The Upstate folks are pissed off

 

Good ‘ole Dan Hoover has a piece on his blog about the possibility that Andre Bauer might be drafted to run against Congressman Bob Inglis.  It almost reads as if he was cheering him on as well. 

This is interesting to us.  We always knew that Andre had little ideas of running for Congress dancing in his head, but we just assumed that it would be the First Congressional District.  Andre owns property (his primary residence we believe) in Charleston and we just assumed that when Henry Brown retired, Rod Shealy had his candidate already lined up.

Now, it seems the entire right wing is up in arms over Inglis’ stance on Iraq and the buzz around the Upstate is “Run Andre, Run!”  We think this fervor will cool down a bit, and we honestly believe that your residence is a factor irregardless of constitutionality.  But it sure is interesting to think about.  No matter how early; we bet Bob Inglis will be thinking about how much he doesnt want to run against the Comeback Kid.

Mr. Wilson gets his blog on

 

We always like to point out examples of blogging and new media becoming more mainstream and this would certainly be one of them.  It came to our attention that The Hill newspaper hosts a blog specifically for Members of Congress.  What’s suprising, is that Congressman Joe Wilson has a pretty good piece up there.

We could actually see Congressman Wilson being a pretty good conservative blogger, because he is deffinately not afraid to serve up the red meat.  Perhaps his press aide, Kim Olive, will talk him into starting up his own. 

Somehow we doubt that.

SCGOP picks up David Hill

 

The SCGOP has finally replaced Jay W. Ragley with an experienced operative needed during the first in the South presidential primary and what is now looking like the first serious GOP presidential debate.  David Hill will join Katon’s staff this week as political director.

David Hill is a former Bush operative, working on both the 2000 and 2004 campaigns, serving as Associate Director of Operations on the latter.  In between campaigns David worked in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel.

The Crew| Hunter inks the Bonnie Blue

 

Bonnie Blue Public Relations has signed on to be the General Consultant in South Carolina for Congressman Duncan Hunter’s Presidential bid.  BBPR is run by Robert Cahaly, a well known political consultant from the Upstate. 

 We know these guys probably think we have been tough on Hunter recently, but we are hoping to see BBPR clean up the gaffs now that they have some local help on the payroll.    Remember, crazy people and microphones do not mix.

McCain condemns bigoted attacks by Haskins and Mosteller

John McCain has condemned attacks against Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith.  As you can see from the article below, those condemnations include bigoted comments made by Representative Gloria Haskins and Charleston County GOP Chairwoman Cyndi Mosteller.

Thomas Burr points out that Haskins “is not a paid staffer or spokesperson for the campaign.”  Maybe not, but that guy in the picture next to her sure is. Yeah, that’s her son Brian.

McCain goes YouTube

You will probably remember that our biggest complaint about JohnMcCain.com was the inability to share and embed his videos. Well they fixed that today with the launch of a new YouTube site. Check it out.

Fear the Faux Bloggers

 

A buddy passed along an interesting article from the Boston Globe today about faux bloggers posing as part of the genuine netroots community, only to be found out as paid operatives.  Okay, not a whole lot of suprises, but our buddy got a big kick out of it because of the recent paranoid-psychotic comments from the McCain campain about us being a “sleeper blog cell.”(see the front page of The Shot)

Come to find out, the culprits in the article were none other than paid McCain operatives.  

WASHINGTON — Erick Erickson has been running the popular blog Redstate.com long enough to know what his readers’ postings sound like: red-meat conservative rhetoric served up with a little dash of populist anger.

So when postings from an unknown writer on the site showed up praising Senator John McCain — one of the site’s least-popular Republicans for his deviations from hard-core conservative orthodoxy — Erickson thought he smelled a rat.

Or maybe a sock puppet, shill, or a troll — Web slang for bloggers who pretend to be grass-roots political commentators but instead are paid public relations agents.

The author of the pro-McCain articles on Redstate.com, Erickson determined after a Google search, was a Michigan political operative whose firm worked for McCain’s political action committee.

Go figure….read the rest of the article below the flip.

The Crew| McCain hires Bowers as Chief Counsel

 

Karl “Butch” Bowers of Nelson, Mullens, Riley, and Scarborough has been hired as Chief Legal Council to McCain’s Exploritory Committee in South Carolina.   

