SC Yellow Dogs

Six weeks before South Carolina Republicans and Democrats cast their primary votes for president, the races remain very much up in the air.

On the Democratic side, most polls show Sen. Hillary Clinton with a comfortable lead in South Carolina, but some also show her support slipping in Iowa, giving fresh hope to Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards, her main rivals.

On the Republican side, what many considered a four-way race between former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Sen. John McCain, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson now shapes up as a five-way contest, with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee joining the party.

Huckabee dropped by North Charleston

on Friday as part of a swing through South Carolina.

He came to bask in his rising support and to accept endorsements from Charleston County Council Chairman Tim Scott and from Maurice Washington, chairman of the board of trustees of South Carolina State University.

Huckabee also discussed his nine-point plan for immigration reform, which calls for building a fence along the Mexican border by 2010, hiring more Border Patrol agents, imposing fines on employers who hire illegal immigrants, promoting immigration-law training for local police and modernizing the process of legal immigration.

He said his proposal doesn’t include amnesty and would give those here illegally 120 days to leave the country and apply to return through legal means. Those who don’t leave would be deported and have to wait 10 years to legally return. “It’s not to be harsh but rather it’s to be fair to all,” he said.

Supporters of the Fair Tax, a plan to replace the national income tax with a national sales tax, made up a good-sized chunk of the 100-plus people who crammed into a North Charleston hotel conference room to hear Huckabee.

Charleston County GOP Chairwoman Lin Bennett, a Thompson supporter, noted that Huckabee’s position as the only front-runner who has endorsed the tax gives him a built-in base here. “These Fair Tax people, wherever you go, there are gazillions of them.”

Meanwhile, other candidates are sending spouses here to solidify their support.

Former President Bill Clinton will appear here today, while Thompson’s wife Jeri plans to meet with supporters at 5:15 p.m. Monday at Patriots Point in Mount Pleasant.

Huckabee said he believes his poll numbers have risen recently for several reasons, including his debate performances and a few extended televised interviews. He said martial arts star Chuck Norris’ endorsement helped, noting that almost every television network ran Norris’ endorsement spot for free as a news item, and it was the most watched video on YouTube for two days.

He also joked about another big-time endorser coming to South Carolina: Multimedia star Oprah Winfrey will appear Sunday at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia with Obama.

“I respect very much that Senator Obama has Oprah, but in a smackdown, Chuck wins every time,” he said.

While a few polls show Huckabee in the lead in South Carolina, others show a virtual dead heat among several candidates.

“There are a lot of unknowns this year, a lot of new territory,” said College of Charleston political science professor Bill Moore.

“On the Democratic side, the race pits a woman candidate and an African-American candidate,” he said. “On the Republican side, you simply don’t have any one candidate who has captured the imagination of the Republicans. On top of that, everything is front-loaded this year, so it’s just unchartered territory.”

Despite what South Carolina polls show this month, the numbers here likely will change as Iowans hold their caucus Jan. 3, followed by the New Hampshire primary Jan. 8. The GOP primary in South Carolina will be Jan. 19, and the Democratic primary will be Jan. 26.

“What’s going to impact most in South Carolina is what happens in Iowa and New Hampshire,” Moore said. “If Hillary starts to falter, then South Carolina becomes a different ball game.”

Edwards, who was born in South Carolina and has been the top fundraiser among Democrats here, said during a Charleston visit Thursday that he’s not worried about his poll numbers here.

“I’m doing better than I was four years ago at this point, and I won the state four years ago,” he said. “If people in South Carolina know that I come from here, that I will fight for them, that I will stand up for the working, middle-class families that need a chance, we’ll do fine in South Carolina.”

Those early states present even higher stakes for the GOP hopefuls.

“I could see Fred Thompson out of it, or maybe John McCain, by the time they get to South Carolina,” Moore said. “To me, one of the questions that should be asked on every poll is who is your second choice. That can be important as you have people drop out.”
By Robert Behre for The Post and Courier

I’m not your average American citizen. I am a writer. I write poems, fiction, and creative nonfiction, and I aspire to teach college-level creative writing courses. I’m also a photographer and have worked on freelance photography for Sandlapper magazine. I consider myself one of a minority breed in America: I am a creative, artsy, open-minded yet opinionated individual who sees the state of American society in a pessimistic way.

It should be no surprise that we artistic folk are generally cynical. How cynical can we be? I decided to go to the group of people I knew could demonstrate this best: my own tight-knit circle of friends.

Cory Roche, 26, put it bluntly. “I don’t trust anyone who seeks power. Power oftentimes attracts the corruptible. Democracies are inherently misguided because the majority is not always right.”

Roche is an amateur musician who composes industrial and progressive metal music. You would probably never hear his music on a S.C. public radio station, but his natural talent is undeniable. He also dabbles in photography.

Brittany Bingham, 22, an amateur writer and photographer, elaborated on Roche’s ideas. “I don’t feel like politics are what they should be,” she lamented.

“To me, it’s more about business than government. It’s supposed to be ‘for the people, by the people,’ but it’s more about the numbers: Who has the most money? Who has the dirt on whom?”

I completely agree with Bingham and Roche. America is far from the country of the free that it was once meant to be. For instance, modern Americans barely have freedom of religion, and even though I’m allowed to say I’m not Christian, I usually don’t so that I won’t be discriminated against (I hope saying it here doesn’t ruin my future career!).

So which 2008 presidential candidate offers the most hope to alternative youths with innately suspicious views on modern American society?

