Clyburn will win re-election.  He needs to come to SC and campaign for the other good candidates who are trying to be heard (insert your favorite candidate's name here)."

Or go ahead and call his office, or write, or start a petition.

I have also left a post on the SCETV Facebook page, which is tricky and a bit less satisfying than you might think.  First of all, it isn't easy to find the right SCETV page, so make sure you go to "South Carolina ETV."  When you leave a post it will go on the right hand side of the page.  I don't know if this means nobody at SCETV will bother reading it, but I did note that the comment just before mine was also expressing disappointment that SCETV was not providing the stage for debates.  Anyway, I also went to "message" and copied the same post onto it.  I believe somebody there does read those.

So please go to Facebook and post and message to South Carolina ETV.

And then there is the institution of the library.  Once was a time when Charleston County Public Library did an excellent job of providing not just every book written by quacks like Glen Beck, but also those written by more moderate and progressive authors.  We once had a world-class non-fiction collection.  These days, though, after more than a decade of cutbacks and more cutbacks,  bad decisions are being made about ordering, too few important books, too few copies if any.  And this has been extremely evident through this presidential election.

Donald Trump has "written" over a dozen books, and CCPL appears to carry nearly all of them.  They also purchased a bunch of anti-Hillary garbage, with titles like "Crisis of Character," "Clinton Cash," and "Unlikeable."  But as well-reviewed books about Donald Trump come out, despite requests for purchase, those books have not yet been ordered.  Granted, in these parts there will be more people craving lies about Hillary than the truth about Trump.  But even so, as with SCETV, to refuse to make available important information about a candidate this year is truly an abuse of power.

Here are the Trump books:

Gilded Rage by Alexander Zaitchick
Trump Revealed by Marc Fisher & Michael Kranish

(To be fair, they did get in The Making of Donald Trump by the amazing David Cay Johnston.)

I know we are all busy.  We may not have time to read all these books.  But there are people out there who will read them if they are there.  So please help by calling your library and asking them to purchase those two books.  I made a purchase request on 8/31, and the election is speeding towards us.  Help me get these books to the people of Charleston.

Information.  That's what it is all about.  You can't blame us for stupid voting if we don't have it.

Hypocrites on Parade

I have been pretty quiet lately, letting the insanity speak for itself.  But this morning I heard from Mark Sanford, and, well, I just had to share just how bizarre this was.

Mark Sanford, who I believe has been himself keeping a fairly low profile this election season, came out in protest of Hillary being found not guilty of criminal charges.  We all expect the biggest liar in the country to call people liars, but when Mark Sanford contended that that not guilty verdict is "frightening," I did a double-take.  For so many reasons.

Mark Sanford, if you have forgotten (as so many red-blooded South Carolinians apparently have), paid fines of $74,000 for ethics violations, in which he used state funds to pay for travel and misspent campaign money.  We don't really have to go into the sordid affair in which he lied to his wife and sons while he was spending government money to see his gal.  But we should never, ever forget that while he was presumably "hiking the Appalachian Trail," the state of South Carolina was without a leader.  He not only took off to follow his heart and lied about his whereabouts, he left no way to contact him and no one in charge for five days.

Paul Ryan had the gall to call the courageous sit-in by House Democrats a publicity stunt.  It was apparently interfering with real  house business, like the bill that would block limits to financial regulations that would protect our retirement funds from Wall Street sharks.  Even worse than forcing Ryan to call this fake House session during the sit-in just to show who was boss was the fact that these damned Democrats were keeping republicans from beginning their 4th of July recess.  That was truly a shame because the House calendar mandates a whole 111 days of work for 2016.

Meanwhile, folks like Newt Gingrich are stepping up to kiss ass in order to get a piece of the political pie.  I do believe that a Trump/Gingrich ticket would be as close to the candidate being able to look into a mirror as possible, except that Gingrich uses bigger words.  They do both have the narcissism, cruelty and greed thing going on.  Gingrich I believe will actually challenge Trump in the category of deceit and treachery.  They both enjoy calling Hillary a liar in the most absurd terms, much like the posters of Obama with a Hitler moustache that turned up in '08 and the accusations by both that he was born in Kenya.  And they are both incredibly greedy.  I mean, incredibly greedy.  Always wheeling and dealing, book deals, consulting deals -- I don't think Newt sells meat, but he rarely engages in an activity that won't show a profit.  Together, a Trump/Gingrich administration will leave the White House and the American people with nary a silver spoon in the cutlery drawer.

The insincere bombast of Newt Gingrich will cause us all to miss the zany brainlessness of Sarah Palin.

