After a loss at the polls on primary day last week, the now former Democrat Eugene Platt has been in serious talks about running as a candidate for the Green Party in the S.C. House District 115 race. But state law could prevent him from getting on the ballot.
Considering the closeness of Platt’s run as the Democratic candidate in 2006 (losing by a scant 40 votes to Republican Wallace Scarborough), its not surprising that the Democratic Party is concerned about Platt spoiling the vote in a election year where people are even more keyed up about voting out the status quo.
The state law says that if a candidate who lost in the primary attempts to be placed on the general election ballot, the county party chair can seek through the courts to enjoin him/her from being included on the ballot.
The gray area is the term “thereafter” in the law. Since Platt secured the Green Party nomination prior to the Dem primary, he could argue that this electoral double jeopardy doesn’t apply in his case.
But (and this is a BIG BUT), one could easily see the court weighing the intent of the law, which seems to be to prevent any losing primary candidate (regardless of the time and place of a second endorsement) from being on the general election ballot.
Sure the Associated Press may incorrectly suggest that Missouri, not South Carolina, has the lowest cigarette tax in the nation, but that’s beside the point.
New York says it’s $2.75-a-pack tax has done what smoking bans that forced them out into the cold snow couldn’t: It’s broken the will of smokers.
The number of calls to the state’s Smoker’s Quitline quadrupled to nearly 10,000 calls during the week of June 2, when the full $2.75-a-pack tax kicked in, New York Health Commissioner Dr. Richard Daines said. Fewer than 2,300 people called for help during the same week in 2007.
…
Smokers calling the Quitline requested nearly 7,900 kits the week the new tax was introduced compared with 1,722 requested the same time last year.
Audrey Silk, who heads NYC Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment, said the initial increase in quitline calls doesn’t realistically represent how many people will become nonsmokers.
“No matter the goal, it’s disgusting that any group would actually boast that coercive government — this time through the hammer of taxation — to beat a class of society enjoying a legal product into submission is ’successful’,” Silk said.
Two different stories on the net today about the same event. What we know is that a man was shot dead at the corner of America and Amherst streets. Exactly what the news is seems to be up to speculation.
The Post and Courier goes with the headline “Man Shot to Death in Charleston” and notes that he had a criminal record that included five counts of cocaine possession with an intent to distribute.
Channel 5, on the other hand, looked for the more personal angle, with “Father of Five Murdered on Father’s Day.” Their story makes no mention of the potential tie to drugs, though neighbors mention how he was walking that street every day. Family members suggest that the motivation was robbery.
Of course, we have to read something political into this. But what we’re not sure what it means, exactly.
Enamoring himself with the religious right would be an asset if there was any particular office he was looking at. But the only one up the ladder will include a hard race with Attorney General Henry McMaster, who hasn’t announced his plans to run, but has been raising money and getting his name out nationally on socially conservative issues like gay marriage.
Gov. Mark Sanford vetoed a bill this week that would have ended a requirement that state health officials notify the school nurse and district superintendent when a student tests positive for HIV.
Supporters of the bill say the notification requirement leads some students to avoid getting tested. Sanford argues that the state should require more notification, not less, lumping HIV in with other “highly contagious diseases.”
“If my son or daughter was sitting in class or was on the sporting field with a fellow student who happened to have Hepatitis C, as a parent I would want to know,” Sanford wrote.
1) HIV is not a “highly contagious” disease. The type of contact necessary to transmit the virus is remote (almost nonexistent) in a school setting. It’s alarmist and ignorant to claim anything different. If anything, an HIV positive student should be worried about the viruses you’re kids are bringing to school.
2) Even under the existing law, as a parent of another kid in the classroom, you’re not obliged to know anything about the health status of another student. But, apparently the governor is expecting the school to send letters home saying, “You’re son’s classmate, Johnny, has that gay cancer.”
It’s evident that Sanford did not consult state health officials or anyone with HIV/AIDS when he made this decision and certainly not before he wrote his veto letter, which does more to further ignorance than understanding.
I was speaking with an African-American man today about race relations and the subject turned to Tim Scott’s election win — the first black Republican to win a Statehouse race since Reconstruction.
State GOP Chairman Katon Dawson says, “It’s an exciting time for the Republican Party.” But in my conversation today, it seemed that there’s this weight of embarrassment on this history-making win. The first since reconstruction? That’s well over a century, folks.
While the Post and Courier’s editorial page busts out the streamers in glee at Scott’s win, Robert Behre’s news story gives some of the “It took this long?!” perspective.
