The Stench Of South Carolina Politics

Politics in Florida, in general, and Miami, in particular, were odd, to say the least. I moved to Miami just before the Bush-Gore-Hanging-Chad kerfuffle in 2000, but, luckily, I had voted absentee in California so I didn't hang my head in the days following the election,

And local Miami politics wasn't any better. I can't even count the number of politicians who went to jail, for everything from bribery charges, to allegations of spousal abuse, only to come out of prison, run for office again, and win.

I had hoped South Carolina would be different, and it is, but not in a good way.

South Carolina politics is mean and racist and, let's not forget, Christian--although how those three work in tandem I have yet to figure out.

Apparently, back in 2000, when John McCain was running against Bush in the presidential primary, rumors swirled that he fathered an illegitimate black child; and you just know that didn't go over too well with our Christian and racist voters. Then there is the story from 1990, when political consultant Rod Shealy, hoping to increase the turnout among anti-black white voters in the GOP primary, recruited a black candidate--which he correctly assumed would help his own candidate--to run for Congress. And of course we had Mark "Appalachian Trail Hiking" Sanford, who called himself a fiscal conservative family values man while flying first class to Argentina to see his mistress. Finally, I give you Joe "You lie" Wilson, who showed most of the country, the rational thinking part of the country, just how ridiculous our politicians are here in South Carolina.

We're so proud.

But now we have another asshat, running for governor, amid rumors of infidelity, and, well, this is a stretch, her ties to the Middle East; and we all know that's a bad thing.

Republican front-runner Nikki Haley is yet another pro-family, pro-life, pro-gun candidate who has the dubious backing of The Double Wingnuts, the Tea party and Sarah Palin. But she has been dogged by rumors of not one, but two adulterous affairs, both lodged by conservative political operatives who claim to have slept with her. And, as if that wasn't bad enough--we don't need another cheater in the governor's mansion--one of our state senators, who supports a Haley opponent, casually referred to her as a "raghead" because she is Indian-American. He then went on to suggest that she is some sort of Manchurian candidate supported by a "network of Sikhs" to take over the governorship.

During a visit to something called "Pub Politics"--an online political chat show hosted from a bar in Columbia...and you know that can't be good--state senator Jake Knotts said: "We already got one raghead in the White House; we don't need a raghead in the governor's mansion."

Ah, South Carolina politics. A breath of fresh air....mixed with skunk and horse manure.

You'd have thought that last idiotic statement by Knotts would have had his handlers scrambling to shut him up, but he just kept talking. He also claims that Haley was a plant being controlled by nefarious handlers; he believes Haley has been set up by a network of Sikhs and has been programmed to run for governor of South Carolina by outside influences in foreign countries. He claims she is hiding her religion and he wants the voters to know about it.

But, and I'm not saying there is some deeply secret Middle Eastern cabal working to elect Nikki Haley, she has taken to speaking less and less about her Sikh heritage and more and more about her Christian beliefs. Her own website, which once played up her attendance at both Sikh and Methodist religious services, now says only that she is a devout Christian, and that she sttends Sikh service only out of respect to her parents.

Is she hiding her Sikh background for the reasons Jake Knotts says, or is she hiding it because of the outbreak of adultery allegations? See, people here seem to think that if you're a Christian and you sin, it's kind of okay, because you'll cry on TV and beg to be forgiven. However, if you're any other religion, especially one o' them middle eastern ones, well, maybe cheating is part of your culture and we don't want none of that.

Whatever the reason, it's the same dirty politics here. Name-calling; allegations of "sinful" behavior; dark secrets. We don't cotton to the facts, to the record of the politician, to the actual words of those running for office. We prefer gossip and dirt and mud.

Jake Knots issued an apology for the "raghead" comment, claiming that it was "intended in jest" and that the "humorous content was lost in translation." Yes, it is funny to call someone a that word, as it is funny to call someone an N-word, or a gay man a fag, or a Latino person a spic; it's all fun and done in jest, at least that's how we roll in South Carolina.

Yet, even while apologizing to Nikki Haley, Jake Knotts got in one more jab by proclaiming that she, by hiding her religious background, or at the very least downplaying it, "is pretending to be someone she is not."

Andre Bauer, another Republican running for governor who has been the subject of taunts about his sexual orientation, also used the "pretending to be someone she is not" line himself when he asked that she take a lie-detector test to prove she isn't a cheater.

I make the suggestion that all political candidates in South Carolina take a polygraph.

Then we'll know whether Nikki Haley cheats on her husband.

Then we'll know whether Andre Bauer is a Friend of Dorothy's or not.

Then we'll know whether Joe Wilson is playing with a full deck.

Then we'll know whether Jake Knotts really is as racist as he sounds.

Then we'll know.

