The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

South Carolina ‘Cash Money’ Loyalty

Posted on | March 26, 2013 | 22 Comments

OK, we all remember Will Folks, right? The guy who claimed he had an affair with Nikki Haley? The guy is a lowdown polecat, which is another way of saying he’s a South Carolina GOP consultant — or, at least, he used to be one, although his anti-Haley smear may have made him too radioactive even by South Carolina standards.

Payback is hell, as they say, and apparently “Sic Willie” decided to get himself some payback against the Mark Sanford campaign last month:

Former S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford has retained longtime “Republican in Name Only” Wesley Donehue to advise him in the crowded GOP primary for the Palmetto State’s first congressional district. . . .
Last September (a mere five months ago) Donehue offered a graphic description of Sanford at college GOP forum.
“Mark Sanford is a piece of human shit,” the strategist told roughly a hundred college Republicans on the campus of the University of South Carolina. . . .
Loyalty in South Carolina politics is based on one thing: Cash money. That means Donehue will call anybody anything if you pay him enough money.

So if you’re for Mark Bostic in the South Carolina runoff — and certainly, I believe you should be for Bostic — then you can understand why I felt obliged to do what I swore I’d never do, namely link that lowdown polecat Will Folks. It’s a tough world down there in South Carolina politics, as my old buddy Jeff Quinton could explain at length.

Speaking of explaining at length, Dana Loesch was able to express her mystification at the Mark Sanford revival in 140 characters or less, but it took me more than 800 words:

Democrats were exultant when former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford finished atop last week’s Republican primary in a special election to fill the 1st District congressional seat vacated by Tim Scott’s appointment to the Senate. In a 16-candidate GOP field, Sanford got 37 percent, nearly three times the vote of his nearest rival, former Charleston County council member Curtis Bostic. Sanford’s advantages are even larger than the vote totals would suggest: He reportedly has a 15-to-1 campaign cash edge over Bostic and the former two-term governor is almost infinitely ahead in terms of what political strategists call “name recognition.”
Alas, name recognition is a two-edged sword for Sanford, who is perhaps best known for an embarrassment that made the phrase “hiking the Appalachian Trail” a smutty double-entendre in 2009. One late-June weekend that year — the weekend of Father’s Day, to be exact — the governor’s whereabouts became a national mystery. Neither his family nor his staff nor South Carolina law enforcement could find Sanford, whose name had been bandied about as a possible 2012 Republican presidential contender. Before search parties could be sent to find the allegedly missing hiker, however, Sanford flew back from Argentina to South Carolina and held one of the most surreal press conferences in political history. He told how a “remarkable friendship” with a woman he met in Argentina a year earlier had “sparked into something more than that.” He spoke of “trying to get my heart right” and said he had “spent the past five days of my life crying in Argentina.” Sanford’s description of Maria Belen Chapur as his “soul mate” was, as Daily Caller columnist Yates Walker said, “possibly the most sociopathic moment ever captured on live television.”
Sanford was censured by the state legislature, his wife divorced him, and last year he announced his engagement to his Argentine soul mate. His supporters use the word “redemption” to describe the former governor’s potential comeback, but the reaction of other Republicans could best be described as Fear and Loathing. . . .

Read the rest at The American Spectator. Did I mention Joe Biden will be campaigning for the Democrat? The going has gotten weird again, and I’ve got a feeling it’s about time for the weird to go pro.




 

 


Category: Election, Fear. Loathing., South Carolina

Comments

22 Responses to “South Carolina ‘Cash Money’ Loyalty”

  1. AnthonyAbides
    March 26th, 2013 @ 8:24 am

    RT @smitty_one_each: TOM South Carolina ‘Cash Money’ http://t.co/vhLQ61f5E3 #TCOT

  2. westie
    March 26th, 2013 @ 9:47 am

    Sanford and Bostic are neither worth warm spit but both are still better than the warm pisser that is the Drat!

  3. Rocking the Links | Andrew J. Patrick
    March 26th, 2013 @ 10:22 am

    […] RS McCain ponders the ineffable WTF-ness of South Carolina politics. […]

  4. Cube
    March 26th, 2013 @ 10:58 am

    Sounds like a party that is determined to lose this race. But the consultants will still get paid well, so that’s apparently all that matters.

