Category: South Carolina

Sometimes, It Really Matters

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Social media a key part of the campaign
for Mark Sanford, Curtis Bostic
— Charleston Post and Courier

CHARLESTON, S.C.
The campaign action today is down on the south side of the district with events in Beaufort and Hilton Head and, with the Republican runoff Tuesday, we’re down to the point of the race where it’s all about turnout: Get out the vote.

What “social media” has accomplished for Curtis Bostic here is to raise awareness of who he is — a Marine Corps veteran of Operation Desert Storm and married father of five — and to inform the public that this runoff offers an important choice. It doesn’t take a genius to understand why Rick Santorum, Ann Coulter, Dr. James Dobson, Concerned Women for America, the 60 Plus Seniors Association, One Nation PAC and former Congressman Henry Brown have endorsed Bostic. Not just the fate of the 1st District, but the reputation of the Republican Party is at stake on Tuesday. The Hilton Head Island Packet:

Sanford disappeared for five days while he was governor in 2009, telling his staff he was out hiking the Appalachian Trial. Later, he tearfully revealed at a Statehouse news conference he was in Argentina seeing a woman he later called his soul mate and to whom is now engaged.
Sanford, mentioned then as a possible presidential candidate, ended up divorcing his wife, Jenny.
Bostic says that behavior has left Sanford a compromised candidate who would give the Democrats a shot at taking back a district they have not held in more than three decades.

Given a credible alternative to Sanford, an alternative to handing Democrats and the media — but I repeat myself — a chance to use the Appalachian Trail hiker as a club to beat up Republicans and revive the “war on women” meme, what conservative wouldn’t choose Curtis Bostic instead?

That was what was on my mind the morning of March 20 when I wrote, “S.C. Primary: Will Tea Party Rally Behind Curtis Bostic Against Mark Sanford?” It seemed obvious to me then, and still seems equally obvious to me now, that this was the opportunity to make a difference. Others disagree, and we don’t need to name names of people who made the calculation that the “name-ID” factor was so overwhelmingly in Sanford’s favor that there was no way Bostic could close the gap.

Maybe they’re right. And maybe Will Folks is right, too.

The other day, I used the term “narcissistic sociopath” to describe Folks, who became nationally notorious in 2010 when he claimed to have had an affair with Nikki Haley. Today, Folks responded — you knew he would, right? — to that description, and his response amounted to an apologia for utter cynicism about the political process in America:

Here’s the thing, though: America is almost $17 trillion in debt, has over $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities and has decided the one thing it wants to “create” above everything else is more dependency. So, whether Mark Sanford beats Curtis Bostic (or Curtis Bostic beats Mark Sanford) – all we’re talking about at the end of the day is which gnat won a wrestling match on Topsy the elephant’s ass just prior to Thomas Edison switching on 6,600 volt current that killed the poor beast . . .
It just doesn’t matter that much anymore.
Like that guy from Deadspin says, “it’s all professional wrestling.”
More to the point, South Carolina is on the verge of not mattering that much to me anyone because it is clearly never, ever, ever going to change.

The thing about cynicism is, it’s too easy nowadays.

Believing that elections really matter? That’s hard.

Nevertheless, I choose to believe. As bad as it is — and South Carolina GOP politics is about as ugly as it gets — surrendering to cynicism would be a coward’s choice, because you can’t make a difference if you don’t think it makes a difference.

CURTIS BOSTIC for U.S. CONGRESS

 


 

PREVIOUSLY:

Bostic Campaign ‘Surging’ Before Runoff?

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Volunteers at Curtis Bostic campaign headquarters make phone calls Friday

CHARLESTON, S.C.
What a way to celebrate Easter Sunday — out on the campaign trail. Well, it’s better than a Cesar Chavez tribute, I suppose.

