Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:06 pm
Oh Lord: An overgrowth of Republican presidential candidate kudzu is blanketing South Carolina these days. The Palmetto state appears to be an imperative stopover for anybody who has even remotely thought about entering the 2016 Republican presidential primary. And there is a bunch of anybody’s. The first big boy appearance in the Upstate was the redoubtable radical, Canadian citizenship renouncing, Ted Cruz.
Cruz is so far out there that those attending his speaking engagements are encouraged to show up in full space regalia. Cruz considers himself to be God’s candidate. To that end, he announced his intentions to run at Liberty University, founded by the late Jerry Falwell, a Cruz clone in matters religious.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Much was made by progressives that Liberty student attendance at the announcement was mandatory. Ergo, the national media could report a packed house of 10,000. Don’t show up and you supposedly face a $10 fine. Trust me, if you’re attending college at Liberty, you’re enthusiastically showing up for the political version of a tent revival.
Here’s what could be expected of a Cruz victory: Repealing the president’s health care plan, jerking the coverage rug from 10 – 16 million people. He predictably hates gays, with Barack Obama and women not far behind. Yes, Cruz is that wacky. He’s also a Princeton undergrad and earned a Harvard Law JD (magna cum laude). He’s smart and insidious enough to manipulate the vote. Don’t take him too lightly.
So Cruz was among the first big names to open the Carolina door in late 2014. He spoke at a community college event aimed at conservative women. Yeah, there’s a real expert on women’s issues for you. You can get a sense of the ultra-conservative political stampede to South Carolina at this site.
I’m here to review the behavior of three likely primary candidates who graced the Upstate in separate local venues from April 16 – 18. In order, we’ll begin with the 16th visit of Dr. Ben Carson. He’s two things you’d think would prevent his embrace of the Republican Party; a doctor and black. You want to be a black president, doc? Review the despicable Republican treatment accorded the current president, also black. That treatment emanates from elected Republicans, white constituent Republicans; virtually any Republicans. If there’s one thing encoded in Republican DNA, it’s racism.
The Senate just voted down an amendment to expand funding for community health centers from two to four years. Republicans don’t give a damn about your patients, doc. After unprecedented push-back from the physician’s community and Democrats, the Senate finally came out of the ether and raised the inadequate reimbursement levels for doctors treating Medicare patients. And that’s the party you’re comfortable with, Dr. Carson?
Carson, a noted neurosurgeon, has a moving, hard scrabble, Hollywood movie, back-story. He was raised by his divorced mother, primarily in inner-city Detroit, with few prospects. According to Bio, he turned his life around after hitting rock bottom at school. He overcame almost psychotic anger issues (he once threatened his mother with a hammer) and terrible grades, to eventually attend Johns Hopkins, Yale and the University of Michigan School of Medicine. He became Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital at age 33.
Wow! For his speech, he was outfitted in a tasteful pinstripe suit, light-blue striped tie and a lapel pin I couldn’t quite figure out. What’s in this political season? His hair, mustache and chin whiskers are graying as befits a 63-year-old man. You have to respect his accomplishments, then you have to scratch your head in wonder as he trashes the Obama Health Care plan as advocating government control. A really dumb take, and not even remotely true, with prescription and insurance prices remaining firmly in private corporate hands, not to mention individual state inputs and numerous options for recipients.
Carson regurgitates the tiresome, fewer regulation, less taxes for business mantra. Meaning, of course, huge businesses. Those businesses that hide their profits and tap into their secretive Super Pacs to buy candidates who preach fewer regulation and taxes to a naive and uninformed right-wing public. Carson loves the fair tax and health savings accounts, as do most other folks worth north of ten million. The doc did admit he doesn’t know squat about foreign policy, but would rely on a “a team of experts” for counsel. Make way for the continued resurgence of The Project For a New American Century.
That’s a great plenty to give you an accurate Dr. Carson political profile, although I guess I should add his attendance and speech at the January, South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention, along with Cruz and Santorum. That intelligence might give further political definition of Carson. Keep practicing great medicine; sir and puh-leeze keep your nose out of something that could bring irreparable harm to a great many children and adults if your tenets are followed.
Ohio Governor John Kasich made a return visit for a Richie Rich lunch on the 17th with the Upstate Chamber Coalition at the Marriott. The Coalitions 13 member organization folks pay a mere $35 to nibble and get their arms twisted, while nonmembers must fork over $50 bucks for the same privilege.
The local chamber had already received a pro-Kasich letter from the Ohio Chamber worded like a groupie love note to Justin Bieber. I’ve already written all you need to know about Kasich’ back in late January. His currently hilarious pitch is “repairing gridlock” (ROTFLMAO) and of course a mandatory balanced budget. That hasn’t happened with revenue in 110 years. So you cut. And the rich will decide what gets cut to their benefit! He claims to have pulled Ohio out of an economic slump. He doesn’t share the part about the hundreds of millions of federal funds coming into the state at the time.
Just another multi-millionaire, owned by the plutocrats, running for president. Is he indeed, running? Yes. He’s already filed for a nonprofit to raise money for an exploration committee and colleague Jason Easley tells us Kasich is just awaiting the thumbs up from God. God help us!
Last, and most certainly least, Rick Santorum graced the County Republican Party’s biennial convention, Saturday, the 18th. Santorum, who can give Cruz a run for his money in bible-thumping nuttery, was the only announced or potential candidate to show up in person. Cruz, Paul, Graham and Walker sent video messages. Santorum, who lost the nomination in 2012 to Mitt Romney, has now branded his snake oil as a “champion of the working class.” He’s even written a book titled “Blue Collar Conservatives.” He will keep Democrats off balance with his support of the prevailing wage and raising the minimum wage in small increments. Conversely,ThinkProgress has dug out Santorum musings comparing Obama Health Care, Medicaid and food stamps to fascism. Such opposition is certainly counterproductive for the “working class.”
He pushed intelligent design for schools until it became politically embarrassing. He questions most of evolution and is opposed to contraception. That’s the latest Rick Santorum.
A convention straw poll of a dozen likely Republicans presidential aspirants, yielded these results: Cruz 33 percent, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker 31 percent and Santorum 13 percent. The remaining nine couldn’t crack four percent.
Brace yourselves Upstaters: Santorum is returning May 5th, but nothing is really official until Donald Trump announces.
Raised rural & small town, then lived in N.Y., Chicago & LA. Widely traveled. Returned from world wandering to pursue media life of anchorman/reporter and major, medium and small market talk radio. Highly active in politics. Once worked as orderly & security in Mens Lock Ward for the Criminally Insane at a state institution. Much more rational population than current Teapublicans. Great concern for country run by and for the extreme wealthy. The inhumane current running through this country has no precedent in modern history.
Follow me on Twitter @demwriter
