Carolina Politics Online

U.S. Rep. Henry Brown introduced legislation today prohibiting the use of government funds to transport any terror detainees to the Navy Brig in Hanahan from their current holding site at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

President-elect Barack Obama is looking at ways to shut down the operation at Guantanamo Bay and bring prosecutions to the U.S. If that happens, one potential holding site is the brig at the Charleston Naval Weapons Station. About 255 detainees are held at Guantanamo.

The Post and Courier

I agree with Brown.  There is no reason to take these people out of Guantanamo and it is foolish to bring them on to American soil.  These are enemy combatants picked up off the battle field.  We don’t need to bring them within the borders of our nation and increase the threat and we definitely don’t need them in South Carolina.

Congressman Henry Brown (R) and his challenger Linda Ketner (D) appeared before over 100 people at the Rotary Club of Charleston to take time to discuss where they are on the issues and what they would explore in the next session of Congress is elected.

Ketner, who has never sought office before, said she agreed with Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain when he said “government is broken.” She said President Clinton’s 1999 decision to get rid of Depression-era regulations that separated banks, insurance companies and investment houses is at the root of the problem.

“I’m not going to blame the Republicans because there’s a lot of blame to go around. A lot,” she said. “I believe it was preventable. I believe it was predictable, and I don’t believe we have the right solution to it yet.”

It’s nice to hear her give an honest take on this instead of just finger pointing at the GOP like a lot of Democrats have wrongly done in the past month.  Indeed there is a lot of blame to go around and some of the major players who shaped this disaster aren’t being held accountable.  In fact, a couple of them were put in charge of writing the bailout.

Brown, who is seeking a fifth term, said the nation’s toughest issue is coming up with a new energy policy that will help wean the nation from its $700 billion dependence on foreign oil, and he promised to pursue domestic sources even if environmental groups don’t like it.

It has to be done.  We absolutely must continue to expand domestic drilling and build more refineries while we continue to explore other alternatives.  There is no argument here.

On balancing the federal budget, Brown said he wants to see Congress be required to balance the budget, like the South Carolina General Assembly must do.

Another excellent suggestion by Brown, but quite frankly, I find it a very unlikely goal considering the way this Congress has behaved and in the face of an Obama presidency with a Congress with expanded Democrat majorities it will be impossible to balance the budget without raising taxes through the roof in order to cover the additional socialism they have been proposing.

On immigration, Ketner said she would like to see the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, or SPAWAR, get a contract to build a “virtual wall” along the U.S.-Mexico border, and Brown said the nation needs to identify its 12 million to 20 million illegal immigrants “and return them to their destination.”

Ketner said she also didn’t support amnesty.

I’m actually not that big on the wall, although I’m not opposed to it.  I just think if we went after the employers with the approrpriate force and fierce aggression to stop the willful practice of hiring illegals for cheap slave labor we wouldn’t need to build a wall on the border because there would be no further reason for people to illegally come here.

I haven’t decided yet who I am supporting in this race, but Ketner scored a big plus with me when she said the following:

“I think I’m going to be the bane of Nancy Pelosi’s existence. I really do,” she said, adding that more members of Congress should take their cues from the people, not their party’s leaders.

The Senate as you are well aware by now passed a sweetened version of the bailout Tuesday evening.  The House voted again today and complied, as I suspected they would.  So the dirty deed is now done.  Bear in mind that this bill was rife with waist added by the Senate on Tuesday night that had nothing to do with the economical turmoil.

• $2 million tax benefit for makers of wooden arrows for children
• $100 million tax break to benefit auto racetrack owners
• $192 million in rebates on excise taxes for the Puerto Rican and Virgin Islands rum industry
• $148 million in tax relief for U.S. wool fabric producers
• $49 million tax benefit for fishermen and other plaintiffs who sued over the 1989 tanker Exxon Valdez spill.

People, are you not outraged?  If so, ask yourself why you might be going to the voting booth in November to return the same people to office who just voted for one of the largest Federal power grabs in American history and threw almost a trillion dollars of money we don’t have down the toilet.  Are those of you in South Carolina prepared to give Lindsey Graham another six years?  Think twice.  He’s one of the culprits.  Richard Burr also voted for it on behalf of North Carolina.  Senators Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) opposed the measure.  Additionally, both Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama voted for the bailout as did VP candidate Joe Biden.

