Joe Erwin, former chair of the SC Democratic Party, is testing the waters for a run against Sen. Lindsey Graham. The waters Joe is testing are of the conservative Republicans who are mad at Lindsey for his earlier thoughtful position on immigration reform. You may already be over Joe for his failure to take a stand against the Republican 2006 GOTV ploy of using homophobia to motivate its base. I told Joe a year before the vote to include discrimination against gays in our state constitution that if he didn’t come out against the amendment, Democratic candidates would be afraid to, and that Dems were going to again let fear trump hope, and lose. He didn’t, and they did.
Or maybe you thought it was a bit off putting that the biggest client of Joe’s ad agency was the predatory lender Advance America at a time when the party platform called for closing them down. If you retained a shred of respect for Joe’s democratic principles, I’m afraid his posturing for a Senate race is going to disappoint you.
In an Oct. 3 interview with right-wing talk show host Michael Gallagher, Joe parroted the xenophobic refrain that Lindsey’s position amounted to “amnesty” for undocumented workers.
Joe led the state Democratic Party during the 2006 elections where Democrats picked up seats nearly everywhere but in SC. Joe’s failed “Republican Lite” strategy didn’t work then (or for the previous 20 years), so he is racheting up the conservative rhetoric to the point where he sounds like Jim DeMint.
Wrong way, Joe. You may lose as a genuine Democrat, but you sure as hell aren’t going to win as a jackass in an elephant suit.
Go to Mike Gallagher Talk Radio to hear Joe’s demented version of Harry Dent’s Southern Strategy.
Brett Bursey
Brett,
I certainly agree with you about Joe Erwin’s pandering to hardline fear-mongerers on proposed “immigration reform” pushed by the Bush/Cheney administration and Lindsey Graham. However, I disagree with your description of the the Bush/Cheney/Graham immigration proposal as “thoughtful”. While some provisions of the Bush/Cheney/Graham immigration package may seem thoughtful compared to the far-right rhetoric of DeMint and others, the Graham backed bill was also strongly opposed by most of the progressive immigration advocacy groups in the US..
The progressive immigrant community’s advocacy groups opposed the so-called immigration reform bill (S.1639) because it offered little relief for immigrant communities seeking legalization and family reunification. S.1639 would have continued criminalizing immigrants, and would have eroded the civil rights and liberties of the foreign-born. Based on a new guest worker program, S.1639 would have dismantled the family unity basis of current immigration policies and impose a “merit” point system that favors skilled, educated, and English speaking workers considered more beneficial to the U.S. economy. The bill deepened the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border, expanded immigrant prison construction, interior immigration policing, detention and deportations.
Thanks for the insightful essay on the DeMinted Democrat.
Tom Turnipseed