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Dr. David Woodard comments on South Carolina GOP candidates from Thomas Hanson on Vimeo.

Photo gallery by Andrea Piscarcik

Woodard: Nikki Haley is a libertarian, not a conservative

Dr. David Woodard, a professor of political science at Clemson, told the Greenville County Republican Women July 22 that Nikki Haley is a libertarian, not a conservative.
“The well springs are different for those movements,” Woodard said. “Libertarians believe in individual autonomy, and conservatives believe in the care of the culture for traditional values. Mark Sanford was also very much influenced by libertarian policies.”
“I haven’t heard a lot of rhetoric from Nikki Haley that is truly conservative,” he said. “I have heard a lot that is libertarian.”
Woodard said the allegations about Haley’s personal life need to be addressed. One of her accusers has released 600 to 700 e-mails, while Nikki Haley has refused to respond because, as a state representative, her e-mails are protected under state law. Her computer is embargoed because it was used as a state computer.
“I think she needs to release her e-mails,” Woodard said.
Woodard also said Haley needs to address an unsigned consulting contract in which she made more than $40,000.
Democrat candidate Vincent Sheheen released his tax returns going back 10 years, but Haley has yet to do so.
“These things will inhibit this candidate running for this top office,” he said.
Sheehen was a student of Woodard’s, and Woodard called him a “very bright, articulate candidate.” He comes from one of the most powerful political families in the state, and his uncle Robert Sheheen was speaker of the South Carolina House.
On social issues Sheheen is a conservative. Sheheen is Catholic, and if he takes his church’s view on abortion, stem cell research, gay marriage and euthanasia, “he will be a very formidable candidate,” Woodard said.
Woodard talked about three major trends that have changed politics in the past few years: the emergence of talk radio, 24 hour cable news and web logs.
“We used to have these things called newspapers, but they are rapidly disappearing,” he said. “In their place is television, and television is the most trusted source of news Americans have about politics.”
The 24 hour news cycle forces television commentators to talk about politics constantly. Woodard used the example of Nikki Haley, who was relatively unknown by the national media, but “almost overnight she became a talking point on the national news shows.”
As newspapers have declined dramatically, Woodard said, so has accountability. Web logs can put anything on the web with no accountability, and rumors can get wide circulation.
Woodard predicted that Sen. Jim DeMint will enter the GOP leadership after the November election and “will become an important force nationally.” He noted that first term senators are generally not listened to, but when they win reelection they become what political scientists call “national senators,” which means their influence extends beyond their state to the nation as a whole.
First-term Sen. Jim DeMint is already a national senator, Woodard said, campaigning for conservative candidates in other states.
Woodard noted the four new GOP House candidates in the six districts in South Carolina.
Tim Scott is the GOP candidate in the first district. Woodard hopes that Scott, an African-American, can preach the conservative message in Africa-American communities.
“I teach many African-American students, and they are really searching for answers,” Woodard said. The younger generation does not remember the Civil Rights movement, and many are upset about government intrusion into their lives.
Mick Mulvaney is riding the anti-incumbent mood in the fifth district against John Spratt.
Jeff Duncan, a former student of Woodard, is the GOP candidate in the third district to replace Rep. Gresham Barrett, who ran for governor, and Trey Gowdy, candidate in the fourth district, is a proven commodity in politics, he said.
Woodard said that South Carolina should pick up a seventh seat after the 2010 census.

Pastor Willie Thompson:
‘I thank the Lord that I have been born in America.’

Pastor Willie Thompson: I Thank the Lord That I Have Been Born in America from Thomas Hanson on Vimeo.

View complete video here

View photo gallery here

The Greenville County Republican Women’s Club conducted its annual Americanism meeting June 24 with a luncheon at the Poinsett Club. The theme was “Let Freedom Ring.”

The guest of honor and main speaker was Willie Thompson, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Marines.

The musical program was presented by Greenville in Harmony, a women’s chorus affiliated with Sweet Adelines International. Club members brought items for residents of the Richard Campbell Veterans Nursing Home in Anderson. Nancee Lee Yearick organized the program.