I can’t get the vote information from the House yet.  The Web site must be getting swamped with traffic because it’s timing out on me, but I’ll post it as soon as I have it available.

Update: I now have the House roll. Sue Myrick and Gresham Barrett flipped on this, voting for the bailout today, whereas they voted against it before.

Voting for the bill:

• Bob Etheridge (D-NC-02)
• David Price (D-NC-04)
• Howard Coble (R-NC-06)
• Sue Myrick (R-NC-09)
• Mel Watt (D-NC-12)
• Brad Miller (D-NC-13)
• Henry Brown (R-SC-01)
• Joe Wilson (R-SC-02)
• Gresham Barrett (R-SC-03)
• Bob Inglis (R-SC-04)
• John Spratt (D-SC-05)
• Jim Clyburn (D-SC-06)

Voting against the bill:

• G.K. Butterfield (D-NC-01)
• Walter Jones (R-NC-03)
• Virginia Foxx (R-NC-05)
• Mike McIntyre (D-NC-07)
• Robin Hayes (R-NC-08)
• Patrick McHenry (R-NC-10)
• Heath Shuler (D-NC-11)

As I’m sure you have heard by now, the $700 billion bailout failed to pass the House of Representatives today by a mere 13 votes.  I was opposed to this bailout, so I am rather pleased, for now.  They’ll try something again.  I just have a huge issue with this theory that corporations can privatize all of their gains but socialize their losses.  That just doesn’t seem quite right to me.

This video pretty much sums up my thoughts.

So how did your representative vote?  Did they vote to use your tax dollars to bail out Wall Street fat cats or did they vote to save your tax dollars?

Voting for the bailout were:

• Bob Etheridge (D-NC-02)
• David Price (D-NC-04)
• Mel Watt (D-NC-12)
• Brad Miller (D-NC-13)
• Henry Brown (R-SC-01)
• Joe Wilson (R-SC-02)
• Bob Inglis (R-SC-04)
• John Spratt (D-SC-05)
• Jim Clyburn (D-SC-06)

Voting against the heinous bailout were:

• G.K. Butterfield (D-NC-01)
• Walter Jones (R-NC-03)
• Virginia Foxx (R-NC-05)
• Howard Coble (R-NC-06)
• Mike McIntyre (D-NC-07)
• Robin Hayes (R-NC-08)
• Sue Myrick (R-NC-09)
• Patrick McHenry (R-NC-10)
• Heath Shuler (D-NC-11)
• Gresham Barrett (R-SC-03)

Boy, the South Carolina delegation sure sucks a nut.  David Price is no surprise.  He loves using your money to give special favors to all of his corporate friends.  Same with Henry Brown.  I expected Watt to be on the yea list as well because he is a Socialist.  Overall it looks to be just about split down the middle.  Now you know who is on your side and who is pining for the Rockefellers.

The U.S. Senate today overwhelmingly sent President Bush a spending bill of $634 billion to keep the government “operating beyond the current budget year.”  If only that were the case.  This budget passage, as every other, consisted of a hogfest of a Congressional pen of pigs in starched white shirts feeding from the trough that you and I provided.  This thing is stuffed with thousands of earmarks in addition to $25 billion of taxpayer funded loans to help bailout the automakers.  The bill was presented in its final form from the House to the Senate as H.R. 2638, Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2008, sponsored by none other than our very own Representative David Price (D-NC-04).

How did our representatives vote?  As usual, in the Senate Jim DeMint stood up and vocally opposed the legislation.  Lindsey Graham joined him in voting against it.  Richard Burr made a rare and unusual move, voting Present, Giving Live Pair.  What this means is that somebody else who not present at the vote and knew they wouldn’t be who planned on voting the opposite way Burr was made a deal with him to vote present so that the outcome wouldn’t be altered by their absence.  In other words, for the sake of argument, let’s say Burr was hypothetically going to vote No, but John McCain was absent and was planning to vote Yes which would cancel out Burr’s vote anyway.  McCain would ask Burr to vote Present then so that the same result is produced.  As I said, this is just a hypothetical.  Burr may have intended to vote Yes and made a deal with an absent Senator who wanted to vote against it.  And we can’t forget Liddy Dole who as usual voted for her pork.

