South Carolina has long had an image of being an intolerant place, and a state of embarrassing politicians! 🙁
The state of historic hard line political figures including John C. Calhoun and Strom Thurmond, it has had the embarrassment of Governor Mark Sanford going to Argentina and meeting his lover behind his wife’s back, and refusing to resign! 🙁
It is the state of Republican Senator Jim DeMint, one of the absolutely worst senators ever put into office by voters, since the enactment of the 17th Amendment in 1913!
It is the state of Alvin Greene, an African American with no qualifications or experience to be a United States Senator, somehow magically winning the Democratic nomination over a state senator by a vast margin, with no one having any idea how he did it! Greene had no website, no campaign funds, did no campaigning, is totally inarticulate, and faces a felony charge on pornography next month, but yet is the choice of the Democratic voters! Maybe, the answer is that his name was first on the ballot, and the average voter probably had no knowledge of the race when they voted! 🙁
This is also the state of Nikki Haley, the front runner for the GOP nomination for Governor, born a Sikh, but converting to the Methodist faith at age 24. Haley, endorsed by Sarah Palin, and calling herself an ally of the Tea Party Movement, is controversial enough, but now she faces an opponent who is using her religious background as an issue! Gresham Barrett’s campaign is trying to plant fear among evangelical Christians as to Haley’s true religious beliefs, as if it should matter! 🙁
This is the issue of what is a “good Christian”, something unique to evangelicals, including Pat Robertson of the Christian Broadcasting Network, who is exploiting the issue for the upcoming runoff election! 🙁
This is a sign, unfortunately, of what former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, a Mormon, will face when and if he runs for President, and competes in the South Carolina primary, a race notorious in the past for the badmouthing of Senator John McCain in 2000, when he ran against George W. Bush, and racial bigotry was exploited! 🙁
In South Carolina, if it is not race that is the issue, then it is religion! 🙁
Haley won 49 percent of the vote in the gubernatorial primary, but it will be interesting to see if she can go over 50 percent and become the nominee as a result of the exploitation of the religion issue by her opponent’s campaign! 🙁
Whatever one thinks of Nikki Haley, it will be a bad reflection on South Carolina if she fails to gain one percent plus more votes because of the issue of what is a “good Christian!” 🙁