Thompson, who pastors Paramount Park Baptist Church, said that he became involved in the Republican Party in 1976 when he served on the South Carolina Human Affairs Commission when Jim Edwards was governor and was reappointed in 2003 under Gov. Mark Sanford.

Thompson said that when you put on the Marine uniform “you are a weapon and you do not make any apologies for doing what you have been trained to do,” adding that “we give our lives to protect our freedom.”

Thompson said that when he joined the Marine Corps in 1969 after he graduated from high school it was his desire to be willing to give his life for his country because he did not see many opportunities for a young black man at that time.

Thompson became a Christian a few months before he left the Marines through a group called the Navigators. His troops noticed that after he became a Christian he began to treat them better and did not use profanity.

Thompson mentioned the loss of freedoms Christians have experienced in our country. He remembered reciting psalms in public grade schools and high schools.

“The Lord gives us liberty. He gives us life,” Thompson said, and with those liberties comes responsibilities that we cannot neglect without punishment coming upon us. Thompson referred to the Roman practice of abandoning female babies to die, and how the Roman empire no longer exists, and wondered how long America would last as it practices abortion.

Thompson concluded by saying, “We are here in America by the grace of God to do what God intends for us to do. With that freedom has come a great responsibility, and I thank the Lord that I have been born in America.”

GCRWC hears four candidates in last meeting before primary

Greenville County Republican Women hear from Jim Lee, Mick Zais, Converse Chellis and Walt Wilkins May 27. Candidates in attendance Trey Gowdy, Alan Wilson, Tom Corbin, Mike Meilinger. View photo gallery.

Jim Lee	Mick Zais	Converse Chellis	Walt Wilkins (right)
Video	Video	Video	Video

The Greenville County Women heard from Jim Lee, candidate for U.S. Congress; Mick Zais, candidate for superintendent of education; Converse Chellis, incumbent, running for treasurer; and Walt Wilkins, running unopposed to be 13th Circuit solicitor, and the May 27 meeting.
In the audience mingling with voters were Alan Wilson, running for attorney general; Trey Gowdy, running for U.S. Congress; Tom Corbin, candidate for State House District 17; Mike Meilinger, running for comptroller general; and Elizabeth Moffly, candidate for superintendent of education.
Jim Lee, candidate for Congress, said our country is at an intersection with reality and insanity. To the left is the road to big government, straight ahead is the status quo, and to the right is an uphill road to conservative values because we have deviated so far from the core, constitutional principles and Judeo-Christian values our country was founded on.
Mick Zais spoke of his career in the military, attaining the rank of brigadier general, serving on the faculty of West Point and his 10 years as president of Newberry College, a college on probation when he arrived that was recognized by U.S. News & World Report as one of the top colleges in America two years in a row.
Converse Chellis, the incumbent treasurer, spoke of cutting $100,000 out of the state budget, stabilizing the retirement system, refinancing bonds, demanding that local governments receiving state funds submit audit reports, and encouraging South Carolinians to invest in the state’s 529 education savings plans.
Walt Wilkins, candidate for solicitor, spoke of putting drug dealers in jail, deporting illegal immigrants to give jobs to citizens and calling for state grand juries to deal with crime.

Greenville GOP women hear from four candidates at April meeting

Curtis Loftis	Nathan Earle	Elizabeth Moffly	David Thomas
Video	Video	Video	Video

Photos by Andrea Pisarcik

More photos

The Greenville County Republican Women heard from the following candidates at their April 22 meeting: Curtis Loftis, candidate for South Carolina treasurer; Nathan Earle, candidate for SC House Seat 17; state Sen. David Thomas, candidate for the fourth U.S. Congressional seat; and Elizabeth Moffly, candidate for state superintendent of education.

Curtis Loftis
Curtis Loftis, a business man and later founder and director of the Saluda Charitable Foundation, a Christian missionary foundation that builds churches, buys prayer houses, remodels hospitals and sponsors surgeries.

Loftis took 18 months off to run the Department on Aging for Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer and in the first year cut 23 percent from the budget so the department could use that money for senior services. For his work, Loftis received the Palmetto Patriot Award, the highest award the state can bestow.