In the House we had the following voting for the waste:

• G.K. Butterfield (D-NC-01)
• Bob Etheridge (D-NC-01)
• David Price (D-NC-04)
• Howard Coble (R-NC-06)
• Mike McIntyre (D-NC-07)
• Robin Hayes (R-NC-08)
• Sue Myrick (R-NC-09)
• Patrick McHenry (R-NC-10)
• Mel Watt (D-NC-12)
• Brad Miller (D-NC-13)
• Henry Brown (R-SC-01)
• Joe Wilson (R-SC-02)
• John Spratt (D-SC-05)
• Jim Clyburn (D-SC-06)

Voting against the waste were:

• Walter Jones (R-NC-03)
• Virginia Foxx (R-NC-05)
• Gresham Barrett (R-SC-03)
• Bob Inglis (R-SC-04)

Heath Shuler did not vote.

In a nut shell, Congressman Henry Brown started a fire on his property in 2004 that spread to a nearby national forest, negligent behavior that comes with criminal liability, or at least it used to until Brown had the law changed.  He was charged and fined almost $6,000 for the incident after a top Forest Service law enforcement agent was given the go ahead by the U.S. Attorney to do.  Brown eventually paid a reduced fine of under $5,000 after he huffed and puffed around Capitol Hill and entangled several Federal officials in the mess eventually costing taxpayers $100,000 to save himself $1,000.

Brown claims he was treated unfairly and made an example of because he was an elected official and he was just shocked at this treatment he received.

“I was so taken aback that I’d be treated so impersonal — like I was some kind of crook,” Brown said Wednesday. “Those were criminal charges that were filed against me. I felt like I was the victim.”

The State

Well duh, McFly!  You mean after all of these years in Washington you haven’t figured out that the government which is supposed to be of and by the people shits on us regular schmoes every day of the week?  How many mistakes does the government make that it never has to pay up for?  Do you think a regular guy off the street could have fought back against the Federal bureaucracy that you have easy access to?

So what happened here?  Was the Federal law too harsh and unfairly criminalizing people over an accident?  Was this an instance of Congress not giving a crap about the effects their laws have on people until one of them experiences it personally?  Or did Brown take advantage of his position as an elected official and use it as a bully pulpit to achieve, as Mr. Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said “ticket-fixing at the highest levels?”

Citizens Against Government Waste is a taxpayer watchdog group that ranks our Congressmen on their effectiveness of responsibly managing our tax dollars and not spending it on frivolous pork barrell spending.  Overall, the current Congress sucks the toejam off a homeless man’s foot in this regard, but our representatives from both North and South Carolina were a little better than most.  A rating of 100% is a taxpayer hero and a rating of 0% is a government elected thief stealing your money in order to pander to his constituents at reelection time.  Our two states received no 100s or zeros, but came close on both ends.

Our four Senators did a pretty good job.  Both Burr and DeMint received an honorable mention by the CAGW, each scoring a 97%.  Graham came in with an 87% and Dole with 73%.  Overall, these scores are acceptable.  The House?  Not so much….

The Republicans did decently for the most part, which surprised me because southern Republicans typically are some of the worst abusers for earmarking in Congress.  The Democrats all performed abysmally and Henry Brown, Robin Hayes, and Walter Jones could use some work themselves.

I missed this little gem while I was vacationing in the People’s Republic of Taxachusetts last week, but I ran across a mention of it on FITSNews.  The issue at hand is a bill that Congressman Henry Brown (R-SC) introduced into the House on June 26th, H.R. 6389 for the purpose of removing several dozen acres of Kiawah Island from the John H. Chafee Coastal Barrier Resources System which would allow these acres to be developed and homes built.  As reported by the Post and Courier, the developer is in favor of allowing the future owner of these homes to qualify for federal flood insurance.

Leonard Long, executive vice president of Kiawah Development Partners, said his company approached Brown about the legislation earlier this year.

Long said he and his partners support the bill because they believe future homeowners on the spit should qualify for federal flood insurance just like other homeowners on Kiawah Island.

Big bucks are at stake - for the developers as well as future homeowners. People with houses in the Coastal Barrier zone must buy flood insurance from private companies. That can cost $40,000 a year or more for a $900,000 home, compared with less than $2,000 for government-backed flood insurance.

There is a reason for that.  There is a high risk of natural disaster.  If you are going to choose to live in a place exposed to that kind of risk then you need to be responsible for it.  Others shouldn’t be carrying the weight for you, but Brown thinks that is perfectly acceptable.