The fact that the 1st District runoff will occur on the Tuesday after Easter adds an extra element of uncertainty to the outcome, because many people will be on vacation, which will likely mean an even lower turnout. Slightly more than 50,000 cast ballots in the March 19 GOP primary, about 20,000 of them for Mark Sanford and 7,000 for Curtis Bostic. Exactly how many of the 33,000 who voted for the 14 other candidates will show up Tuesday and — who they will vote for — is a mystery. A Daily Kos report Friday wondered if the race was shifting against Sanford:

Is Curtis Bostic surging at the last possible moment? He and Mark Sanford, his Republican runoff opponent, met on Thursday night for their only debate, and surprisingly, Sanford went on the attack. (So did Bostic, over Sanford’s infamous misdeeds while governor, but you expect the underdog to do that.) Sanford went after Bostic for voting in favor of spending increases while serving on the Charleston County Council, and also criticized his attendance record.
The fact that Stanford wasn’t content to play nice just days before Tuesday’s election is noteworthy in and of itself, but here’s an added twist: Sanford may have seriously stepped in it. Bostic says his absences from the council “were related to his wife’s battle with cancer.” Ouch.

How many voters are even aware of that debate gaffe? Will it make a difference? It’s hard to tell. A head-to-head match-up between Sanford and Bostic, based on a poll taken before the March 19 primary, showed Sanford leading by 13 points.

Since then, however, Bostic has appeared in two debates opposite Sanford, has run a new TV ad, and has sent out campaign mailers that describe him as a “fiscally conservative leader we can trust.” This, in addition to endorsements by Rick Santorum, Ann Coulter and former Rep. Henry Brown, who represented the 1st District for a decade. That’s probably what “surging” looks like, and one South Carolina blog cites a “source within the Democrat Party” as saying that their own polling shows a “very tight race” in the runoff.

UPDATE: Photos illustrating the campaign (click to enlarge):


The full-color mailer the Bostic campaign sent to Republican voters on Friday. Another mailer is scheduled to hit local mailboxes on Monday.

Headlines in the Charleston Post and Courier from Friday, Saturday and Sunday show how the local paper is covering the runoff.

UPDATE II: Linked by Donald Douglas at American Power — thanks! — and you can see the full-page newspaper ad that Mark Sanford’s campaign ran today. For some reason, neither Sanford’s ex-wife nor his fiancée is pictured in the ad.

UPDATE III: Headline at the Summerville (S.C.) Patch:

Social Media Analysis Predicts Bostic Win Tuesday

Hmmm. Wonder how that happened . . .

UPDATE IV: Mark Sanford’s sister is worried and sent an e-mail:

I’ve heard from as far away as Greenville (a huge evangelical church there from which the Bostic Campaign has requested phone calls and additional vans) exactly what the Bostic Campaign is doing. They are working in many evangelical churches, and they have the respective church leaderships organizing vanloads of their parishioners going to the Board of Elections all this week to vote early. They’re keeping the vans through Election Day next Tuesday. In Beaufort, they are working with several large churches — one is the Community Bible Church in Shell Point (a man I know there said he was going to vote for another candidate in the primary, but had been told directly by his pastor to vote for Bostic.) There are lots of others of these very large churches up in Charleston, Mount Pleasant, and North Charleston that they’re working with as well.

UPDATE V: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Meanwhile, the irrepressible Will Folks responds to my description of him as a “narcissistic sociopath.” Small egos are rare in politics.

 


 

PREVIOUSLY:

Will Folks: ‘My Sacred Honor Requires Me to Endorse DCCC Fundraising Poster Boy’

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CHARLESTON, S.C.
Surely everyone remembers how the gallant gentleman Will Folks tried to derail Gov. Nikki Haley’s campaign by asserting that “his sacred honor” required him to claim that he had a sexual affair with her when he worked as a political consultant to her.

And now Folks, whose career in South Carolina politics included a stint as press secretary to Mark Sanford, employs his bizarre habit of first-person plural references to himself — “our founding editor” — to provide an “unenthused” endorsement to his former boss in Tuesday’s primary runoff. In the 16-candidate GOP primary, Folks had endorsed state Sen. Larry Grooms, who finished third behind Curtis Bostic on March 19.

In the Byzantine world of South Carolina politics, a corrupt cesspool of power-crazed backstabbers that is to Republicans what Chicago is to Democrats, Folks is a local legend. He went from playing bass in a rock band to working for Sanford, but got thrown under the bus in an ugly scandal; some still insist Folks was the victim of a “honey trap” set-up.

