Pretty much everyone hates Jim DeMint. I know South Carolina is really conservative, but don’t most people there think DeMint is a grandstanding jackass who gets nothing done for their state? He obviously is loathed by his Republican colleagues in the Senate, including the leadership. The Democrats would rather scratch their eyes out than work with him on anything. He’s a giant idiot, which doesn’t reflect well on South Carolinians. I’d like to think he’s vulnerable to a challenge. Maybe this guy can convince the people of South Carolina that they can do better than having an enormous jackass as a senator.
About The Author

BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Talk show hosts like DeMint.
To them, he’s the voice of reason.
The stupidity of the remark that oil is natural and so do nothing leaves out the fact that drilling is not natural. The oil underneath the surface is natural, but on top of the Gulf waters, is not. Nature can’t take care of this disaster.
That kind of stupid seems to get a lot of attention and what’s scary, consideration.
Is Rawl at least to the left on economic matters? .. I don’t expect him to be pro-life … but I’d hope he is at least not corruptible by the Great Vampire Squid
What? South Carolinians LOVE the way DeMint reflects on them. They are getting exactly what they want.
BooMan, one thing you may not understand is that there is a definite cleavage between the political thinking in the LowCountry (Charleston and the coastal areas) and UpCountry.
The LowCountry is a tourist magnet and is generally urban/suburban, making it a bit more of moderate Republican region. The UpCountry is, as far as I can tell, every bit the stereotype implied by asshats like DeMint.
Your example, Vic Rawls, is a LowCountry guy, and he’ll earn plenty of support there. But it won’t be enough to win a statewide election. There is too much craziness elsewhere. For corroborating evidence, please see: Bauer, Andre.
I grew up in the UpCountry and while the general tone of politics today is conducive to DeMint, most actual Republicans are more like Bob Inglis in tone. And what was the textile area of SC has become the home to Michelin and BMW and other foreign-owned corporations; there is a bit of hidden cosmopolitanism in Greenville and Spartanburg.
But the biggest difference between the UpCountry and the LowCountry is the number of military bases (few in the UpCountry) and the size of the black population (larger in the former plantation areas of the LowCountry). Building up the margins in the LowCountry for Rawls and depressing them in the UpCountry for DeMint is the way it can be won. And that involves an aggressive get-out-the-vote campaign. And lots of local visibility work to make it safe to vote Democratic.
The only thing that argues that this year might be winnable is that it is a mid-term election and DeMint is seen to have so much of a lock on it that he might be too busy politicking for McConnell’s job to notice that he is going to lose. Rawls could catch him snoozing.
Let’s not pretend that the LowCountry is some sort of liberal oasis in South Carolina. It’s not, they’re just more moderate and less antagonistic about everything. To top it off, there are still teabaggers aplenty down here. No, Rawls cannot count on “building up a lead” down here, he can probably only hope to keep it close…at which point the UpCountry decides it for DeMint.
As I said, my experience with fellow LowCountry voters is they are essentially moderate, on both social and fiscal issues. The problem as I see it is the instant one points out absurdly obvious problems with SC Republican Candidate X (really, any one will do), most people shake their heads and say “well what do you expect from a politician?” Down here, a Broderesque pox on both houses is the instinctive response to any serious critique of Republican governance. (OT note: I wonder if that’s just how moderates roll, pathologically inclined to NOT take a stand and pick a side.)
The idea that we can and should expect competence and professionalism from our public officials is just a foreign concept to many South Carolinians. We can’t imagine it any other way. Corrupt And Stupid is the only government we’ve known for so long, it never occurs to us that the corruption and stupidity mostly resides in only one political party.
I was about to remark on the fact that this is a recent development. And then I discovered that Richard Riley was governor a quarter century ago. So there’s been about two decades of stupidity.
I think your discourse on the cynicism and low information habits of moderates is true all over the state and not just in the LowCountry.
I’m not pretending that the LowCountry is some liberal oasis; “progressive” Democrat in SC does not mean liberal. The last liberal in SC was Olin D. Johnston, who died in 1965 still a pro-union segregationist.
But the LowCountry has better demographics for Democrats.
But the biggest problem Democrats have is in restoring the idea that human action can change things. Elections are never foregone conclusions, as Democrats found out in Massachusetts.
From his bio, Rawl looks like a typical “progressive” Democrat in the mold of former Gov. Richard Riley or former Senator Ernest F. Hollings. Which is way away from the right-wing of the current crop of Republican South Carolina politicians.
DeMint apparently has ambitions of replacing Mitch McConnell as minority leader in the next Congress. That in itself argues for every effort to defeat him. At one point, the Tea Party movement was making noises about going after him, but he scrambled to co-opt them. There is some opinion that he might be pandering to out-of-state Tea Party types too much. Which would concern more established and traditional Republicans in South Carolina.
The Sanford debacle has put South Carolina Republicans in a bad place — they’ve repeatedly come off looking like hypocrites to the righteous. It has hurt their credibility.
South Carolina to my memory never has had a close US Senate race; it was only briefly a real two-party state and that was in the 1970s. So it is hard to get a reading on what sort of turnout it would take to get Rawls elected. Essentially, there needs to be enough turnout outside of the northwestern part of the state to offset the turnout in DeMint’s home base of Greenville and surrounding counties. Accomplishing this is going to take some major field work and get-out-the-vote action. And turnout of black Democratic voters is going to be critical; it is that which can reduce DeMint’s margins in his home turf.
What is clear is that a victory by Rawls would help begin South Carolinians to snap out of the thrall of Bushism. And what that requires is for South Carolina Democrats to come out to their friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers and admit that they are proud Democrats. I know a bunch of folks who have sorta been putting their head down since 2000.
BTW, I grew up in South Carolina and still have many friends and relatives there.
this is the State of Sanford, Joe Wilson, Ms. Lindsey..
and, you think they have a problem with DeMint?
the more I see of his colleagues, the more my estimation of Jim Clyburn soars.