  5. richard mcenroe
    March 26th, 2013 @ 11:03 am

    yeah, let’s go with the argument that clinched 2012 for us.

  6. Adjoran
    March 26th, 2013 @ 1:50 pm

    Nothing like taking the high, self-righteous moral ground by attempting to rehabilitate Will Folks.

    I have no idea what you would expect to see in this campaign. There are no rallies, no speeches, and with only a week to go, precious little television advertising. The run-off isn’t in the list of headlines of any of the local TV websites or the Compost & Courier, nor mentioned on the evening broadcasts. If you scroll down far enough on Live5News’ site, you’ll find their reports on the Republican field before the primary and the link to results. That’s it.

    Turnout last week was under 16%. The run-off will probably draw no more than 7%. That’s the way it is for off-year special election primary run-offs.

    Of course, the lure of Charleston’s world-famous cuisine makes it a top tourist destination. But when someone comes and chooses to eat at McDonald’s, well, is there a point, really?

    Still, on behalf of everyone in South Carolina, allow me to thank all the folks around the web who have volunteered their advice. You don’t know the candidates, you don’t know their records, you don’t know the district, but none of this dissuades you from expressing your uninformed opinions.

    Bless your hearts.

  7. K-Bob
    March 26th, 2013 @ 3:35 pm

    “World famous cuisine”

    Yep. They have both Waffle House and IHOP

  8. K-Bob
    March 26th, 2013 @ 4:03 pm

    In other, important, McCain-related news, Vanuatu has a new PM.

  9. K-Bob
    March 26th, 2013 @ 4:41 pm

    Mass “clinching” going on, just thinking about it.

  10. The Power of Prejudice : The Other McCain
    March 26th, 2013 @ 4:59 pm

    […] This moring, I found myself compelled by circumstance to link the infamous Will Folks. Now? I find myself linked by Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post, whose cheerleading for Mitt […]

  11. » Curtis Bostic endorsed by Santorum in #SC01 primary against Mark Sanford - Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion
    March 26th, 2013 @ 6:05 pm

    […] McCain also reports, the usual South Carolina suspects who falsely accused Nikki Haley of having an affair are backing Sanford.  That’s mighty […]

  12. RichFader
    March 26th, 2013 @ 6:38 pm

    Will Folks is a shitbird. And so is this Donehue guy. And so is Mark Sanford. Maybe…maybe…he can win a low-turnout runoff. He still has to win the general. Maybe he can. I don’t think you have to be encyclopedically familiar with South Carolina politics to say “Hey, maybe don’t run a guy who the Dems are, and rightly so, going to look at as marinated red meat for their base.”

  13. Quartermaster
    March 26th, 2013 @ 7:12 pm

    Bless his heart, Adjoran continues his preening idiocy by dissing everyone else that has a differing opinion.

    It’s not our fault that low info voters dominate in your neck of the woods Adjoran.

  14. Quartermaster
    March 26th, 2013 @ 7:14 pm

    Sanford, however, is the worst sort GOPers could put up. If he gets the nod, then get ready to lose another seat to the Dimocrats.

  15. richard mcenroe
    March 26th, 2013 @ 8:23 pm

    Hey, Adji has a Party to slavishly promote, he’s a busy man.

  16. richard mcenroe
    March 26th, 2013 @ 8:23 pm

    No Dairy Queen? WTH?

  17. Mike G.
    March 26th, 2013 @ 9:33 pm

    If I clinched any tighter, you couldn’t drive a 4 penny nail up my ass with a go-devil.

  18. K-Bob
    March 26th, 2013 @ 10:33 pm

    Sure. But both “houses?” man that’s livin’!

  19. Da Tech Guy's Blog » Blog Archive » Reality catching up to Sanford, GOP in SC-1
    March 27th, 2013 @ 9:40 am

    […] the entire strange bed­fel­lows busi­ness is amus­ing what really mat­ters is: How does it affect the race locally and nation­ally? On that line […]

  20. DaveO
    March 27th, 2013 @ 2:12 pm

    Is the GOP that worried that it doesn’t have a Senator Bob Menendez to share the headlines and Dominican child-hookers?

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