Columbia City Paper

So what else is new in South Carolina?

It’s that time of year when wags and pundits are supposed to gaze into their crystal ball and  declare what the coming year holds. I don’t have a crystal ball – never claimed to. But I don’t need one to tell you that 2012 is going to a year of hard, mean politics in a state that is famous for bare-knuckled elections. And it all starts with the GOP primary.
Since South Carolina Republicans made themselves the first primary in the South in 1980, they have achieved a perfect record: No candidate has won the Republican presidential nomination without first winning the S.C. primary. This conservative little state salvaged the campaigns of Ronald Reagan, in 1980, and George W. Bush, in 2000, sending them to the White House when it looked like they might be headed for early retirement. It would be hard to overestimate the importance of this state in pushing the right wing tilt of U.S. politics over the last 30 years.
That right wing tilt has finally led the Republican Party to the logical and inevitable terminus, to the very brink of its own sanity. This year it looks like the Grand Old Party has finally stepped over that brink and S.C. has led the parade all the way.
The late William F. Buckley said he had spent his life separating the kooks from the conservatives. Today, the Republican Party has been taken over by the kooks; driven by the hype and hysteria of the Tea Party and the psychotic intransigence of Grover Norquist’s no-tax pledge; and personified by the likes Sarah Palin and Donald Trump. The GOP is dominated by gay-bashing, Jesus-loving  nuts, who deny evolution and global climate change, and think President Obama is a Kenyan Muslim.
In recent years Republicans have demonstrated their true loyalties, fighting to remove environmental regulations on polluters, FCC regulations on broadcasters, SEC regulations on Wall Street bankers, fuel efficiency standards for automobiles. They call themselves the party of personal freedom. They love personal freedom so much that they support legislation to protect Americans’ right to use obsolete incandescent light bulbs, but they would amend the Constitution to take away a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices.
The circus of GOP presidential candidates has been crisscrossing the country in an interminable series of televised debates, where we have seen the party faithful applaud Rick Perry’s record of executions in Texas and a proposal to let uninsured people die for lack of healthcare. The flying circus will soon be landing in the Palmetto State to campaign for the January 21 primary.
A recent NBC News-Marist poll shows former House speaker Newt Gingrich leading the field of seven candidates in this state. Let me say that again. The serial divorce´ and serial adulterer, who was fined $300,000 by the House Ethics Committee, who last month was found to have received $1.6 million to lobby for the federal mortgage giant Freddie Mac – yes, that Newt Gingrich is the favorite of S.C. Republicans.  This says many things about S.C. GOPers; one of those things is that they – like their great-great-granddaddies in 1860 – have a death wish.
A victory in S.C. would probably launch Gingrich on to the GOP nomination. But, you see, Newt Gingrich cannot win the White House. Normal, rational, ethical people will be repulsed by his  arrogance, his personal behavior, his unpredictable mouth. The same poll that showed Gingrich leading in the GOP primary race showed him losing to President Obama in the general election, 46 percent to 42 percent. If Obama can challenge Gingrich in S.C., imagine what he will do in the more deliberative regions of the country.
The possibility of Newt Gingrich carrying the GOP flag in next fall’s election has Democrats absolutely giddy. They love Newt so much that they are planning to cross over and flood the GOP primary next month just to make sure he gets the win. This, of course, will lead to outraged squealing and squirting by aggrieved GOPers, demanding strict party registration in future primaries.
Oh, where will it end? Where will it end?
The other political story to watch next year is Gov. Nikki Haley. It is hard to imagine how she has run afoul of so many rules and institutions in less than a year. Her mishandling of the Savannah River dredging may prove to be an epic fiasco. And now she has been found deleting office emails in violation of state law. This on top of a raft of other charges and suspicions.
“I believe she is the most corrupt person to occupy the governor’s mansion since Reconstruction,” John Rainey, a longtime Republican fundraiser and power broker said recently.
Will we see the Legislature or the attorney general move against her in 2012?
Stay tuned.