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Political wonders never cease in my native state, South Carolina. Long a hotbed of corruption, dirty politics and extremism, the Palmetto State has distinguished itself most recently as a place where the worst of the nineteenth and twentieth century brands of reactionary politics are at war for power. It’s the place where Jim DeMint is considered a sort of noncontroversial, avuncular presence; where sexual excess and right-wing ideology strangely seem to go hand-in-hand; where the last governor, an anti-tax zealot, was locked in a death battle with a lieutenant governor who compared food stamp recipients (half the population) to “stray animals”, and after a sex scandal straight out of Barbara Cartland, was eventually succeeded by his protege, who when not absorbed with fighting allegations of serial infidelity and corruption proudly puts the power and prestige of state government behind the proposition that private-sector labor unions should be destroyed.
And all that’s totally aside from the recent forced resignation of the current lieutenant governor for gross campaign finance irregularities. In sum, South Carolina is a hellish living representation of where the conservative movement is trying to drag the whole damn country.
The latest hysteria in South Cackalacky really takes the cake: today’s primary elections, a strangely denuded affair in which more than 200 challengers for state and local offices were knocked off the ballot for violating an obscure financial disclosure requirement.
Here’s how Stateline’s Josh Goodman explains the situation:
South Carolina voters head to the polls for primary elections today. What’s missing is most of the candidates.
Two decisions by the South Carolina Supreme Court — one in May and another earlier this month — removed more than 200 challengers for state legislature and local offices from today’s contests. Incumbent officeholders weren’t affected by the rulings.
As a result, the primaries will see vastly less competition than they otherwise would have. For example, in Republican-heavy Oconee County, a jurisdiction with 75,000 people, the GOP primary has been canceled entirely because all 11 non-incumbent Republicans were deemed ineligible. As the Associated Press reports, four seats for the state’s House of Representatives now have no Democrats or Republicans left on the ballot at all.
The court decisions were based on a technicality. Challengers in South Carolina are required to file financial disclosure forms at the same time they file forms declaring their candidacies with political party officials. Incumbent lawmakers are exempt from the requirement. Yet, as The State newspaper explained, many challengers believed a 2010 South Carolina law meant they should file financial disclosure forms online with the State Ethics Commission, instead of with the political parties.
No telling what will happen in November, when some disbarred challengers will probably try to compete as write-in candidates, particularly in open positions where no one—or only some anonymous schmo—was left standing. And I don’t know how South Carolina will manage to top this latest example of craziness. But I’m reasonably sure there is worse to come.
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DJ on June 12, 2012 12:20 PM:
South Carolina -- too small for a republic, too large for an insane asylum.
stormskies on June 12, 2012 12:36 PM:
South Caroline, like Kansas, and some others where the 'conservative' sickness prevails should be "exorcized" from what is left of our once great, and Democratic, country.
..amazingly the captcha for this post is THUGS.
c u n d gulag on June 12, 2012 12:50 PM:
I think South Carolina is trying to one-up a nearby state"
"Virginia is for Lovers. South Carolina is for Related Lovers."
Also too - did someone related to the late SC-CJ Willian Rehnquist get on the SC SC?
TCinLA on June 12, 2012 12:51 PM:
"South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum." - James L. Pettigru, 1860
Plus ca change...
Skip on June 12, 2012 12:56 PM:
SMALLER GOVERNMENT, LESS REGULATION, LESS OVERSIGHT, MORE FREE MARKET. MORE CORPORATE FREEDOM. The bag of corruption is open and the vultures are fighting to get their piece of the carcass, because a black Democrat is in the White House and Everybody's Doing It.
SC sounds like the poster child for what will become a nationwide occupation of the God Party the minute Mitt Romney puts his hand on the Mormon Bible at the inauguration ceremony...sigh...
Daryl McCullough on June 12, 2012 2:02 PM:
This reminds me of when I was young, in Rome, GA, the city was cited for not doing enough to insure free and fair elections (under the Voting Rights Act). So elections were suspended until the city government could get its act together and have decent election procedures. So basically, we went from flawed democracy to no democracy. The incumbent city commissioners stayed in office without elections until years later.
Rich on June 12, 2012 2:22 PM:
Your other home state of Georgia has perhaps the slimiest, most corrupt bunch of pols I've ever experienced and I've lived in Chicago (tho post-Daley I) and DC (Barry II). At least the Cook County machine delivered services and paved streets (including mine!) and DC has slowly begun to put some reformers in office. But other than John Lewis and perhaps Shirley Franklin (in her first term), there was little to cheer in Georgia. My favorite was when the loser in a sheriff's election arranged the murder of the victor. he also was husband to our Atlanta city councilperson. And of course Georgia gave the world Newt Gingrich, even though he was spawned elsewhere. I came to believe that the historical feudalism of Georgia and much of the South dooms it to the persistence of the corrupt and the retrograde, with little to show for it in terms of common good.