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In South Carolina’s 4th Congressional District, incumbent Rep. Bob Inglis is on the rocks. The South Carolina 4th is super-red and super-conservative. It houses Bob Jones University and has a large and politically active evangelical community. The voters appear ready to throw Inglis out: PPP’s survey of South Carolina shows the incumbent trailing Spartanburg solicitor Trey Gowdy 37%-33%.
Since his election, Inglis has frequently upset conservatives on the far right. Inglis was one of only 17 House Republicans to vote to censure fellow South Carolinian, Joe Wilson, after Wilson infamously shouted “you lie” at President Obama in the middle of a nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress. Inglis also very publically supported a revenue neutral carbon tax which opened a gap for Mr. Gowdy to threaten the incumbent’s seat from the right. Inglis has told the Tea Partiers that they needed to “turn off Glenn Beck” and even angered the 4th district’s many church goers when in 2006 he cast the deciding vote in the House Judiciary committee to prevent a bill intended to provide constitutional protection for the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. After Inglis voted against the surge in 2007, the crowd at the Spartanburg County GOP convention booed when he was introduced.
PPP’s survey of the 4th district suggests that Inglis will have to fight to win over voters. 33% of the 4th district’s primary voters told PPP that they believed the Republican party was “too liberal” (vs. 39% of statewide Republicans). While 26% of respondents identify with the Tea Party movement (vs. 29% statewide), 70% said they support the movement’s goals (70% statewide). Perhaps most problematic for Rep. Inglis’ prospects is the fact that 45% of district primary voters surveyed told PPP that they “disapprove of the direction of the Republican Party.”
Inglis could conceivably survive in a runoff due to his relationship with one of his opponents, former State Senator David Thomas. Thomas was fairly late entering the race in part due to his reluctance to run against his friend. In a race that is so close, every vote counts. Thomas represented Greenville County in the Senate for the past 25 years and has strong name recognition throughout the district and could deliver his votes and help sway independents. Either way, Inglis is in trouble and will, barring some anomaly at the voting booth, have to make up ground in a runoff if he is going to hang on to his seat.
Terrific! The rule should be, be as conservative as you can politically get away with being in your congressional district or state. Inglis, like Utah’s Bob Bennett before him, obviously fails this test: SC and UT permit truly hardcore conservatism.
One model to follow is Jesse Helms. Not necessarily his politics, which were too conservative for many places.
But the point is that he pushed the envelope, made an effort, and was as conservative as he could get away with being in NC, being willing to drive down his re-elect numbers to the minimum necessary for re-election in order to make a conservative public policy impact, which all concede he made.
He wisely compensated for pushing the envelope, in part by first-rate constituent service operations, nearly unfailingly polite personal behavior, an absence of personal scandal and gaffes, doing the hard work of fundraising, and a having full-fledged ground game, complete with a youth effort.
Carney, I am sorry but Helms? Why bring up that dinosaur? What lasting legacy has he bestowed upon the United States? Surely you are aware that future generations will view him as an embarrassment. His death 2 years ago was met with a monumental “he was still alive?” shrug. But the rest of the things he is being voted against for is almost laughable; Constitutional protection for “In God we trust.” You mean God will get angry at us unless we tell him we will say that and hence have to enshrine it in the Constitution?
I feel for Inglis, he seems like a man of geniune principle (of the not looney kind) even though I disagree with much of it (his opposition to the surge, for example, was wrong). And Glenn Beck is a Mormon fundamentalist polygamist loon who believes he will become a God after life and engage in celestial copulation to create new souls. To me a fair question is who has more religious credibility, Jim Jones or Glenn Beck?
And yes, we need a carbon tax, right now billions of dollars is being funnelled via Saudi Sheiks to Al Qaeda terrorists. Only American hating terrorists are against a carbon tax. I myself don’t buy a penny of imported oil. Guaranteed. (I don’t have a car, and since I live in Mexico all of their oil is Pemex so it is easy for me to get on a high horse, ha)
easton, set aside your knee-jerk reaction to Helms and religious conservatives, and understand the larger point I was making about elected officials having an obligation to expend effort and capital to move policy to the right as much as they can in their given circumstances. I agree with you on the surge, on the distinctive faith claims of Mormonism, and on the need to de-fund our enemies.