Welcome To My World

This is running for governor, and thinks she'd be a good change after Mark "Take A Hike" Sanford leaves office.

Lt. Governor Andre Bauer: "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better."

He believes the state should not give assistance to the children of parents that fail drug tests or don't attend PTA meetings. And, Miss Bauer thinks students that receive free lunches get the lowest grades, so perhaps they ought to starve.

For the record, Bauer was outed last year by blogger Mike Rogers; one of many outed in the documentary Outrage.

Is Andre Bauer gay? I couldn't care less.

Is he an asshat?

Oh, yes!

Bauer has since apologized for comparing the poor to stray animals.

In or Out

So, we're still talking down here in beautiful South Carolina about whether or not we'll impeach the philandering, lying, stealing governor we have now and replace with him with one who, many people swear, is a big old queen.

Cheater? Homo? That's the debate, ridiculous as it sounds.

And now comes word that the smear campaign aimed at Andre Bauer about whether or not he's a Friend Of Dorothy, was started by none other than the adulterer, the cheater, the liar, and the thief, Mark Sanford. Word has it that Mark Sanford thinks the people of South Carolina would rather have a Bible Thumping adulterer than a Bible Thumping homo-sexshul.

Of course, these are all just rumors, but, hell, rumors are fun.

Mark maybe didn't start the Gay Andre story and maybe Gay Andre isn't gay.

See, Jake Knotts, who loathes Mark Sanford almost as much as I do, swears that Andre Bauer isn't gay, but that Mark is spreading that rumor to keep people from begging the State House to impeach him. Knotts, a Republican state senator, wrote to fellow members of the state legislature last week and accused Sanford and his allies of spreading rumors that Bauer is gay—though that claim came from blogger Mike Rogers earlier in the week.

Says Jake Knotts: “As a former target of a false rumor started by the Sanford Camp I can tell you with absolute certainty this attack was orchestrated on behalf of Mark Sanford, either directly or indirectly, and financially subsidized by him or one of his many ‘front-groups.”

Knotts apparently has, ahem, first-hand experience with the fact that Andre Bauer is straight, because, as he says, “I have known Andre since he was eight years old. Ain’t a homosexual bone in his body. That boy is a good boy. It’s a just an attempt to prevent Andre from become governor.”

Not a homosexual bone? I mean, I've heard of the gay gene but now we've got a gay bone? This homosexuality stuff is a lot of work, trying to remember all the rules and the bones, etc.

And why is that Knotts thinks Andre is a straight shooter because he's a "good boy"? Does being gay make you not good? See, from where I stand, looking up homosexual bone in the dictionary, gay is good, sometimes great, sometimes annoying, but it isn't bad.

Got that, Jake?

See, you can say Mark Sanford is trying to smear Andre Bauer's good, non-homosexual name by whipping out the gay card, but you, my dear fellow, are smearing the entire gay community.

And that ain't good.

Now, before I go, let's give Maybe-Gay-Maybe-Not Andre Bauer the last word on the gay question, or the gay bone: “I don’t think it’s a proper question. I think it’s a little bit ridiculous and it’s sad that politics has gotten to that. But if somebody had a question I don't have a problem with going ahead and airing it and getting it out of the way because I don't want that to linger, much like this other problem is lingering. I want to move forward. I want to talk about real issues, how to get improved job growth. How you get education to a better level than it is now, how you fix the budget problem that we've got — not continue to dwell on some silly question in the first place."

Now, this is where I have a problem with Andre. It isn't a silly question if, in fact, you are a closeted gay man who has spent his political career working to deny the same rights and privileges to gay Americans that other opposite-sex marrying Americans take for granted.

If you're gay, then shame on you for your self-loathing.

If you're not gay, then shame on your for your backwoods holier-than-thou attitude.

Fighting The Battle In Our Own Ranks

I get homophobia. Really, I do; it's a simple matter of fear of the unknown and gay folks are, well, unknown to a lot of people. And we can take some of the blame ourselves because we aren't all out. See, I believe that when people know someone who's gay, then they are apt to be less afraid. They're going to see that we aren't child molester's out to recruit the next generation or that we're trying to destroy the very fabric of life. They'll see that we just want the same things everyone else takes for granted: the right to love and marry the person we choose; the right to live openly and safely in any community in the country; the right to be ourselves without the fear of being fired, or beaten, or murdered.

Homophobia is another form of racism. Although gay people aren't a race, per se. We're more of a catwalk. It's like, say, living in an all-white neighborhood and suddenly a black family moves in. You don't know any black people, have never dealt with black people, so there's bound to be a little apprehension, I guess. Same goes for an all-black neighborhood when the Hispanic family or Asian family moves in. It's a fear of the unknown, the new, the never-before-seen. But if you just open up to the fact that people are different, whether it be ethnicity gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, you'll come to see that we are all more alike that you thought possible.

