An SC GOP legislative candidate is getting heat over whether he lives in the district he's running in.
This is one of those farcical proxy fights that happen in a one-party state. You move up the greasy pole by one of three means: wait your turn till somebody higher up goes for a still higher office, then run for the vacancy; challenge the incumbent in a primary; or change parties.
Given SC's tradition of blood sport politics, this sort of Serengeti savanna hunt is par for the course.
SC has ruled the third off the table with it's sore loser law, as we saw from a Democrat who lost his primary and then tried to run on the Green Party ticket. The hell you will, the two big parties replied, and the courts dutifully smacked that idea right down.
You can change parties before an election, but only one way here; Democrats see the demographic handwriting on the wall and join the GOP (it's been happening all over the South since the last election) but it's hard to see what going the other way would do for a candidate here because the Democrats are terrified of standing for anything serious as a state party (hello New Democrats website).
In general, moving around for electoral advantage is old school in both parties. Take New York (please): Robert Kennedy suddenly discovered he was a New Yorker in 1966 and got elected to the Senate. Illinoisian-turned Arkansan Hillary Clinton had a vision that she was a New Yorker and got elected there, too. SC GOP candidates and their consultants are happy to crowd the trough of NY capitalist Howard Rich, who runs a personal election welfare system to try and buy the legislature.
Back in 1968 a guy called David Cargo was elected governor of New Mexico. Later he moved to Oregon and ran, unsuccessully, for state office there.
Dick Cheney was for all practical puroses a Texan when he appointed himself the GOP vice presidential cadidate but because of the Constitution ran scuttling back to Wyoming for the election.
Mills Godwin, a governor of Virginia, served a term as a Democrat and then, after a four-year hiatus, discovered he was a Republican and served another four.
Former Vice President Dan Quayle was a congressman and senator from Indiana but ran for president from Arizona, where his son is now a congressman.
Former presidential cadidates John Kerry and John McCain's wives own so may states they could probably roll dice to determine where they lived to run for president.
Feuds like where that SC guy lives remind me of back in the 1960s when Madison County, NC was run by a machine led by a guy called Zeno Ponder. It was about as corrupt as things could get- and in the one party Democratic state NC was then, that was saying a lot (ask me sometime about the J.Elsie Webb Expressway), Ponder just dismissed it all as much ado about nothing. He told The Charlotte Observer it was just "pootin' under the covers."
This is one of those farcical proxy fights that happen in a one-party state. You move up the greasy pole by one of three means: wait your turn till somebody higher up goes for a still higher office, then run for the vacancy; challenge the incumbent in a primary; or change parties.
Given SC's tradition of blood sport politics, this sort of Serengeti savanna hunt is par for the course.
SC has ruled the third off the table with it's sore loser law, as we saw from a Democrat who lost his primary and then tried to run on the Green Party ticket. The hell you will, the two big parties replied, and the courts dutifully smacked that idea right down.
You can change parties before an election, but only one way here; Democrats see the demographic handwriting on the wall and join the GOP (it's been happening all over the South since the last election) but it's hard to see what going the other way would do for a candidate here because the Democrats are terrified of standing for anything serious as a state party (hello New Democrats website).
In general, moving around for electoral advantage is old school in both parties. Take New York (please): Robert Kennedy suddenly discovered he was a New Yorker in 1966 and got elected to the Senate. Illinoisian-turned Arkansan Hillary Clinton had a vision that she was a New Yorker and got elected there, too. SC GOP candidates and their consultants are happy to crowd the trough of NY capitalist Howard Rich, who runs a personal election welfare system to try and buy the legislature.
Back in 1968 a guy called David Cargo was elected governor of New Mexico. Later he moved to Oregon and ran, unsuccessully, for state office there.
Dick Cheney was for all practical puroses a Texan when he appointed himself the GOP vice presidential cadidate but because of the Constitution ran scuttling back to Wyoming for the election.
Mills Godwin, a governor of Virginia, served a term as a Democrat and then, after a four-year hiatus, discovered he was a Republican and served another four.
Former Vice President Dan Quayle was a congressman and senator from Indiana but ran for president from Arizona, where his son is now a congressman.
Former presidential cadidates John Kerry and John McCain's wives own so may states they could probably roll dice to determine where they lived to run for president.
Feuds like where that SC guy lives remind me of back in the 1960s when Madison County, NC was run by a machine led by a guy called Zeno Ponder. It was about as corrupt as things could get- and in the one party Democratic state NC was then, that was saying a lot (ask me sometime about the J.Elsie Webb Expressway), Ponder just dismissed it all as much ado about nothing. He told The Charlotte Observer it was just "pootin' under the covers."
Dear God! You know who Zeno Ponder was?
ReplyDeleteI am astounded and delighted. :)
Jay in N.C.