It’s definitely hard to choose a candidate when you feel that the state of the nation is in almost irreversible decay. As of Dec. 7, the war in Iraq has caused 3,886 tragedies in families across America, according to http://icasualties.org/oif/ (which gets its tally from the Department of Defense). The deaths of those American soldiers might seem almost irrelevant now because citizens have gotten used to their loss. The troops aren’t the only ones dying, either. According to http://www.iraqbodycount.org, roughly 78,071-85,055 civilians, including innocent women and children, have been killed. Some of these deaths were even caused by the American troops who are supposed to protect them.

And, because of this war, according to nationalpriorities.org, the nation has added over $475 billion to the national debt (already over $9 trillion, according to treasurydirect.gov).

Roche is “neither Democratic nor Republican.” He agrees “more with the Democratic positions” on the issues, though. Bingham strives to “vote for the person whose stance on the issues is most like” hers, but she “would probably vote Democratic.”

I also spoke to John Dunn, a 25-year-old amateur sketch and tattoo artist who has voted in the past two presidential elections. Dunn said that he used to ignore politics because he was skeptical of his ability to create change, but as he has grown, he has become adamant about participating in political elections. To Dunn, none of the candidates is perfect, so the election has become a choice between “the lesser of two evils” for skeptics like him. I agree, because for me, choosing a candidate to vote for is not about who has the best policies on the issues. It’s about who has the least detrimental policies.

“The Republicans thrive on trickery,” Dunn explained. “We’ve had nothing but white males in the White House, and we need diversity.” Dunn goes on to say that U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton is the best candidate choice for people who are liberal-minded. Dunn is “going for Hillary” because she played a major role behind Bill Clinton’s successful presidency. Dunn believes Clinton’s was one of the “finest presidential eras” due to the booming economy and low government deficit.

To Dunn and many other American skeptics, no other candidate seems as confident in his policy as Clinton is in hers. Because she has already been in the White House, Dunn feels that Clinton is more prepared to deal professionally with stressors of the presidency, especially with the support of her former-president husband.

Bingham, however, sees Clinton differently. Bingham agrees that Clinton is a strong woman and a good candidate for president, but Clinton’s tough exterior makes Bingham wary.

“If she is so strong in her beliefs, she may not be willing to admit a mistake or take other Americans’ opinions into consideration,” Bingham clarifies. “The ability to change one’s mind is a forward-thinking effort that might move this country ahead. Just look at President Bush. He has done a lot during his term without the support of the majority. I don’t want to be stuck with that for yet another four years.” Bingham therefore places her early confidence in U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, whom she considers more willing to accept and support the majority opinion on issues, even if it differs from his own.

For creative, cynical Americans (and not surprising to me), the trend seems to be to vote Democratic. Republicans are too conservative for our open minds and liberal ideas on personal issues such as abortion and gay marriage. But each candidate has a different appeal to different people based on his or her actual stances on the issues. That fact just mimics the nationwide trend.

I concur with Bingham’s comment, “Having two candidates, such as Obama, an African-American, and Clinton, a woman, leads us to the possibility of taking this country in a different direction,” (which, in my opinion, we desperately need). Bingham goes on to say, “Hopefully, if either is elected, he or she will put the choice in the issues back into the hands of the American people.”

After all, “What the government does directly affects the country’s citizens,” Bingham concludes. I truly hope that the American public is smart enough to agree with us and choose a president with the courage and ideals needed to pull us out of our diminishing societal situation.

By MARESA WHITEHEAD

Aiken County has long been predominantly Republican, but a formal survey has found that more young people age 18 to 29 are moving toward the Democratic Party.
There’s only one problem with that, said Dr. Bob Botsch, a USC Aiken political science professor who coordinates a community survey each year.
“Let’s distinguish between the general population and those who vote,” he said. “Even if the Democrats have the majority of those under 30, that group is the least likely to vote, although they did a little better in the last presidential election.”
Students in Botsch’s research methods class perform the annual survey as part of their course experience.
Based on telephone calls, the survey included 37 questions on national issues, seeking opinions, party identification and demographic information.
President George Bush’s popularity has plummeted nationally, but not quite as much in Aiken County. Nationally, 64 percent of Americans disapprove of his job as president, according to a USA Today/Gallup poll. Only 47 percent don’t approve of his performance in Aiken. Yet that’s still higher than the 40 percent who do approve.
Over the past decade, Botsch said, Bush and Bill Clinton let some key openings pass them by. Without Clinton’s personal morality issues, Al Gore probably would have won the 2000 election and would have cemented those who were moving toward the Democratic Party.
“Bush had the same historical opportunities because of 9/11,” Botsch said. “Unfortunately for the Republicans and the country, Iraq hasn’t turned out so well. We have another flawed, if not failing president and perhaps another opportunity blown.”
About 55 percent of those Aiken County residents polled said the situation in Iraq was not worth going to war for, while 38 percent said the decision to go to war was appropriate. The numbers in the national poll differed only slightly. Botsch said in his report that views on the war are strongly related to views on Bush’s job performance.
Perhaps surprisingly, the Aiken County survey indicates that 35 percent of those polled will vote Republican, compared to 32 percent Democratic. Another 18 percent aren’t sure which primary they will vote in, and 15 percent said they don’t intend to vote.
But survey questions are often skewed by the “good intentions” factor, Botsch wrote in the survey report. Turnout in primary elections is usually about 30 percent of eligible voters, so many more people actually won’t vote even though they said they would.
Typically, Republicans tend to vote more than Democrats, so the numbers in January should be higher for the GOP than in the survey. Still, Botsch said residents seem unusually interested in the Democratic primary.
Hillary Clinton enjoyed a 35 percent to 23 percent edge over Barack Obama in the poll for those intending to vote in that primary, with John Edwards third at 16 percent. Among Republicans, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson led a wide-open vote with 16 and 15 percent. Since the survey was taken, however, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney have topped the Iowa caucus polls. Results from Iowa and New Hampshire could impact results in Aiken County and South Carolina.

The Aiken Standard