So, like I said, I get homophobia. But, what I don't get are gay homophobes. Those gay men and women so deeply closeted that they will lash out at the gay community just to keep themselves "safe." They believe if they denounce being gay, no one will ever suspect that they might be gay themselves. And that makes me, wonder, how do they live their lives they go home? How do they sleep at night when they've spent the day verbally gay bashing? What's life like in that big self-loathing closet they call home?

Andre Bauer, the Lt. Governor of South Carolina, was recently outed by activist Mike Rogers who has spoken to several men who claim to have had sexual relations with Bauer, or been hit on by him. All of the stories bear the same thread of truth so Rogers, who was featured in the movie Outrage about closeted gay politicians, feels certain that Bauer is gay.

If Bauer is gay, does it matter? Should it?

Yes, it does and should. If Bauer is a gay man, then he is guilty of the worst case of homophobia. He is a right-wing Christian conservative who voted to allow license plates, state issued license plates, with a cross and the words "I believe" on them, and he has come out strongly against gay marriage. He's against allowing himself the same rights as other Americans.

I get homophobia from straight people. I can understand where it comes from and why, but I don't understand the thinking behind being gay and homophobic. How sad it must be, to be Andre Bauer and go home every night knowing he's working hard to keep gay people down, to keep gay people as second-class citizens, when he's one himself.

How sad.

But then we also have the case of Mary Cheney, openly gay daughter of former Vice president Dick Cheney. Openly gay. It sounds nice. She couldn't possibly be a homophobe, could she?

Maybe so. Mary Cheney, just last May, donated $1,000 to the election campaign of Ohio Congressman Rob Portman. Okay, so what's the beef, you say? Well, Rob Portman voted yes on banning gay adoptions in the District of Columbia in 1999 and in 2004 he voted in favor of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

It makes me wonder what is wrong with Mary Cheney. What goes on in her head, this gay, partnered woman, who shares a son with her, well, girlfriend since they can't possible be married, what makes her give money to a man who says she, Mary Cheney, does not have the same rights and freedoms as every other American in the country.

It must be sad to be so self-loathing that you'll support a candidate with your own money, who seeks to deny you basic rights. And it must be just as sad to be Andre Bauer, a politician pushing through an agenda that seeks to keep himself down, to keep him from having the same rights and freedoms as everyone else.

I get homophobia. I understand the fear of the unknown. But what I don't understand self-loathing gay men and women who openly work to deny other gay men and women their rights.

How sad.

Get Out!

I am sick of the Sanfords.

No, not Fred and Lamont Sanford, but Mark and Jenny Sanford.

Jenny first. Quit talking already. Quit telling us what a great parent you are and how you're doing what needs to be done for the boys and then giving yet another interview where you play the Pity Card and slam the father of your children. That isn't being a good person, that is being vindictive and childish. Yes, we know; he cheated; he cried; he apologized to her first. You're wounded. We get it.

Now. Shut. Up.

And that goes double for you Mark. Shut. Up. Shut. Up. STFU!

Yesterday in the grand old state of South Carolina, Lt. Governor Andre Bauer became the highest ranking Republican to ask Mark Sanford to quit. Bauer said he would not run for governor if Sanford resigns or the House moves to impeach him in the next month. In the interests of fairness, this is being seen as a way for Bauer to get certain items in his agenda going, and then he can leave the state house as a pseudo hero and come back stronger for some other public office.

hat said, Mark, of course, whined a bit and stomped his feet and muttered something about being "railroaded" out of office.

Railroad? I thought he was a hiker.

Thank you! I'll be here all week!

But I digress.

Andre Bauer: “The serious misconduct that has already been revealed along with lingering questions and continuing distractions make it virtually impossible for our state to solve the critical problems we’re facing without a change of leadership. That is why I must now call upon Governor Sanford, in the interest of our state, to resign. It is why I myself will lead the way by putting the best interests of the people of South Carolina ahead of my own personal and political interests.”

Sanford said Bauer's statement was nothing but "pure politics."

Like the pure politics Sanford employs when he portrays himself as a fiscal conservative, spending months fighting to keep stimulus money out of the state, while charging the state for his upgraded travel expenses, including one of his side-trip booty calls to Miss Argentina.

If that's pure politics South Carolina-style, we need to make a change.

Mark Sanford is claiming past governors also flew business class and first class on the state’s dime and that some lawmakers have used the state plane to attend weddings and other personal events.

Indeed, maybe they have, but they didn't portray themselves as fiscally responsible; they didn't use the state money and state planes to speed off for a little La Vida Loca Con La Mujer Del Argentina. And Mark, if that's your reasoning, that other governor's have used state funds and aircraft in the past, I ask you this:

If past governors had jumped off a bridge, would you?

Just a thought.