The subject of Will Folks came up over dinner with sources Friday at R.B.’s Seafood (where I had grilled flounder with hushpuppies, fries and collard greens to die for). One veteran South Carolina politico told me that Folks is dangerous because he is loyal to no one: “He’s his own man.” My observation that Folks seems like a narcissistic sociopath drew only a shrug in response. Evidently, narcissistic sociopaths are so commonplace in GOP politics here that nobody even notices.

Are these people indifferent to the public interest, or just blind to the downside risk of backing Sanford? Having seen the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) in more than a few special elections, I think South Carolina Republicans might be underestimating what kind of political hell is about to be unleashed on the 1st District. Sure, Cook rates it R+11, but when the entirety of the Democrat machinery concentrates on one district — and keep in mind, OFA has got nothing better to do between now and the May 7 special election — it’s hard to say that any district is “safe.” Plus, there’s the fact that Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch (who’s raised $3 million for the race) has a celebrity-media connection.

While the Sanford forces talk about “redemption” and “forgiveness,” the unforgiving Democrats will make his past a national issue — reviving the “war on women” meme — which is why Ann Coulter endorsed Curtis Bostic:

Already polls show Sanford tied with, or losing to, the Democratic nominee. MSNBC has barely been able to conceal its glee. This is one they hadn’t even counted on!
Win or lose, MSNBC will be able to gloat nonstop about Republicans being a Party of the serial adulterers. So it’s win-win-win for the Democrats.
There’s no “win” for the GOP with Sanford, except that Mark Sanford is bored and no one will hire him. So the country has to take one for the team — Team Sanford!
The country is important, but Mark Sanford thinks his redemption is more important.

Of course, the Sanford campaign is doing a “kitchen sink” attack on Bostic, accusing him of everything from RINO-dom to international human trafficking, in order to create the idea that Bostic — a Marine veteran and married father of five — is as scandalous as the Appalachian Trail hiker.

Will voters here join the gallant gentleman Will Folks in backing Mark Sanford? Or will they rally behind Curtis Bostic?

 

#SC01 UPDATE: Mark Sanford Cites His Vote for DOMA in Local TV Roundtable

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Campaign signs outside Thursday’s debate venue

CHARLESTON, S.C.
Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford cited his vote for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) during a TV appearance with Republican rival Curtis Bostic, three days before their runoff in the 1st District special congressional election.

Appearing in a televised half-hour debate Saturday morning on Charleston NBC affiliate WCBD-TV’s “Beyond the Headlines” program, both Bostic and Sanford expressed their opposition to same-sex marriage. Sanford, who represented the 1st District for three terms beginning in 1995, referred to his own 1996 vote for DOMA, which President Clinton signed into law.

“I think that ultimately, you know, marriage is a sacrament and, you know, it is something that is ultimately in the purview of faith rather than civil authority,” said Sanford, whose 2009 sex scandal resulted in his own divorce, as well as a censure by the state legislature and a $74,000 ethics fine. “I voted, when  I was in the United States Congress, for the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman. It is not say, tragically, that every marriage makes it, but that this is the ideal we ought to be aiming for.”

DOMA was the subject of a Supreme Court hearing Wednesday, with several justices voicing skepticism about its constitutionality. In Saturday’s TV forum, Bostic called for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman under federal law.

 


 

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South Carolina Debate Aftermath

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CHARLESTON, S.C.
There is a golf course in the back yard of the mansion where I’m staying here, guest of a prosperous family who are supporters of Curtis Bostic. Whatever mental image is conjured by the phrase “Christian home-schoolers,” it probably doesn’t match this family’s reality: Truly blessed by the Lord, not only with seven children but also ample means for their support. The father of this evangelical brood is a civil engineer of some eminence in his field, and his gracious wife — currently scrambling eggs in the kitchen — is scarcely the grim suffering victim of the theocratic patriarchy that feminist theorists might imagine.

