So what happened last night?
June 11, 2008 | Filed Under State Politics
Written by The Shot
Who won? Who lost? The incumbents? The Governor? Howard Rich’s groups? The consultants?
The answer is all of the above. Everyone won. Everyone lost.
You will hear a lot of spin in the next few days, but the truth is that there was no sweeping statewide mandate by South Carolina voters. The Governor and his groups ran across the state with a “throw out the bums” message and they did toss out a few. Compared to years past, SCRG and friends had a better cycle. They picked off Bob Walker who was a major roadblock for their voucher/tax credit initiatives. Obviously picking off Catherine Ceips and putting Tom Davis in the Senate was a major victory. Some would say that they helped pick off Randy Scott, but seriously…would anyone ever argue anything other than Randy Scott beat himself?
Going into the runoffs they have a good chance of knocking off Sanford arch-nemesis Jake Knotts and putting Sheri Few in the House. They will probably play hard for Scott Singer and perhaps for Lee Bright. The latter is unknown because Talley has been a strong supporter of most of the Governor’s agenda.
Despite their big victories, the SCRG crowd had many more defeats. First and foremost, they were unable to recruit clients against many of their targets including Hugh Leatherman and Dan Cooper. Jim Miles, their challenger to Thomas Alexander, fell through, as did their challenger to Harry Cato. Despite the Governor’s endorsements they were unable to beat Keith Kelly and Bill Sandifer. They should have been able to pick off B.R. Skelton, but he slipped through their grasps. They couldn’t knock off Richard Chalk or Carl Gullick. They backed Ralph Davenport and he lost. They backed Ken Roach over Mike Forrester and Forrester won. They also backed Joe Bustos over Mike Sottile, but Sottile solidly won. So much of trying to impress the Majority Leader.
There are many more races out there that we forgot, both SCRG wins and loses. Our point isn’t that SCRG and the Governor lost a lot. Our point is that voters did not speak out for or against the General Assembly. They did not speak out for or against the Governor. Did they speak at all?
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NEWS FLASH: Governor Sanford and the SCRG are not alone in the fight to pick off Senate bully Jake Knotts. Gun owners are tired of his constant betrayals, stonewalling or gutting good pro-gun legislation.
Jake, you’re fired… clean out your desk.