A couple of months later, Richard Eckstrom, the state’s comptroller general, asked Loftis to do project work on transparency issues. Through this, Loftis realized that no one in the state government has a job description to stop fraud, waste and abuse.

Loftis noted that incumbent treasurer Converse Chellis was chosen by the South Carolina Legislature after the resignation of Thomas Ravenel and that Chellis’ allegiance is to the Legislature, not the people of South Carolina.
Loftis pledged to name and shame those who misuse taxpayer money.

Nathan Earle
Nathan Earle, candidate for the SC House District 17 seat now held by Harry Cato, said that in every race throughout the state and nation, it needs to be said: “As Republicans, we’ve got a lot of reform to do in our party before we start worrying about the junk coming out of Washington. We have some cleaning to do in our own house.”

Earle said he felt Cato was not doing enough to advance conservative principles.

Earle said that Republicans are not acting like Republicans and that often you cannot tell the difference between Republicans and Democrats.
“Until we start acting like Republicans, we have no business pointing a finger at Washington,” he said.

David Thomas
State Sen. David Thomas, a candidate for the fourth district U.S. House seat, spoke about mounting federal debt that will lead to hyperinflation, a devaluation of the dollar, downgrading of the U.S. credit rating and eventually a depression.

In a few years, we will not even be able to pay the interest on the debt, he said.
The No. 1 priority facing the United States today is to control spending, and that is one reason Thomas said he is running for Congress. He called for a takeover this November by “firebrand conservatives.”

The upward trajectory of the national debt, Thomas said, began during the presidency of George Bush and a Republican controlled Congress. “The budget got out of control during our watch,” Thomas said, “and it has gone into the stratosphere since the Democrats took over.”

Thomas called for across-the-board budget cuts including the elimination of some agencies.

Elizabeth Moffly
Elizabeth Moffly is a candidate for state superintendent of education.
Moffly has four points she would like to implement: 1) offer a vocational diploma in addition to a college prep diploma, 2) align the state high school diploma with recommendations from the Commission on Higher Education (you can go to college with 19 high school credits, but you need 24 credits to graduate from high school; 3) align the South Carolina Uniform Grading Scale with other states to eliminate their advantage in being accepted to South Carolina colleges; and 4) set the appropriate levels for teaching the basics of reading, writing and math in kindergarten through third grade.

Greenville County Republican Women hear from state Rep. Nikki Haley, candidate for South Carolina governor; Major Gen. Bob Livingston, candidate for adjutant general; and Dr. Brent Nelsen, candidate for superintendent of education. View photo gallery.

Rep. Nikki Haley (right) and Pamela Sowell	Gen. Bob Livingston and President Kathy Davis	Dr. Brent Nelsen and Pam Arceneaux