Just to focus on the latter, don’t kid yourself. ALL oil funds our enemies, regardless of where it is drilled, refined, sold, and consumed, because the world oil market works in effect like a single entity. Buying any oil removes it from the pool of oil available for the world market, making the remainder more scarce, and allowing our foes to charge that much more for the oil they sell. This is a crucial reality of world geopolitics that must be more broadly understood.
If you want to de-fund our foes on a personal basis, replace your gasoline-only vehicle with a flex-fuel vehicle and fill it up with ethanol.
You can find which makes and models are FFVs at this link (there are dozens to choose from): http://www.e85fuel.com/promoitems/2010_purchasing_guide.pdf
You can find filling stations that sell ethanol here:
http://www.e85refueling.com/
Another emerging possibility, though with fewer options in terms of variety of vehicles, especially from major manufacturers, is battery-electric vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi MiEV, Tesla Roadster, and the upcoming Tesla Model S. Extended-range electric vehicles (also called plug-in hybrids) such as the Chevrolet Volt and Fisker Karma are also of interest, especially if you use them for daily commutes such that you don’t need to fill up on gasoline.
To de-fund our foes an a larger, macro basis, contact your elected officials to urge them to co-sponsor the Open Fuel Standards Act (S. 835 or H.R. 1476), which mandates that nearly all new gasoline cars sold in America (sold, not made, to include imports) be fully flex-fueled, able to run equally easily on any alcohol fuel (ethanol, methanol, etc.) as on gasoline. It costs only $130 per car for automakers to add this feature, so we should make it a required standard like seatbelts. With OPEC sitting on 78% of world oil reserves and rising, we must break the oil’s unnecessary monopoly on our vehicle fuel.
For more info, read “Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil” by Dr. Robert Zubrin. http://www.energyvictory.net
Bye bye, Bob. Bob’s gonna get tea-bagged. Yum!
Perhaps Inglis can get his sweetheart Lindsey Graham to campaign with him today and pull him over the line. They can run on an amnesty program together.
[I tried to post this before, but it's been held up for moderation, perhaps because of the URLs, so I'll replace them with Google terms to copy and paste.]
easton, set aside your reaction to Helms and religious conservatives, and understand the larger point I was making about elected officials having an obligation to expend effort and capital to move policy to the right as much as they can in their given circumstances. I agree with you on the surge, on the distinctive faith claims of Mormonism, and on the need to de-fund our enemies.
Just to focus on the latter, don’t kid yourself. ALL oil funds our enemies, regardless of where it is drilled, refined, sold, and consumed, because the world oil market works in effect like a single entity. Buying any oil removes it from the pool of oil available for the world market, making the remainder more scarce, and allowing our foes to charge that much more for the oil they sell. This is a crucial reality of world geopolitics that must be more broadly understood.
If you want to de-fund our foes on a personal basis, replace your gasoline-only vehicle with a flex-fuel vehicle and fill it up with ethanol.
You can find which makes and models are FFVs at this link (there are dozens to choose from), Google:
2010 Flex Fuel Vehicle Purchasing Guide
You can find filling stations that sell ethanol in your area by Googling:
E85 Refueling
Another emerging possibility, though with fewer options in terms of variety of vehicles, especially from major manufacturers, is battery-electric vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi MiEV, Tesla Roadster, and the upcoming Tesla Model S. Extended-range electric vehicles (also called plug-in hybrids) such as the Chevrolet Volt and Fisker Karma are also of interest, especially if you use them for daily commutes such that you don’t need to fill up on gasoline. (Note that I intentionally omit conventional hybrids such as the Toyota Prius – they are merely fuel efficient gasoline-only cars, and even if we all cut our gasoline usage, OPEC can just cut production to match to spike the per-unit price, and make just as much money as before on reduced sales volume).
To de-fund our foes an a larger, macro basis, contact your elected officials to urge them to co-sponsor the Open Fuel Standards Act (S. 835 or H.R. 1476), which mandates that nearly all new gasoline cars sold in America (sold, not made, to include imports) be fully flex-fueled, able to run equally easily on any alcohol fuel (ethanol, methanol, etc.) as on gasoline. It costs only $130 per car for automakers to add this feature, so we should make it a required standard like seatbelts. With OPEC sitting on 78% of world oil reserves and rising, we must break the oil’s unnecessary monopoly on our vehicle fuel.
For more info, read “Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil” by Dr. Robert Zubrin. Just Google:
Energy Victory
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