U.S. Rep. Henry Brown on Thursday defended a bill that would help future homeowners on the undeveloped southwestern end of Kiawah Island qualify for federally subsidized flood insurance.

It’s not going to be your regular Joe Sixpack buying these homes; it’s going to be upper class elitists.  These homes are going to be expensive because of the natural amenities nearby and also because of the higher costs of insuring them due to hurricane risks.  Therefore, you and I are paying higher taxes so as to not burden “the Rockefellers” who will be living there.

With higher gas and food prices and a stagnant economy, why is Henry Brown asking the poor to prop up the wealthy?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: KATHERINE JENERETTE’S 75-Day Whirlwind Campaign for US CONGRESS

SUBJECT: Republican Congressional Candidate Katherine Jenerette thanks All-Volunteer Campaign Team - Congratulates U.S. Rep. Henry Brown, Jr. and remarks on the November Election

DATE: June 10, 2008

FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.jenerette.org

PHOTOS at: www.jenerette.org/photos

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate U.S. Rep. Henry Brown, Jr. and offer my support to both him and to all the members of the Republican slate of candidates for the November 2008 general elections. With the primary election behind us it is time to ‘bury the hatchet’ and to come together in order to best serve our District and our State of South Carolina in anyway we each can as a party with an agenda for the future.

Two and a half months ago I was an Army Lieutenant at Ft Benning, Georgia, serving alongside some of the best young men and women this nation has to offer and upon returning home to South Carolina I changed back into civilian clothes and along with a great all-volunteer team of supporters from Charleston, Dorchester, Georgetown, Berkeley and Horry Counties I started my campaign for the U.S. Congress.

In a 75-day whirlwind congressional campaign these great team members worked tirelessly and pulled together thousands of voters throughout the district who recognized that times have changed and that a new vision for the future is needed for everything from national security, taxes, energy, the economy, education and illegal immigration. Their efforts were successful in getting out a clear message and we finished the primary election in a solid second place in a three-man race. I am indebted to them all for their hard work in our uphill fight against a four-term incumbent and to each of them individually for their dedication and loyalty to our conservative principles and objectives.

But for now, the real race will be in November’s elections. The battleground is the Presidency and the Congress. And, whether we like it or not, four hundred and thirty five elected representatives set the budget and policy agenda for this entire country. The reality of the unavoidable ‘Obama Factor’ on the voter turn-out cannot be underestimated and our focus must be on Republican results not divisiveness.

The Democrats have successfully painted themselves as the party with a vision for the future and a party with ideas while we Republican’s have had great difficulty in articulating our ‘old’ but principled ideas of limited government, less taxation, national interest, etc. let alone come up with new ideas to deal with our nations future.

These are trying times and Novembers’ election is going to prove itself a historical moment in our nations history. There should be no doubt in any ones mind either Democrat or Republican: This Election 2008 is a fight for the soul of our nation.

We must do a better job reaching a conservative public that has seemed to have lost faith in both politics and politicians with not much more than a status-quo agenda to offer the voters. Boring messages from boring messengers do not bring out the voters.

However, I do know Congressman Brown to be a dedicated and hard worker and I am certain that he recognizes that Washington is a far different place today than it was with a Republican majority in both Houses. The first fight for all of us then is to help Rep. Brown to defeat the challenge from the Democrats candidate for Congress Linda Ketner so he can take the next fight to Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi and somehow slow down her liberal agenda while aggressively carrying the ball for our conservative agenda.

This is no small task.

Anyway, I’ve been active in local, state and national politics since I was old enough to vote and I knew this primary election was going to be an uphill fight. I want everyone who supported me and voted for me to know that I am both humbled and proud of my grassroots organization and the team network that kept us on the playing field through the final minutes of play left on the clock. Thank you.

For me, it’s now time to move forward and look to the future; I’m still pretty young and I’m not planning on going anywhere. South Carolina is my home, my children go to school here, my family goes to church here and we have neighbors, friends and relatives here. And, like many other parents whose children are growing up way too fast, I’m trying to get my son who is in High School to pick a college here in Carolina to attend. Even after this election, the future looks real promising from where I’m standing.

Again, my sincere appreciation to my supporters and to those voters who went to the polls and cast their votes on election day even if they did not vote for me. Our elections are for all the people, which is why I still serve in uniform alongside so many others in the military - so we all could be free to vote our choices and our conscience.