GOP primary candidates Rep. Nikki Haley, Major Gen. Robert Livingston and Dr. Brent Nelsen addressed the Greenville County Republican Women March 26.
Nikki Haley
Rep. Haley of Lexington County is a candidate for governor. She began her political career in 2004 by defeating the longest-serving state legislator in the Republican primary.
When Rep. Haley took office, she saw that legislators were passing bills on voice votes that grew government without putting their names with their votes, and citizens had no way of knowing the spending habits of their legislators.
Rep. Haley filed a bill in 2007 requiring votes to be recorded. A report that year showed that of all the bills passed by the South Carolina House, only 8 percent were on the record, and in the Senate, only 1 percent were on the record.
Rep. Haley told the House Republican leadership that passage of her bill would make legislators accountable and “the people will start to trust us again.” The leadership replied: “Put the bill away. We don’t need to have it. We will decide what the public needs to see and what they don’t.”
The leadership then “stripped me” of committee assignments. In Rep. Haley’s first year in the state legislature she was chairman of the freshman class, and the second year she was majority whip. The third year she was put on a powerful business committee, and in her fourth year she was chairman.
Rep. Nathan Ballentine of Lexington and Richland counties was the only legislator who stood with Haley, and they stripped him of everything as well, Rep. Haley said.
Rep. Haley announced that the House passed her bill that morning that would make permanent that every House vote be on the record, and she called on the Senate to do the same.
For more information visit the Haley for Governor web site at http://www.nikkihaley.com/
Major Gen. Robert Livingston
Major Gen. Robert Livingston is a candidate for adjutant general.
Gen. Livingston said the adjutant of general is the head of the National Guard, which is the operational reserve for the U.S. Armed Forces, rotating into harm’s way.
The South Carolina National Guard will continue to deploy 1,000 to 3,500 personnel every year for the foreseeable future, he said, and respond to Homeland Security incidents – natural and manmade disasters. The National Guard is the fifth-largest employer in the state; and will be challenged in the future with budget cuts.
Gen. Livingston led a division of 9,000 people from 18 nations in Afghanistan. He commanded a task force of 8,000 soldiers who were responsible for military installations east of the Mississippi. He has served as a two star general at the National Guard Bureau, and on the staff of Gen. David Petraus at Central Command in Tampa, Florida.
Gen. Livingston has served in the National Guard for 31 years starting as a private. Gen. Livingston has been endorsed by the current adjutant general, Stan Spears.
Gen. Livingston’s campaign web site is www.generallivingston.com.
Dr. Brent Nelsen
Dr. Brent Nelsen, a professor at Furman University, is a candidate for superintendent of education. He called for the development of a world class educational system in South Carolina.
Dr. Nelsen gave three numbers of where South Carolina is now and where it needs to go: 61 – 48 – 12.4.
61 is the percentage of South Carolina students who graduate on time from high school, which ranks the state 50th out of 51 (including the District of Columbia) in the country, and 15th out of 16 in the Southeast. 48 is the ranking of South Carolina students on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and 12.4 is the unemployment rate.
Dr. Nelsen said if we can increase educational attainment we can bring the unemployment figure down and per capita income will rise.
Dr. Nelsen promotes three ways we can improve education in South Carolina: 1) offering more choices, customized and individualized education in the public school system: charter schools, magnet schools, virtual schools, schools within schools, and inter- and intra-district choices; 2) freeing teachers from excessive regulation in the classroom and appropriately evaluating their performance, paying the best ones more and finding new jobs for those who do not measure up; and 3) encouraging families and communities get involved in our schools.
For more information visit the campaign web site at www.BrentNelsen.com.

 

Members of the Greenville County Republican Women's Club
at the March 6 Board Meeting in Columbia

Posted Tuesday, March 2

Gresham Barrett, Robert Bolchoz speak to Greenville Republican Women

Gresham Barrett video
Robert Bolchoz video
Photo gallery 1
Photo gallery 2

Gresham Barrett	Robert Bolchoz

Rep. Gresham Barrett, candidate for governor, and Robert Bolchoz, candidate for attorney general, spoke to the Greenville County Republican Women’s Club Feb. 25 at their monthly Poinsett Club luncheon.
Gresham Barrett
Barrett said he believes in God, the sanctity of life and that elected leaders must do everything in their power to protect that life, that innovation, not taxation is the way to solve energy problems, and that South Carolina should be the nation’s leader when it comes to energy independence. Barrett said he believes in the Second Amendment, the U.S. Constitution and the South Carolina Constitution.
Barrett pledged to not raise taxes to pay for government in South Carolina and said that medical decisions are best left to patients and their doctors, not to bureaucrats in Washington.
Barrett said his political mentor is the late Gov. Carroll Campbell (1987-1995). Barrett called for comprehensive tax reform that encourages business growth and business and industries to come to South Carolina. H said he would restructure the Department of Commerce and hire on a performance basis a director of business recruitment and development from a nationwide search. Barrett would update incentive packages to bring business and industry to the state.
He said that no child should leave the third grade who is not reading at or above third grade reading level, and he intends to make sure a greater percentage of education money makes it into the classroom. All options must be on the table: homeschooling, Christian schools and public schools.
Barrett defended his second TARP vote near the end of President George Bush’s term, saying that the President, secretary of the treasury, financier Warren Buffet and others told him that the banking system was on the verge of collapse.
“I believe with all my heart that we averted a major catastrophe,” Barrett said, adding though that the TARP plan has not been implemented like it should have been. “Nobody has done more as a United States Congressman to ensure that those funds are returned to the taxpayer and paid in full” than he has.
Barrett as voted the fourth most conservative member of the House. He is100 percent pro-life, 100 percent National Rifle Association (NRA), a Friend of the Taxpayers, and was given a 98 percent rating by American Conservative Union.
For more information, visit his campaign website at www.GreshamBarrett.com
Robert Bolchoz
Robert Bolchoz was chief of staff under Attorney Gen. Charlie Condon for three years and served as deputy solicitor in Charleston and has worked in the private sector.
The attorney general’s No. 1 job is to be the state’s chief prosecutor. Bolchoz has prosecuted almost 1,000 criminal cases in his career – murderers, rapists, armed robbers, drug traffickers, “but more importantly,” he said, a Congressman’s son, lawyers, doctors, and four Catholic priests (and Bolchoz grew up Catholic).
“The attorney general must not only know how to prosecute a criminal case, but has to have the nerve to prosecute a criminal case,” Bolchoz said, adding that “I have the nerve to do the right thing” on behalf of citizens of South Carolina.
Bolchoz said that to combat South Carolina’s gang problem he would concentrate on mandatory jail terms for felony possession of firearms, comprehensive reform of the criminal code so all citizens know what the crimes and what the sentences are, and to combat the growing illegal alien problem.
Bolchoz said the attorney general is the state’s chief securities commissioner and that he has managed brokers and financial advisers and worked in and understands the financial markets.
Kathy Davis is president of the Greenville County Republican Women, and Pamela Sowell, program director, introduced the speakers.