Scott’s win is noteworthy because while Republicans have talked about reaching out to minority voters for years, but their efforts seldom extended beyond a news conference or press release, said Clemson University political scientist Bruce Ransom.
“This is significant, though at this point we know it’s only one seat,” Ransom said. “Still, you can no longer say that no black Republicans have been elected to the state Legislature in South Carolina.”
Coupled with McCall’s win, Ransom said the GOP outreach effort no longer can be criticized as pure rhetoric. “This is not earthshaking progress. Some might call it a token outcome, but nonetheless it is a breakthrough, and you’ve got to start somewhere,” he said.
As part of the Post and Courier’s redesigned Your Lowcountry section, the paper has added a weekly blotter that appears to walk the line between funny and newsworthy, along with a horribly bland drawing of a pair of handcuffs (though not the ones pictured).
The City Paper has been doing a funny look at the city police blotter (comic included) for 11 years now. But the P&C blotter is certainly something different — they look for the stories that might seem funny or odd to the reader, but they play it straight. Really straight.
A drunk man found at the corner of Meeting and Romney streets told police that he thought he was on the Isle of Palms. If you don’t find this funny, you’ve either never been on the IOP or the corner of Meeting and Romney.
A 23-year-old man was charged with public drunkenness after he stumbled down Meeting Street in downtown Charleston, a report states. When an officer asked if he knew where he was, the man said he was on Isle of Palms.
That’s not to say that the new blotter isn’t a good thing. Having the new feature has the potential to draw in more readers to the weekly regional section of the paper. But the benefits of an alt-weekly is that we can, and often do, provide more than just the news. And that makes it a little easier to read.
Disclaimer: Worth noting because it’s odd. Not funny.
Greenville Deputies have released an image they hope will encourage leads in the investigation of a recent beating and sexual assault in an Upstate subdivision: a pair of plaid shorts.
The green, yellow and blue shorts are “very similiar” to the ones authorities say the attacker was wearing during Sunday morning’s assault.
Greenville County sheriff’s deputies believe that someone passing by may have seen the suspect and could provide critical information, said Lt. Shea Smith. The victim was attacked from behind 9:30-9:45 a.m. near the intersection of Terramont Drive and East North Street, deputies said.
“Maybe they could provide us with a better description,” Smith said. “Maybe they saw him getting into a vehicle somewhere, or just simply walking away from the scene.”
Now that Hillary Clinton is out of the running, it looks like sexist remarks will now be replaced with overt racist ones.
In a segment yesterday on the Fox News channel discussing the right-wing attacks on Michelle Obama, the tag at the bottom of the screen referred to her as Barack’s “Baby Mama.”
Try and imagine Fox using that tag for any white candidate. Seems ridiculous? Thought so.
Here’s the results:
• Local lawyer Mike Cone lost the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate race by 400 some votes out of nearly 125,000 cast.
• Linda Ketner won the chance to challenge Henry Brown in November. The only consolation for Brown is that he did just a little bit better than Graham (both under 69 percent) when faced with opposition from their own party. Though less than 10,000 voted in the Dem primary race and nearly 40,000 voted in the GOP primary.
• Randy Scott lost. Everybody, stay off the road.
• Dwayne Green barely registered against Robert Ford. One friend of mine suggested that Green wasn’t pointed enough in his criticism of Ford and I think he might be right.
• Wendell Gilliard won a S.C. House seat will face a run-off for the District 111 seat, beating back Middleton’s wave of endorsements and strong opposition, but falling short of the 50 percent of the vote needed to win outright. In the end, the race likely came down to who the voters knew.
• Anne Peterson-Hutto got a strong win against Eugene Platt. She’ll take on Wallace Scarborough in November … unfortunately for her, she’ll also be taking on Eugene Platt, who could be running on the Working Families and the Green parties tickets.
• Mike Sottile won the Statehouse seat representing coastal East Cooper. This win is ALL about voter turnout. Period.
• Tim Scott had a ridiculously strong win considering the district was weighted so heavily in Berkeley County.
• Scarlett Wilson beat Blair Jennings. Going negative likely didn’t seal his fate, but it was probably a sign that he knew what was coming.
• Nancy Cook lost her challenge to Curtis Bostic for County Council. She’s still got the opportunity to run for reelection on the school board (good luck with that).
• Rae Wooten got a strong win for county coroner, suggesting she may not have much trouble in November.
• Mark Peper will be challenging Colleen Condon in November for her County Council seat.
Greg Hambrick is a staff writer for the Charleston City Paper. He covers the 2008 elections, City Hall, and other Charleston news. He likes musicals and comic books. He's not surprised that people don't vote when you have lazy, half-invested fingers pointing toward the polling place.