So I’m writing this at the kitchen table while the home-schooled kids are chattering happily away around me — the baby of the brood is gobbling bacon for breakfast — and outside is a glorious spring morning with azaleas blooming beneath the pines beside the 15th fairway. Ah, the arduous existence of the campaign correspondent . . .

The best headline to come from last night’s debate:

Oops: Mark Sanford Attacks Opponent
for Taking Care of Cancer-Stricken Wife

Kind of a failure of oppo-research for Sanford: He was talking about Curtis Bostic having missed meetings of the Charleston County Council, and Bostic was like, “Unfortunately, my wife has had cancer twice . . . ” And Bostic’s son Daniel was pretty indignant about it, too.

Having myself immediately called the debate a win for Bostic, I checked around at other outlets and, while they’re less emphatically judgmental about it, the coverage is generally favorable toward Bostic. I’ll quote CNN’s Kevin Liptak at length:

The two Republicans vying for a spot on the ballot in South Carolina’s special U.S. Congressional election traded barbs Thursday over former Gov. Mark Sanford’s history of marital infidelity.
Opponent Curtis Bostic claimed the former governor was a “compromised candidate” because of an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina in 2009 during his tenure in the state house. “Trust is a crucial issue. In fact, it has become a crucial issue in this race,” Bostic said during Thursday’s debate. A former Charleston city councilman, Bostic will face Sanford in a runoff vote on Tuesday because neither candidate received a majority in last week’s primary.
The seat up for grabs is South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, which Sanford represented from 1995 to 2001. He went on to become the Palmetto State’s governor, during which time his affair became public.
He and his wife divorced in 2010, and Sanford completed his second term in 2011. He’s now engaged to the woman with whom he had the affair.
During his primary campaign, Sanford told CNN he was seeking “redemption” by running for office again, a sentiment he returned to Thursday.
“The events of 2009 absolutely represent a failure on my part, for which there were and probably always will be consequences,” Sanford said. “But that does not mean, because you have had failure in your personal life, that you cannot step back into life again.”
Bostic, however, argued that the congressional seat – which has been held by a Republican since 1981 – would become vulnerable if Sanford becomes the GOP nominee.
“A compromised candidate is not what we need. It’s just not what we need. We need to secure this seat. It needs to be red,” Bostic said, citing polls showing that Democratic candidate Elizabeth Colbert Busch is leading Sanford.

What jarred me during the debate was how people in the audience enthusiastically applauded Sanford. My column at The American Spectator:

Republicans here applauded Mark Sanford at the end of a sort of sermonette in which the former governor discussed the Argentine sex scandal that led to his being censured by the state legislature.
“I failed. I failed very publicly,” Sanford said during Thursday’s debate, referring to “the events of 2009” as he pleaded that “because you have had failure in your personal life” it does not mean “that you cannot step back into life again.”
Whether stepping back into life can also mean trying to step back into Congress, less than four years after an adulterous affair that made national headlines, is the question that faces voters in next Tuesday’s Republican runoff in South Carolina’s 1st District. Democrats have nominated the sister of cable TV comedian Stephen Colbert as their candidate, ensuring widespread attention to the May 7 special election to fill the seat vacated by Tim Scott’s appointment to the Senate. Will GOP voters here really choose Sanford as the face of the party in this high-profile race, perhaps even risking defeat in the Lowcountry district that has been safely Republican? This was the concern raised in Thursday’s debate by Sanford’s opponent, Curtis Bostic.
“A compromised candidate is not what we need,” said Bostic, the Marine Corps veteran and former Charleston County councilman who emerged from a 16-candidate GOP primary field to face Sanford in the runoff.
“Trust is a crucial issue,” Bostic said, adding that the possibility of Sanford winning the Republican nomination has made Democrats “excited about the possibility of taking this seat back.”Citing polls that show Sanford vulnerable against Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, Bostic warned that if 1st District voters choose the scandal-stained Sanford, “We will lose this seat and lose it needlessly.” . . .

Please read the whole thing. I’ll update to add more reaction in a bit. First I have to finish my breakfast and enjoy this fine Carolina morning.

