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A HOUSE DIVIDED
The fact that 16 incumbent House members, nine Democrats, one
Independent and six Republicans are not seeking reelection is worthy of
comment. Never have so many incumbents felt such compelling disgust at the
same time. Most of the Democrats who are quitting cite rigid partisanship
as the reason.
"We're not talking about an unwillingness to compromise here," said a
departing Democrat from Columbia. "We're talking about an unwillingness to
even have an honest dialogue. These people don't need to understand the
issues, they just need to know how to vote."
"Frankly, I'm tired and disgusted," said Tim Rogers, "I'm watching
environmental headway that has been made over the past decade wiped out by
people who don't even understand what they are voting for."
A departing Republican who didn't go along with the line established
by the governor and the speaker of the House, noted that "It's not
partisanship [that's the problem], it's personal power."
Another Republican cited the petty sense of vindictiveness and
retribution the current leadership indulges in as his main reason for
packing up.
Rep. Harry Hallman (R-Charleston) was in line to chair the House Ways
and Means Committee before he quit. Henry Brown (R-Berkeley) was given the
job because he could be expected to go along with the governor's clique.
House Speaker David Wilkens, the governor's point man in the House, is
said to have nixed Hallman because his environmental concerns make big
businesses uncomfortable.
Both parties are suffering from the loss of intelligent and
independent representatives. One can only wonder if the governor's gang
isn't using some kind of IQ cap as criteria for joining their club.
GOD'S PARTY
It's confirmed. Word has reached us from Greenville Precinct 28, home
of Bob Jones University, that God is a Republican. It apparently took
years for Albert Allen, pastor of White Oak Baptist Church, to come to
this conclusion, as his church has been used for over a decade as a
polling place for both Democrats and Republicans. State law requires the
parties to hold organizational meetings at the same place people vote.
On March 6, Allen finally realized that God is partisan, and he rose
up and drove the Democrats from his sanctuary.
"We were surprised and disappointed," Ann Bettis told the local paper
after the Democratic caucus meeting was forced to move to her house. "I've
never been thrown out of a church before."
Allen said, "I made the decision personally based on the social and
moral policies of the Clinton administration and a number of the planks in
the platform of the Democratic National Committee that are, in my personal
opinion, inconsistent with evangelical, Bible-believing, conservative
Christianity."
HAPLESS HEROES
You know the old story about blind people describing an elephant from
touching it? The saga of "Do you Dewey" is a lot like that; your take on
it depends on where you're standing.
The story started in February when The State ran a story about
a lesbian wedding in Columbia.
Some 200 letters to the editor and a lot of pressure later, publisher
Fred Mott called a meeting and told the news staff that he was going to
write an editorial apologizing for running the piece, a move that is
unprecedented in newspapers.
The sentiment in the news room was one of betrayal. The reporters did
not necessarily favor same-sex unions; that wasn't the issue. The issue
was that once a story runs, the newspaper has a duty to stand behind its
reporters.
"There was a little voice in the back of my mind," said one reporter
after the meeting. " What if the story I'm working on offends people? Will
they run this? Will I have to apologize?' It was chilling."
There were heated exchanges and a general sense of insurrection at the
meeting, but pragmatism kept anyone from resigning in disgust.
Gil Thelen, managing editor of The State, supported Mott at the
meeting and during damage control.
But Thelen recently spoke out against Mott's editorial during a panel
discussion on the controversy at the March meeting of the S.C. Gay and
Lesbian Business Guild. Thelen said that while the paper's publisher
shouldn't have apologized, it was poor judgment to have used so many
photographs in such a prominent layout.
Ironically, the Guild was so supportive of The State's coverage
of the wedding that members are helping with a subscription drive for the
paper. The March issue of the Guild's newsletter encouraged its members to
make a note on their subscription forms that they support The
State's stand.
The freedom to criticize the management keeps the troops trudging at
the state's largest newspaper. For its part, the giant anti-union Knight
Ridder Corporation, which owns the paper, accommodates dissent
 as
long as it gets its way.
"The point of all this," a State reporter said, "is that we are
a business. It hurts, but it's a numbers thing, and that's sad."
IS THAT THE SAME STROM THURMOND?
When the Republican primary campaign came through South Carolina last
month, Strom Thurmond, the barely living legend of Palmetto politics, was
never far from Bob Dole's side. Whenever they appeared together, Dole
couldn't find enough nice things to say about his good friend and
colleague Strom.
At the God and Country Christian Coalition rally in Columbia, Dole
told the flock that Thurmond has been a source of inspiration and wisdom
to him. While Dole has never been as moderate as some would make him out
to be, it was odd to hear the majority leader speak so lovingly of a
politician who has traditionally considered anything of a vaguely centrist
nature to be a threat to the republic.
One can only speculate as to how Strom and Bob would have gotten along
if this campaign had happened 25 years ago. Below is an excerpt from a
July 17, 1969, memo from White House aide Bryce Harlow to President
Richard Nixon, prepping the president for a meeting with nine "younger
Republican senators."
"The basic purpose [of this meeting] is to reward the senators
all
strong for you
and
to mobilize their support more effectively for administration programs on
the Senate floor. These senators are mainly centrists. We purposefully
excluded some of the better-known, more conservative senators (e.g.,
Goldwater, Thurmond, Tower) whose comments supporting you sometimes
produce a distorted press reaction and who Bob Dole says the group hopes
to exclude from themselves."
We don't know what transpired over the years to bring Bob and Strom
together. Perhaps Dole found out that Strom carried four states and won 39
electoral votes as the Dixiecrat candidate for president in 1948.
