Archive for the ‘Mark Sanford’ Category

There’s an argument to be made that when it comes to politics, South Carolina has been unfairly libeled.

Not because South Carolina isn’t the whoopee cushion of the nation, but because it’s not the only one. Consider this assessment of Tennessee congressional races by Ed Kilgore at FiveThirtyEight.com:

These include the nation’s most expensive House primary (GOP TN-8), a primary where the Club for Growth accidentally directed readers of a mailer to a phone sex line (GOP TN-3), a primary where a white Jewish incumbent has earned the backing of the Congressional Black Caucus in a campaign against the African-American former mayor of Memphis (Dem TN-9), and a primary where Sarah Palin delved into a crowded GOP field in a staunch Democratic district to endorse her latest “Mama Grizzly” (GOP TN-5). And all that fun doesn’t even include America’s latest viral video sensation, Republican gubernatorial candidate Basil Marceaux.

Just who is Basil Marceaux? Fred Davis, take notes:

For …

Continue reading If South Carolina is the nation’s whoopee cushion, Tennessee is our bilabial fricative »

It’s still morning, and over at Politico, Jonathan Martin already has the quote of the day.

From his look at Alvin Greene and South Carolina politics:

State Rep. Anton Gunn, an up-and-coming Democrat, said there is now a national perception about the state along the lines of, “If you want to hear something crazy, if you want to see something stupid, come to South Carolina.”

“I don’t agree with it,” he added, “but there’s this imagery of us being the whoopee cushion of the nation, and we continue to exacerbate that.”

Updated at 12:17 p.m.: A few minutes ago, a loyal reader called to say that he’d heard the “whoopee cushion” line before – from Jon Stewart with “The Daily Show:”

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c

Continue reading South Carolina as ‘the whoopee cushion of the nation’ »

On the day that Nikki Haley is likely to nab the GOP nomination to become his all-but-certain replacement, the man who made the Appalachian Trail a code word for philandering has disappeared.

Again.

This time, we’re headed straight to baggage claim at Hartsfield-Jackson. From The State newspaper in Columbia:

Nearly one year to the day that Gov. Mark Sanford embarked on a secret trip to Argentina and turned S.C. politics on its ear, Sanford’s whereabouts are unknown to the press and the public.

Monday, Sanford’s spokesman Ben Fox told The State Sanford is on “personal time” but declined to say where the governor is.

Sanford is due back in the office this morning, Fox said. He spent most of the Father’s Day weekend with his four sons, and the governor has been in communication with his staff over the weekend and Monday, Fox added.

State Law Enforcement Division Director Reggie Lloyd said Sanford has security with him but would not elaborate.

“We’ve left it up to the governor’s …

Continue reading A year later, Gov. Mark Sanford disappears — again »

Updated at 4:35 p.m.: The creature that is South Carolina politics continues to amaze. From the Associated Press:

South Carolina’s Democratic Party has asked its own Senate nominee to withdraw after learning the man has been charged with a felony.

Chairwoman Carol Fowler said she asked Alvin Greene to withdraw from the campaign against U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint Wednesday after The Associated Press reported Greene had been charged with a felony.

Court records show Greene was arrested in November and charged with showing obscene Internet photos to a University of South Carolina student. The felony charge carries up to five years in prison.

Records indicate Greene showed photos to a woman and talked about going to her room at a university dorm.

Greene declined to comment on the charge earlier Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Greene stunned state Democratic Party leaders by winning the nomination. He had no organized campaign in his victory over a former state lawmaker.

From The State newspaper …

Continue reading In S.C., Dem nominee for U.S. Senate faces felony porn charge »

Only a pessimist would say that South Carolina politics can’t get any weirder. This from WIS-TV in Columbia:

Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer of South Carolina. Associated Press.

Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer has released the results of a lie detector test which he says proves he isn’t behind a string of attacks against one of his Republican opponents, Rep. Nikki Haley.

In a GOP gubernatorial debate last week in Charleston, Haley accused Bauer of being responsible for charges of marital infidelity against her. Larry Marchant, one of the two men who have claimed past relationships with Haley, was a consultant to the Bauer campaign until the day of the debate.

See Bauer’s entire polygraph test here. But consider the interrogation page below.

One of the first questions asked is, “Prior to this year, did you ever tell a serious lie to anyone who really trusted you?”

“Yes,” the sitting lieutenant governor of South Carolina told the lie detector.