I know I am merely scratching the surface of sleazy hypocrites in this post, but there is only so much time, and so many, many hypocrites.  So finally, I turn to the legacy of Henry Hyde.   There is a push these days from our women's rights leaders to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which was sponsored by Representative Henry Hyde in 1973 and prohibits Medicaid funding of abortion.  This was just the beginning as it was followed by a number of other prohibitions on government funding of abortion services.  Remember Henry Hyde?  He was the family values guy that was all revved up to impeach Bill Clinton when it surfaced that he had had a lengthy extramarital affair when he was serving in the Illinois legislature.  The Newt Gingrich House rejected his offer to step down from the Judiciary Committee that was investigating impeachment, and he went on to serve in the House for many more years.  It will give me great pleasure to see his hateful amendment repealed.

Unlike Hyde who at least offered to resign his post, these characters today, they are unable to be shamed.  Calling Hillary dangerous and a liar while they have their dirty secrets and flaunt their dirtier public lives.  Pretending to care about women's health and gun violence while serving only those masters that might get them re-elected.

I believe that the state of falsehood in our politicians is so ballsy, so egregious, that it is absurd.  You would have to laugh, but alas, Jon Stewart is no longer here to help us find the humor.

What we can do, however, is fact-checked every damned thing these creeps say, including the weather and what day it is.  The situation has become so blatant, I am happy to say, that even many of the more level headed on the other side are seeing the Risk in voting "R."  But when you hear falsehoods often enough, and from enough different people, it becomes harder to see the truth.  That is why you need to remember where they come from.  And next time Mark Sanford goes on about Hillary, ask him how safe South Carolina was when he was hiking his paramour.

I would like to leave you with this amazing tribute to "the Newt" by the Austin Lounge Lizards.

              

Looking Down on South Carolina

I am not watching a lot of news coverage these days.  It's ugly, and too many news shows are getting off on the ugliness.  These days, the most important thing in the country appears to be the South Carolina primaries.  Why anyone would look to SC is a bit frightening, as we tend to take the lead in ignorance and bigotry, except that seems to be the appeal.

Here are the two bits that I saw on MSNBC yesterday, en route to more enjoyable DVR'd fare like Colbert:

There was an interview in a field full of cows.  The interviewer appeared to be a little unnerved by the size and number of cows; he made a point of being out of the way of anywhere they might intend to head.  There were two guys being interviewed; one of them was a younger white guy, the other an older black guy who was the more well-spoken of the two.

The black guy identified himself as a blue-dog Democratic, and pointed out more than once that he was proud to be such.  On the other hand, he was perturbed that neither of the candidates were talking about what they would do for the farmer.  Our intrepid interviewer then asked what he would like to see them address.  And this guy, who appeared to be intelligent, would get no more specific than to say that they needed to address the needs of the farmer.  Which he wouldn't specify.  And implied that maybe he wouldn't vote for the Democrats because they weren't addressing his needs, which apparently he couldn't address either.

After a few minutes of this go-round, the interviewer turned to the young white guy and there was an uncomfortable exchange in which the interviewer asked if he had decided who he would vote for, and then with an embarrassed chuckle added, "or if you are going to vote at all."

I was so flabbergasted by how unimpressive this blue-dog Democrat sounded in his fifteen minutes of fame that I wondered what was going on.  It occurred to me that he maybe has heard or even talked to someone on the republican side who maybe suggested that the Dems weren't addressing the needs of the farmer in South Carolina.  Just enough to sow the seeds of doubt, but vague enough not to bring up specific problems that could be addressed.

If I were working a Democratic campaign right now, I would be watching all those interviews.  The blue-dog guy had a name and location.  I would make absolutely sure that he was contacted, face-to-face, and that someone knowledgeable would be talking to him about exactly what he could expect from the Democratic candidate, versus from any one of the republican candidates.  Because it is the republicans that are killing family farms with subsidies going to big agra, and refusing to provide aid and incentives to our local farmers.  Let this guy know you are listening, and explain the actual policies and votes of each side, and of your Democratic candidate, and you have a vote, one who will share his view with others.

Here's the other gem I got from yesterday's "news."  It was that jackass Donald Trump talking in Walterboro.  I could only stomach a minute, but in that minute he said "second amendment rights" about a half dozen times.  In the way he has of stirring up the paranoia and of course without any facts to spare, he convincingly lay the groundwork for getting out to vote because otherwise they would lose their right to bear arms.

It was insulting.  This was not any more clever than Marco Rubio's repeating the same anti-Obama line at one of those debates a week or so ago.  This is what you do when you don't want to spend a lot of time or brain-power trying to reach a crowd.  An adviser had apparently informed Mr. Trump that guns was THE way to go with this crowd of yahoos in Walterboro, South Carolina.  He wouldn't need to know a thing about the economy and jobs, or the poor schools, because if you just throw a little red meat at this bunch, they will follow you right over the cliff.