Thank you all and God Bless!

Katherine Jenerette
Email: uscongress@msn.com

We have a three way Republican Primary in South Carolina’s First Congressional District. Henry Brown is an incumbent Congressman running for this fifth term. I really have no feelings toward Brown one way or the other. He isn’t one to show up in the media much. He received a rating of 96 from the American Conservative Union for 2007, not too shabby and he’s been involved in government for about 27 years, starting in the city council, moving up to state office and then Federal.

He has two challengers in the primary. The first, Paul Norris, is the President of Southeast Energy Partners. Naturally, he is big on the coming energy crisis that most Americans have not yet awaken to. I also like how he released his tax returns. He feels that if he is going to be handling others tax money, they have a right to see how he manages his own.

The one candidate that really stands out to me out of the three, however, is Katherine Jenerette. A history professor, mother of four, and a second lieutenant in the army reserves, I think Mrs. Jenerette is the total package that disgruntled conservatives and others disoriented with the Republican Party are looking for. Read and learn:

She said she decided to run for Congress partly out of frustration of how Republicans squandered their congressional majorities.

“We had the playing field, and we fumbled,” she said. “We spent like drunken sailors. We left the party platform behind.”

Jenerette said she favors a federal hiring freeze and the Fair Tax, a plan to eliminate the income tax by significantly raising the sales tax. She said her service in the U.S. Army Reserve would make her an important voice on national security issues.

As for the Iraq war, she said, “We can sit here and be Monday morning quarterbacks. We’re there because of our national interests. We’re there because of oil. What angers me is how we’ve made it into a political football.” She said she supports U.S. Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq and would pounce on his critics.

Jenerette said education is a big issue with her, and she would push to abolish the federal No Child Left Behind Act. “It’s created a nightmare bureaucracy for our schools.”

Marvelous. She hit the fiscal issues, the education issues, and the military issues right on the button. Additionally, she points out how Congressional Republicans have lost their way and threw a platform for success overboard to satisfy their own greed. Ah, it brings tears to my eyes.

It’s very difficult to take down an incumbent, even more so in a primary, but hope springs eternal. I hope enough Republicans who are looking for a return to the Class of ‘94 ideals are paying attention in this race. They have a candidate.

Speaking to more than 150 supporters jostling for space under a rental tent in Charleston’s Cannon Park, Charleston businesswoman and philanthropist Linda Ketner kicked off her Democratic bid for the 1st Congressional District seat.

“What we need to do together is to forge a new path forward,” she said, noting the rising cost of gassing up, rising health care costs, the current wave of foreclosures, lost jobs and an education system in need of improvement. “I want you to elect me to lead that new path forward.”

Saying that “you need to be more than strong to be great,” she said she would urge more collaboration and diplomacy on foreign policy. “Homeland security means more than kicking off your shoes and throwing away your shampoo.”

Mayor Joe Riley introduced Ketner, calling her “a human dynamo” and the person most responsible for the state establishing a low-income housing trust fund.

The Post and Courier

I did a post on Ketner not that long ago.  She’s a great candidate for the Democrats.  She’ll definitely be a stronger challenger to Henry Brown than what he has had in the past.

While all six of the state’s congressmen face challengers, none of the races will be repeats as the all the major party losers in the general election of 2006 did not file to run for Congress again.

Fifth District Congressman John Spratt went the longest without a challenger. Republican Albert F. Spencer didn’t file to run against the 13-term Democrat until Saturday.

Spencer and Spratt have met before. In 2004, Spencer got 37 percent of the vote. A much better financed and supported Republican challenger in 2006, Ralph Norman, received about 43 percent of the vote against Spratt.

The 5th District stretches along the state’s northern border and rural Pee Dee areas - from Newberry and Cherokee counties more than 130 miles east to Dillon County.

The most crowded race is in the 1st District, which stretches from the Grand Strand to Charleston. Four-term incumbent Henry Brown will face Katherine Jenerette and Paul V. Norris in the Republican primary, while Linda Ketner and Ben Frasier compete for the Democratic nomination.

In the 2nd District, incumbent Joe Wilson will go for his fourth full term. He faces Phil Black in the Republican primary, while Rob Miller and Blaine Lotz are running for the Democratic nomination. That district runs from Beaufort County north into the northern and western suburbs of Columbia.