UPDATE: A reporter at the Patch.com quoted a notorious weirdo’s heinous reaction, requiring me to inform the jackal via Twitter:

Memo to deranged cyberstalker Bill Schmalfeldt: @Bostic4Congress‘s wife is still very much alive, praise God.

UPDATE II: Becca Lower’s reaction to Sanford’s apologia:

There’s a difference between acknowledging that we all sin, that we’re all flawed individuals, and breaking the vow you’ve made to your spouse and the pledge you’ve made to your state.

UPDATE III: Danielle Saul’s verdict:

I believe that Bostic proved he is the best candidate to defeat Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch.
Bostic has a proven record of standing firm in conservative principles. We need to start sending good people like Curtis to Washington D.C. that say ‘enough is enough’ and start getting things done.

UPDATE IV: You gotta admire Quin Hillyer’s expertise at headlines: “Don’t Cry for Him Carolina.”

 


 

PREVIOUSLY:

Greetings from Charleston! Debate Between Bostic and Sanford 7 p.m. ET UPDATE: BOSTIC WINS DEBATE

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UPDATE 8:30 p.m. ET — Well, Mark Sanford had some good moments — in his closing, he quoted Barry Goldwater from memory — but Curtis Bostic was the winner. He pointed out the risk of having Sanford as the nominee: “Democrats are excited about the possibility of taking this seat back,” he said, pointing to polls that show that if Sanford wins Tuesday, Republicans “will lose this seat and lose it needlessly.”

As I said earlier, merely by sharing the stage with the better-known Sanford and holding his own, Bostic scored an important win. In his closing argument, Bostic described himself as a “fresh, new face” and said, “I know I’m the new guy. I’m ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.’ I’m asking for your vote.”

UPDATE 7:40 p.m. ET — OK, I’m prejudiced, but Curtis Bostic is winning this debate. He is well-spoken, articulate and humorous. One of his best lines so far was when he mentioned his service as a Marine: “My boots have been on the ground in places where the enemy was real and . . . that enemy was radical Islam.” He also keeps mentioning the Constitution, which is mighty popular with Tea Party folks. For Bostic to share the stage with Sanford and hold his own . . . #Winning.

* * * PREVIOUSLY (5:53 p.m. ET) * * *

CHARLESTON, S.C.
Just picked up my media credential at Porter Gaud-School, site of tonight’s debate between Curtis Bostic and Mark Sanford in the Republican primary for the 1st District congressional seat.  We then went to get some Zaxby’s Chicken. Just so you know — transparency! — the special South Carolina tip-jar has raised $365 for the trip so far. Here’s a report by Alexis Levinson of the Daily Caller:

In the past two days, Bostic has been endorsed by one-time presidential candidate and former Sen. Rick Santorum, as well as conservative commentator Ann  Coulter and the 60-Plus Association, by way of spokesman Pat Boone.
Santorum called Bostic’s second place finish “a win for the strength of his grassroots supporters and his robust conservative values,” and spent Wednesday  in South Carolina campaigning for Bostic. During that time, he made a backhanded  jab at Sanford and his “values.” The former governor left office surrounded by a cloud of scandal after he disappeared from the state, and upon his return, was forced to reveal that he was having an affair with an Argentine woman who is now  his fiancé.
“I know I’m going to get the question about Curtis’ rival,” Santorum said, according to the Charlotte Observer. “I believe in redemption. I believe in second chances. I have lost races for president and the Senate and I believe people can come back and serve. But the choice here for the people of  the Lowcountry is, ‘Who is the best person who can represent you and your values  in Washington, D.C.?’”

The Charleston Post and Courier:

Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator whose son attends The Citadel and who might run for president again in 2016, said Bostic was strong on all three areas most valued by conservatives: a strong military, limited government and social and moral issues.
“He’s talked about the values of the Lowcountry,” Santorum said. “This is a ‘Mr. Smith goes to Washington.’?”

You can watch the debate via live stream on www.counton2.com beginning at 7 p.m. ET. Popular conservative David Webb will also be livestreaming his own debate coverage.

You should follow the hashtag #SC01 on Twitter.