So this is politics in South Carolina.  I have heard a few times over the past couple of weeks about Lee Atwater, the icon of dirty politics, and the dirty push polls against McCain in the 2000 primary.  Mark Sanford was interviewed by Maddow or Hayes or one of them, and they had a good laugh at how South Carolina was kind of the "wild west" of politics.  He should know.  He has played the game well, with his own gimmicks, as well as by following the playbook of national right-wing groups, as he did two years ago by running against Nancy Pelosi instead of his actual opponent.  The unspoken elephant in the room (no pun intended) of course is that here in SC, even someone as loathed as Mark Sanford can win election after election.  Sanford who votes consistently against small business, the environment, funding for his constituents.  Because our voters are obviously easily led by innuendo and bias.

And the Democrats again, true to form, are nowhere to be found to counter those strategies of lies and hate.

We keep talking about turning this red state blue, but in order to do that you have to actually listen and react to what is going on on the ground.  And even better, you have to anticipate what is going to be said.  You need to ask people what is important to them and respond with what you have done and what you plan to do.  You need to know who makes up your audience and what they think is important.  Because it really is not about the second amendment.  It may be farms, or development, or schools, or environment.  And there are votes that prove those right wing-nuts are not going to do a thing to move SC forward.

That blue-dog Democrat somewhere in farm country is just waiting to hear from one of us.

Beating Mark Sanford

You may remember state representative Jenny Horne from the passionate speech she gave after the Charleston shooting in which she pressed her fellow House members to vote to remove the Confederate flag from Statehouse grounds.



I am happy to say that she plans to announce that she will run for the US House of Representatives, challenging good ole boy and dirtbag Mark Sanford.  Sanford, despite being a mediocre and not well liked governor, even after abandoning his post as governor for an illicit dalliance without informing staff -- or family -- of his whereabouts, was elected to the US House of Representatives in 2013.

Sanford is entertaining, true, but that he should be the only option on the republican side has even made South Carolina republicans turn up their noses.  Jenny Horne's primary challenge should be a welcome relief.

Here on the other side of the aisle, I read a few days ago that Elizabeth Colbert-Busch might step up to run as the "Democrat" against Sanford.  You may recall that she ran as a "Democrat" in 2013 against Sanford.  The quotation marks are because, although she had many good plans for education and business, she performed the SC two-step to avoid entirely issues that might get the other side riled up, like women's rights.  She actually had a 9-point lead in the polls soon before the election, despite a push poll alluding that she had had an abortion.  Some of us wonder about where that lead went, and assume that there well might have been some voting booth irregularities going on.

Mark Sanford, a stupid man who nonetheless is astute in advertising, chose to ignore Colbert Busch, at one point "debating" a poster of the evil Nancy Pelosi on the sidewalk outside MUSC.  In the actual debate there is a moment that I think sums up the contest. Colbert Busch finally got around to mentioning Sanford's going AWOL, which he pretended not to hear and then proceeded to talk past.  And when I think of Colbert Busch at the debate, all that comes to mind is, who on earth convinced her to wear that dowdy dress?

Which brings me to her stand on women's issues, which is basically, let's not talk about it.  She might have been a strong, intelligent woman who fought for issues that have been neglected too long in South Carolina; instead, she did the dance of the southern Democrats, the one where you try not to upset the other side and hope they might not notice.

Such a disappointment.

If this time around Colbert Busch decided, what the hell, let me run as a Democrat, she might prove a real challenge to Horne.  Because, while Horne has been on the right side of important issues like taking down the Confederate flag and even updating sex education in the schools, she has voted for the pending bill that would ban abortion at 20 weeks, as well as the bill that became law allowing guns in bars and restaurants.

I doubt that there will be that kind of contest.  If Colbert Busch decides to run, it is unlikely that she would say anything controversial.  She would bring little new to the race, and the same people who stayed away in 2013 will stay away in 2016:  young women, African Americans, Latinos, members of the LGBT community.  She would not be a new voice, merely an opponent echoing those same safe issues:  I'm good for business, I will improve the schools.  Not even a choice here in SC.  If you are running as a women who won't pose a threat to the status quo, they will eat you alive.

I hope I am wrong.  I would love to see a strong Colbert Busch, a woman who would really represent all the people who have been ignored here in SC for too long.  I would love to see her speak out for the rights of those many who are underserved, low income workers, people without health care, students who go to school in impoverished areas, women whose bodies continue to be on the auction block at every vote and every election.

So I guess we'll see.  To say Horne is an improvement over Sanford, well, that's an understatement.  But wouldn't it be swell if a Democrat got up and argued for all of us, and maybe didn't win, but gave Jenny some food for thought on some of those issues.  Of course, she has to beat Sanford first, and in that endeavor I am fully behind her.