Gresham Barrett is seeking a fourth term in the 3rd District in the northwest part of the state. He will face Democrat Jane Dyer in the general election.

Fourth District incumbent Bob Inglis is trying for a third term since returning to Congress in 2004. He will face Charles Jeter in the Republican primary, while Bryan McCanless, Paul H. Corden and Ted Christian face off in the Democratic primary.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn will run for a ninth term in the majority-black 6th District. He will take on Republican Nancy Harrelson in the general election.

The State

Because of gerrymandering, don’t expect any of these to flip.

Jane Dyer of Easley, a pilot for FedEx, announced Thursday as a Democratic candidate in the 3rd Congressional District.

Republican incumbent Gresham Barrett of Westminster is seeking re-election.

Also Thursday, Katherine Jenerette filed as a Republican in the 1st Congressional District where fellow Republican Henry Brown of Charleston is the incumbent.

Dyer said her campaign would focus on pocketbook issues and if elected, she would push economic development, improved education and affordable health care.

The Greenville News

Charleston business executive, Linda Ketner, has thrown her hat in the ring to challenge Henry Brown for his seat in Congress representing South Carolina’s First Congressional District which covers the coastal region from Myrtle Beach down to Charleston. She would be only the third Democratic challenger to Henry in the past five election cycles as the district is so heavily Republican Henry has only faced minor party candidates in 2002 and 2004.

She has a campaign Web site put together that appears to still be a work in progress as the Issues section only details two main subjects: Education and Veterans’ Care. I don’t see eye to eye with her on her ideas for improving education, but I do fully support her recommendations for improving veterans’ care.

Her platform on education seems to follow the typical viewpoint of the Democratic Party. She supports pre-kindergarten education, smaller class sizes, and an increase in Federal intervention. I am of the belief that this agenda will not result in any improvement in public education and in some instances worsen it further. I think four years old is far too young for a child to be attending school all day away from his parents. There is no scientific data proving that smaller class sizes lead to better education and if history is any indicator, public education went south in this country once the Federal Dept of Education was established by the Carter Administration. Increased Federal intrusion and mandates have made it more difficult to teach kids and they are not being taught the knowledge and skills they need that are practical for the working world. I think less restrictions and more “entrepreneurship” on the part of teachers with the freedom to tailor their classes to their specific learning abilities are the keys to success.

On veterans’ affairs, Ms Ketner is to be applauded for her ideas. The way our military veterans are treated is despicable and the Republican Party, which claims to hold the mantle on military support, had their heads in the sand on this until the deplorable conditions of Walter Reed were leaked to the media. Ms Ketner proposes the following changes:

• Provide full disability and retirement benefits to disabled veterans
• Guarantee survivor benefits equal to those of federal employees
• Lower the current retirement age for national guard and reservists to 55, just as it is for federal civilian employees
• Expand the military healthcare system so that America’s Guard and Reservists receive health care benefits even when not on active duty
• Provide travel for active duty personnel and Guard and Reserve soldiers return home from the battlefield
• Provide full GI college benefits for Guard and Reservists
• Automatically accept all disability claims of soldiers returning from the battlefield

Two thumbs up!

Undoubtedly, Linda Ketner is a woman of great character and accomplishment. She is the founder of the South Carolina Citizens for Housing. She personally spent her own time and money volunteering to help victims in Mississippi in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and has sat on the boards of several charitable organizations. She doesn’t just talk, she walks the walk! Furthermore, she is a small business entrepreneur and the founder and current President of KSI Leadership & Management Development.

Linda Ketner has an uphill battle for this seat, but I have a feeling this will not prove to be a typical election year when you look at both the presumptive Republican and Democratic nominees, so nothing should be assumed in 2008.

Supper time came a little late for Lt. Michelle Roberts.

But she didn’t mind.

It was a chance to meet some state political leaders who on Saturday visited the Camp Phoenix headquarters of the S.C. National Guard’s 218th Brigade Combat Team.

‘It’s good to know we have their support, and it’s good to see good ol’ South Carolina folks,’ said the Spartanburg soldier.

The ‘good ol’ ‘ S.C. folks were Sen. Lindsey Graham, Gov. Mark Sanford and Reps. Henry Brown and Bob Inglis, all Republicans.

Camp Phoenix was the last stop on a busy day that included a tour of the Afghan army’s training center and a nearby base where S.C. guardsmen are deployed.

The Post and Courier