OUT OF ORDER
If you long for the intrigue of the Spanish Inquisition or the
purification rituals practiced in early Salem, you need to check out a
Greenville County School Board meeting. For three years the Christian
Coalition has held a majority of its school board seats, and what they
lack in democratic principles they make up for with gavel-pounding
righteousness.
Since 1993, the fundamentalist majority has determined that any
citizen who mentions the name of a sitting board member in a critical
fashion is out of order and is gavelled into silence.
On March 19, the People for the American Way (your voice against
intolerance), on behalf of local parent Mike Cubelo, advised Greenville
School Board chairperson Joseph Dill that he was out of control. The legal
director for the national organization warned Dill that there is "no basis
whatsoever to silence or censor public comments simply because they
mention and disagree with the actions of specific board members."
The letter warned school board members that they would be sued if they
persisted in censoring citizens.
Dill, who runs a Traveler's Rest auto repair shop and is characterized
by his opposition as a "redneck with intellectual pretensions," promised,
in a response dated March 22, to "adhere to the First Amendment."
Cubelo has promised to test Dill's newfound constitutional
sensibilities at the next school board meeting.
YOU'RE NOT PARANOID IF THEY'RE TAKING OVER
Those paranoid liberals who live in Greenville and go on about their
school board being a training ground for the Christian Coalition may not
be delusional.
Dwight Loftis, a Christian Coalition school board member, had not
served a full term when he resigned in January to fill the House seat
vacated by Mike Fair, the Dean Emeritus of Fundamentalism, who won a
special election to the Senate.
If Loftis had resigned his school board seat before Jan. 5, the
district would not be left without representation and the expense of a
special election. "He was hedging his bets," noted a local Democrat.
Loftis won the House race against his Democratic opponent, attorney
Johnnie Fulton, by 77 votes. Loftis is going to have to face Fulton again
in the November general election that promises to be rough-and-tumble.
The school board recently honored Loftis with a silver tray for "his
years of service," in spite of the fact that he resigned short of
finishing his first term.
"The empty plate symbolizes his empty seat," said one disgruntled
parent.
WELCOME ABOARD, JIM
Sec. of State Jim Miles made the political scenery a little grayer
last month when he announced he would not challenge Strom Thurmond for his
Senate seat. Not only is Miles going to stop suggesting, as he has for the
past year, that Thurmond may lose, but he has "come to the conclusion that
we do have a Republican candidate who can win that election, and his name
is Sen. Strom Thurmond."
Last month Miles wrote supporters, "I cannot sit back and watch as
South Carolina sends Bill Clinton another Democratic vote in the U.S.
Senate. And we are in danger of doing just that."
What changed Jim's mind? He claims to have suddenly realized how
"loved and respected and appreciated" Thurmond is. He also admitted that
he couldn't beat Strom in a primary.
Miles noted that the only problem Thurmond faces is the perception
that he is too old to be reelected. This type of political honesty will be
a welcome addition to the senator's campaign.
SUE IT AGAIN, CHARLIE
Atty. Gen. Charlie Condon may have lost the major battle in his war
against the Voters' Rights Act, but he's not about to surrender. After
being ordered by a federal court to implement major portions of the motor
voter registration plan, South Carolina is adding about 1,000 new voters
a day at highway department offices.
Condon is dragging his feet about adding other state agencies
especially the ones who deal with poor, minority or disabled citizens
to
the program to sign up voters.
Armand Durfner, the Charleston lawyer representing the groups suing
the state over motor voter violations, said, "I hope [Condon] keeps up
with the appeals. It's totally frivolous and I need the money. I only wish
that Condon had to pay my bill out his pocket instead of the taxpayers'."
Condon's latest show of contempt for Judge Matthew Perry's order to
get on with the program came in a letter to lawmakers March 30. Condon
announced that, the way he sees it, the feds can only regulate elections
for federal offices.
Charlie says he's not taking a position on the question of dual
registration but he figures lawmakers should know they have another chance
to thumb their noses at the feds at the expense of voters.
Condon cites Mississippi as an example, where motor voter registrants
get a different colored card that allows them to vote only in federal
elections. Such a move in South Carolina would keep the rabble from voting
for Charlie's opponent and make Charlie popular with rich white people.
Chuck, if you think you can get away with this one, we're starting a
petition drive for Duke to recall your law degree.
WE'RE IN, CLOSE THE DOOR
Rep. Herb Kirsh (D-York) is obviously a graduate of the Charlie
Condon's Make Em Suffer, They Will Appreciate It More school of voter
participation.
Kirsh led the opposition to Jim Hodges' (D-Lancaster) bill to let
people vote by mail. "We've got a system now that works," Kirsh said.
"Everybody ought to vote at the same time on the same day."
The bill was defeated 63 35.
Kirsh, who admitted that he hadn't read the bill, argued that voting
by mail would invite fraud, in spite of not being able to come up with a
single example the bill didn't consider.
The State Election Commission supported the bill, and figured that it
could have increased voter participation by 10 percent.
Oregon has been conducting voting by mail for 15 years. Sixty-six
percent of Oregon's registered voters cast ballots, compared to 45 percent
in South Carolina.
For Kirsh and the rest of the House members who voted against this
bill, new voters just screw up the demographics.
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NAME THAT SLEAZEBALL!
This month's Sleazeball is a Democratic House member who suffers from
the Mad Condon disease, an affliction that causes incumbents to view
unregistered voters as a threat. In advanced stages of the disease,
victims are likely to make fools of themselves by making inappropriate
objections to legislation they haven't read.
For a free trial subscription to POINT, be the first caller to
identify this month's Sleazeball.
Last month's Sleazeball, the DHEC commissioner who insists that if
the state can't know your HIV status then neither should you, was
Spartanburg dentist Richard Jabbour.
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