Oh, said the flummoxed political analyst, suddenly caught …

Continue reading On the day before vote, S.C. candidate for governor releases his (gulp) lie detector results »

John Edwards, John Ensign and Mark Sanford have demonstrated what wandering can do to the careers of male politicians. The impact such allegations have on women in public life may have to wait until Tuesday.

In South Carolina, the Republican candidate for governor Andre Bauer on Wednesday directed attention to a second fellow – through the novel tactic of firing him — who claims to have had a fling with Nikki Haley, Bauer’s rival.

From the The State in Columbia, S.C.:

Republican gubernatorial front-runner Nikki Haley said Wednesday that a rival, Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, is behind a last-minute attack, raising questions about her marital fidelity in an effort to undermine her campaign.

With less than a week before Tuesday’s primary, Bauer’s campaign said in a press release Wednesday that a Bauer political consultant, Larry Marchant, was asked to leave the campaign for “inappropriate conduct not in keeping with the goals of this campaign.”

Marchant, contacted by The State, said the …

Continue reading Second politico claims affair with S.C.’s Nikki Haley »

The occupational hazard of pontificating in public is that people sometimes actually listen to what you say and write.

CNN has posted the following on its Political Ticker blog:

CNN contributor and Redstate.com blogger Erick Erickson

South Carolina blogger Will Folks defended himself Wednesday after Erick Erickson, the editor of the influential conservative website RedState.com, accused Folks of lying about having an affair with gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley.

Erickson, a CNN contributor, accused Folks of “pulling the noose” on a “high-tech lynching” of Haley to gin up traffic for his website and torpedo her campaign. Haley is Erickson’s preferred candidate in the four-way South Carolina Republican primary race.

Unless he produces definitive evidence of an affair, Erickson wrote, Folks should “shut the hell up.”

Which is curious, because just six months ago, Erickson wrote a famous post, in the aftermath of House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s fall, to which he awarded this …

Continue reading File this under ‘Blog as I say, not as I post’ »

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin waves to supporters after she endorses S.C. gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley earlier this month. Associated Press

South Carolina is in apparent need of chastity belts. Thousands of them. Unisex, and industrial strength.

Less than a year after Gov. Mark Sanford left for his hike on the Appalachian Trail, two of his former acolytes are in a public argument over whether they slept together.

One of them – the one who says nothing happened — is Nikki Haley, the Republican candidate for governor whose campaign has been surging since an endorsement by Sarah Palin. Jenny Sanford, former wife of the South Carolina governor, is also backing her – as is Georgia’s own Erick Erickson.

Today, in what was pitched as a protest against nefarious political maneuverings, former Mark Sanford press secretary Will Folks posted the following on his Web site, Fitsnews.com:

I have become the primary target of a group that will apparently stop at nothing to destroy the …

Continue reading In S.C., ex-Sanford protege Nikki Haley denies affair with ex-Sanford press secretary »

Just in time for the 2012 presidential contest, The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C., has this:

S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster has cleared Gov. Mark Sanford of any criminal conduct for two trips to South America to meet his Argentine lover and, also, his use of state aircraft, upgraded airfare and campaign money.

The Attorney General’s office conducted a five-month investigation of Sanford, which included new interviews Sanford’s staff, Commerce Department officials, a Department of Natural Resources pilot and an attorney with the Republican Governors Association. The investigation followed a S.C. State Ethics Commission probe that resulted in 37 civil charges against the govenor.

Here’s the eyebrow-raiser:

McMaster’s decision to conduct the investigation has been questioned by legal scholars and others who believed his own canidadacy for governor represented a conflict of interest. At the time Sanford’s affair first broke, McMaster staffers made public comments urging …

Continue reading Gov. Mark Sanford cleared of criminal charges »

Somebody pick up the phone and call Fox. We’ve got a reality show brewing.

Late last month, DuBose Porter, a Dublin newspaper publisher and Democratic candidate for governor, couldn’t make it to a small-business forum in Atlanta. So his wife of 26 years subbed for him.

Carol Porter did well, as anyone who has watched the YouTube video will attest. So well that the couple is considering whether she should enter the 2010 campaign as a candidate for lieutenant governor. The husband and wife would run as a ticket.

“Over the last several weeks, there’s been a viral movement that has taken on a life of its own,” said DuBose Porter, the House minority leader. “There truly is no one more qualified or who knows the issues better. She’s an awesome person. She’d make an awesome candidate.”

With a general election only nine months away, Democrats have yet to field a single candidate for lieutenant governor. (State Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond is often mentioned as a possibility, …

Continue reading The possibilities of a husband-and-wife ticket in Georgia »