This is a hard diary to write; I try to be optimistic with all of the progress we are making for equality for the LGBT community. I cheer as I watch gay and lesbian couples marry in California; I smile when I read polls showing acceptance growing. I do all of this being lucky enough to be a gay man living in New York where in truth I experience little out right homophobia myself. But we cannot become complacent and assume that the battle is over. Every so often things occur which wake us up.
Many people in SC are beginning to wake up and realize that we are in a train wreck (or "in a spin" for you pilots) with no one at the controls.
The latest publicity for our governor would suggest that South Carolinians just aren’t very bright.
The reality is that just like the rest of America, many of us in SC are fed up with skyrocketing gas prices, the mortgage crisis, the health care crisis, and looming bank uncertainty.
The Greenville news has been reporting that South Carolina's Confederate flag controversy might be flaring up again. State NAACP President Lonnie Randolph implied that the local NAACP is going to push hard on their campaign of economic sanctions against the state because the flag is still on Statehouse grounds.
This is a wake up call, eye popping sorta poll... from the very trusted PPP btw:
McCain: 45%
Obama: 39%
Barr: 5%
Obviously is S. Carolina is this in play, McCain is in a whole lot more trouble than the media lets on.
Obama is doing well with the groups that fueled his blowout win in the South Carolina
Democratic primary. He leads 77-10 with black voters, and 54-32 with voters between
the ages of 18 and 29. McCain leads pretty much every other demographic group.
“It would take an exceptional turnout from young voters and black voters, as well as a lot
of disaffected conservatives voting for Bob Barr, to make a win in South Carolina
possible for Barack Obama,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “He
does seem likely to outperform John Kerry, but a victory in the Palmetto State is still a
long shot.”
This morning on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer", McCain supporter and potential vice presidential candidate Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina could not come up with one substantial difference between Bush's and McCain's positions on the economy.
It was amazing, hilarious, and frankly embarrassing to watch Gov. Sanford stumble and fumble while he tried to come up with something, anything, for minute after minute.
CNN has not posted the official video or transcript yet, but my own transcript is below:
In a time that we are paying $4.00 or more for gas, food prices are skyrocketing, and we are praying that our children don’t get sick because we just cannot afford the smallest of doctor’s bills, what are we to do?
Does it matter who we vote for?
In my part of South Carolina, it does matter. We can make a difference.
Brand new in the world of politics, I believe whole-heartedly that America can deal with any problem, under one condition: We must all pull together and find solutions NOW!
I have had the opportunity to serve as a pilot in the US Air Force, am now an airline captain, have two step-children, two sons and two grandchildren, and am married to a great guy. A product of my district and believer in the American Dream for all Americans, I have stepped forward to serve the people of the Third Congressional District in South Carolina.
With 35 Senate seats being contested this year (33 plus 2 special elections), Democrats have only 4 female candidates: Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Kay Hagan (NC), Vivian Figures (AL) and incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu (LA). That's a shamefully low number. The Republicans only have 2 incumbents, Elizabeth Dole (NC) and Susan Collins (ME), and one sole challenger, Christine O'Donnell (DE).
Overall, this is not a great year for women in the U.S. Senate. The overall outcome will be somewhere between minus 2 and plus 4 female Senators. The most likely outcome is somewhere between minus 1 and plus 1.
So, let's look ahead to 2010. Specifically, to which Democratic female politicians might or should run for the U.S. Senate in 2010.
The Hill reported plans by Barack Obama to meet with his fellow Congressional Black Caucus members on Thursday (6/19). Relations within the CBC are said to be strained due to the hotly contested presidential primary. Many members of the CBC backed Sen Hillary Clinton, even though black voters overwhelmingly supported Obama.
Obama previously met privately with a group of religious leaders, including megachurch pastor Bishop T.D. Jakes, and Rev Franklin Graham, head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. The meeting was held to solicit their input on national and world issues, and not necessarily to get their endorsements.