Posted 2:15 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 30

Leighton Lord, Christina Jeffrey speak to GCRWC Jan. 28

Leighton Lord (right) former state Rep. Glenn Hamilton	Christina Jeffrey (right) Pamela Sowell

More photos by Andrea Pisarcik

By Thomas C. Hanson
Christina Jeffrey, a candidate for the fourth district U.S. congressional seat, and Leighton Lord, a candidate for South Carolina attorney general, spoke to the Greenville County Republican Women (GCRW) meeting at the Poinsett Club Jan. 28.
Dr. Jeffrey, a lecturer at Wofford College, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the seat held by incumbent Rep. Bob Inglis, said, “I am first and foremost a Christian,” and “I believe that a great country is an important asset” for Christians.
Dr. Jeffrey said she hates tyranny in all its forms and that it is the natural condition of human beings. Tyranny flourishes, she said, when people are ignorant and complacent, when you don’t have the kind of freedoms we have. Our founders gave us incredible tools to keep our freedoms, and if we lose some of them, to get them back.
Leighton Lord said he is an Army brat born in Hawaii and joked that “unlike someone we know, I have a birth certificate.”
Lord referred to an essay written by evangelist Billy Graham, “The Moral Weight of Leadership,” in which Graham wrote, “We must not be tempted . . . to divorce character from leadership.”
Lord worked the Ronald Reagan campaigns in the 1980s. After graduating from the Vanderbilt Law School in 1989, he went to Washington to work for four years as the Republican staff council for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in Washington. In this position, Leighton investigated organized crime, gang violence, child pornography and immigration fraud.
Lord spent two weeks on the Mexican border with border patrol agents, and visited the San Diego district attorney’s office to watch the prosecution of criminal aliens. To learn about organized crime, Lord spent days with mobsters and traveled the country with FBI agents. He learned about gang violence by driving the streets of Los Angeles with law enforcement officers.
He took the knowledge back to Washington to contribute to hearings and help draft legislation to make our country safer.
In 1994, Leighton went to work for Nexsen Pruet, the second largest law firm in South Carolina. Four years ago, Leighton was elected managing partner, which has given him executive experience.
Lord said the attorney general should be the chief legal officer in the state and as such should coordinate solicitors, sheriffs and law enforcement officers and help them do their jobs better. He called for a comprehensive crime bill in South Carolina because the state is No. 1 in violent crime and is in the top five in domestic violence deaths and in the top five in DUI deaths, yet South Carolina imprisons more people per capita than any other state.
The meeting was the first conducted by Kathy Davis, new president of the GCRW.

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Ken Ard speaks.
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