UPDATE: The requisite photo:

National Affairs Desk, Porter-Gaud School, March 28, 2013

 


Headin’ to South Cackalacky!

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There’s a debate tomorrow night in Charleston, Ed Morrissey interviewed Curtis Bostic this morning, and Ann Coulter says:

There’s no “win” for the GOP with Sanford, except that Mark Sanford is bored and no one will hire him.  So the country has to take one for the team — Team Sanford!
The country is important, but Mark Sanford thinks his redemption is more important. . . .
Meanwhile, Sanford’s runoff opponent, Curtis Bostic, is a grassroots, fiscal conservative, former marine and practicing lawyer, who would be a dream candidate for the GOP in any congressional district. He, too, has found his soulmate. In fact, he’s married to her. When Curtis Bostic tells his staff he’s hiking the Appalachian Trail, he’s hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Any idiot who votes for Sanford in the runoff is working for the Obama administration.
Vote for Curtis Bostic in the GOP runoff election on April 2.
Your friend, Ann Coulter

No time to say more. Gotta hit the road.

Can the Shoe Leather Fund Send Me to South Carolina? O, Ye of Little Faith!

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OK, I never heard the name “Curtis Bostic” until last week, when he finished second to Mark Sanford in the South Carolina 1st District primary. Now, Bostic has been endorsed by Rick Santorum and polls show Bostic doing better than Sanford against Stephen Colbert’s sister.

So it’s obviously time for a road trip and, with the GOP runoff next Tuesday, it looks like I’ll spend Easter weekend in South Carolina.

This will be the first road trip in my new role as Editor in Chief of ViralRead, which is kind of appropriate in that I first met Ali Akbar during the now-legendary NY-23 Doug Hoffman campaign that started this whole gonzo campaign-trail trip that has since taken me as far as Alaska, to provide on-the-scene coverage. And so Ali double-dog dared me: He’s created a special ViralRead shoe-leather account and challenged me to raise $1,000 to cover this trip.

Can our readers do it? I have no doubt.

There have been times of doubt these past five years. The morning I left for Alaska in 2010 — on a one-way ticket, counting on readers to make sure I got home — my wife was in tears. But I told her, “This is what the readers are paying for, honey. It’s show time.”

A few days later, I was watching Todd Palin read stories to Trig in their living room in Wasilla. Readers were amazed — heck, my wife was amazed — but the thing that amazes me is that people don’t believe miracles can happen. Our entire lives are miraculous, if you think about it, and our doubt is actually ingratitude for God’s many blessings.

Think about this: On July 1, 1863, my great-grandfather was in the opening fight at Gettysburg. An illiterate farmboy, a private in the 13th Alabama, he was captured when the Union’s Iron Brigade turned the right flank of Archer’s brigade just east of Willoughby Run. Pvt. Winston Wood Bolt spent the next two years as a prisoner of war in Fort Delaware, where the inmates ate rats to survive. But if he had not been captured, I might not be here.

Two days after my great-grandfather was captured, the 13th Alabama, as part of Pettigrew’s Division, took part in what became known as Pickett’s Charge. The regiment went over the wall at Cemetery Ridge and suffered devastating casualties in that conflict.

A miracle, you see? And my own father — grandson of Private Bolt — was wounded within an inch of his life by German shrapnel while fighting the Nazis in France. The rest of his life, he bore that scar on the back of his neck, and you could see that if the shrapnel had penetrated another inch, he would have died that day in 1944, but when they got him to the field hospital, the medic told him, “You got a million-dollar wound, Mack.” It wasn’t bad enough to kill or permanently maim him, but he wouldn’t have to go back into combat again.

If my very existence is a miracle, why should I ever doubt that, if there is work for me to do in South Carolina this Easter weekend, our readers will make it happen? There are signs and omens, my friends. This runoff in South Carolina is important, or I never would have noticed it. And if Ali doubts you can send me there, let him doubt no more.

Contribute what you can — $5, $10, $25, whatever you can afford — and help make another miracle happen. This gonzo experiment in reader-supported journalism has only just begun, and the five most important words in the English language are still . . .

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!