John McCain is in Ottawa today paying homage to his kindred spirits - the Conservative Party minority government of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his minions - on a campaign trip paid entirely by the McCain campaign.
But serious questions are being raised about the role of U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins, who appears to have become personally engaged in partisan politics in arranging and promoting McCain's appearance.
(I haven't seen this diaried anywhere else here -- if it has, I'd be happy to remove this posting).
A South Carolina school district has delayed until later in the month a vote on whether to ban all student clubs that don't relate to academics or sports as a way to close a gay student organization.
Vice chairman Robert Gantt said Monday the Lexington-Richland School District 5 board was delaying its vote on whether to ban the clubs to get more public input.
Irmo High School principal Eddie Walker said last month he would step down at the end of the next school year because the Gay-Straight Alliance conflicts with his beliefs and religious convictions.
A strange thing is happening in the South. When Don Cazayoux and Travis Childers won their special elections in, respectively, Louisiana and Mississippi, the Republicans complained that they they ran as Republicans. This wasn't strictly true. They ran as pro-life, anti-gay marriage, anti-immigration candidates. That made them seem like Republicans. But they also ran against the war and they ran against corporate welfare, and they ran against free trade agreements. They ran on increasing federal funding on infrastructure and education, and they ran on nixing No Child Left Behind. On many issues they were fully in line with the Democratic Party, and on some they were more in line with the Progressives than the Blue Dogs.
PFLAG has just learned that a judge in Greenville County, South Carolina, has sentenced Stephen Moller to just under two-and-a-half years in prison for his role in the murder of Sean Kennedy. Sean was viciously beaten in an anti-gay attack, in 2007, outside of a South Carolina.
Moller, who used a slur before attacking Kennedy, has served almost seven months in jail and was released on bond after the charges against him were downgraded to manslaughter from murder.
So, at long last we have come to the end of the road, insofar as the primary race goes. The dreaded "brokered convention" is no longer a possibility, in either Party's case (if you'll remember, it was the Republicans who were initially destined for a convention floor battle). Now, as we shift our focus to the general election, I want to take a moment to share some of my favorite memories of this primary campaign.
I want to start out by saying how incredible this race was for someone my age (26) to watch. In every single Presidential Race of my lifetime, at least one of the two Party's had their nominee going into the primary (sorry Bill Bradley, but it's the truth). So many people from both sides of the aisle seemed to have a realistic shot at one time or another for their Party's nomination this time around, it made for one incredible race.
So incredible, in fact, that it'll take me at least two shots to get everything in. Part I will take us from last December through Super Tuesday. So, here are my memories from this campaign during that timespan.
South Carolina is a tough state for Democrats. We’re undoubtedly one of the reddest states in the union. So for a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, it can be depressing to live here. Not only does the electoral college system render our votes irrelevant in a state that has only voted Democratic twice since 1960 (and never since 1980), but viable candidates rarely run for major office. We had a Democratic governor for one term a few years back, and a Democratic senator for several decades (overshadowed by the infamous Strom Thurmond), but those tend to be exceptions. In 2002, I voted Green Party for Congress as a protest, because there was no Democrat running against Republican Henry Brown. He’s never faced any serious challenge since. So, after volunteering for the Obama campaign back in January, I was resigned to living in a write-off state. On a whim, though, I went to scdp.org to see if any good Dems were running in my state, and was thrilled to find out about Linda Ketner.
Within the past month I put forth 19 polls with 15 candidates each to figure out who you guys want in an Obama cabinet. With voting in all rounds now over I compiled five different cabinets and will put them all up for a vote this week.
Who got included in the final cabinets: the top three in each poll automatically made it into these final cabinet polls, in some cases also the 4th and 5th. However, to make sure that the cabinets are as diverse as possible I gave some candidates who didn't have enough votes a wildcard.
Each day this week you can rate a cabinet. Today, you can rate a possible Obama/Napolitano cabinet on a scale from 1 (hate it) to 10 (love it). At the end I will post the results and the cabinet with the highest average wins.