Bowers has previously served as the Chairman of the South Carolina Election Commission under Governor Mark Sanford and as counsel to the South Carolina Republican Party.  Bowers recently represented South Carolinians for Responsible Government when it appeared in front of the State Ethics Commission to hear the opinion that SCRG had tried to influence the outcome of an election and ordered the group to disclose its finances.

Romney up on TV in SC

http://mittromney.permissiontv.com/?showid=41121

The presidential airwars have begun in South Carolina.  That’s right…with just under a year until South Carolina’s first in the south presidential primary, Mitt Romney has become the first candidate to hit the airwaves.

The State newspaper reports that the spot is running on broadcast stations around the state.

Romney is by far the least known of the three frontrunners.  According to a poll released this morning by The Stater, Romney is polling at 6% compared to McCain’s 35% and Giuliani’s 20%.  McCain and Giuliani have nearly a 100% name id with Romney’s in the teens.

The Crew | Romney picks up a few important names

Mitt Romney announced his South Carolina County chairmen last week with little fanfare.  We want to take a minute to look back because there were some important names within the list of 79 worth mentioning.

There’s no doubt that McCain has a lock on the majority of the State House, but Romney has slowly been picking off the State Senators.  The new list includes State Senators Bill Mescher and Larry Martin, both representing key republican counties – Berkeley and Pickens respectively.  Also, we see for the first time that Representative Ted Pitts of Lexington County is in the Romney camp.

It’s important to note that Romney also picked off a few GOP county chairman: Bill Wilcox in Berkeley, Paul Hogan in Georgetown, James D’Alessio in Kershaw, Tim Miller in Lexington, and Al Simpson in Lancaster.

The Crew| Richardson picks up McIntosh

 

We realize this isn’t the real McIntosh, but this is General Lachlan McIntosh, a Scottsman who helped found the Georgia militia.  We figured it would do for now.

In case you missed it, South Carolina Democratic Party Executive Director, Lachlan McIntosh, will be leaving to head up New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s South Carolina campaign for President. 

In terms of experience, Governor Richardson is considered to have the most impressive resume in the Democratic line-up.  In that same vein, Lachlan is considering one of the most experienced Democrat operatives in the state.  His addition will certainly lend some credibility with Democratic activists.  Lachlan will have a tough road ahead in terms of getting his candidate some attention with HRC and Obama sucking up the spotlight, but he would be the guy to do it.

The SCDP also announced that long-time Dem operative, Morton Brilliant, will be taking the reigns.  Brilliant is another heavy weight in SC politics, having served as advisor to Governor Jim Hodges and with the SCDP.  Brilliant last made the news in Georgia when he resigned as manager of a gubernatorial race after he altered a wikipedia entry for his opponent to include the DUI arrest of the candidate’s son. 

[UPDATE] We found a pic of Lachlan, but we think the General is cool, so we’re keeping him up too.

Look at me being serious!

Please take the time out of your day to go and vote for South Carolina’s very own Ryan Holt, a true fiscal conservative.

Rudy spending cash to win straw poll

If you listened to Rick Beltram, Chairman of the Spartanburg GOP, and Jason Spencer, writer for the SHJ, you would think that the presidential primary was on March 1st.  That’s when South Carolina will hold its first big presidential straw poll.

How much do these straw poll matter? Well, the winners will tell you that they mean everything.  The losers will tell you they mean nothing.  But Rudy Giuliani and his Spartanburg pals Karen Floyd and Barry Wynn must think they mean something because they are spending some money to turn out supporters to their precinct meetings.

This little flyer was found on the floor at the Spartanburg President’s Day Dinner.

Sorry that half of its cut off. In case you can’t figure out what it says – it says to show up on March 1st and vote for Rudy Giuliani in the straw poll.

Sam Brownback Joins Al Gore in Fight Against Manbearpig

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=62979

Last week as we where attending the spectacular Spartanburg County Republican Party’s President’s Day Dinner, we noticed on a palm card promoting Sen. Brownback’s Presidential Campaign that said he too wants to join the fight to stop Manbearbig. I’m serious.

For those of you who don’t know about Manbearpig, he is a human-animal hybrid, who is half-man, half-bear, and half-pig. Manbearpig first appeared last year in the tiny mountain town of South Park Colorado. It was there former Vice-President Al Gore first brought Manbearpig to the public’s attention and saying  “Manbearpig is the single greatest threat to our planet.”