Your attention, please

Friday’s editorial again urges voters to give the District 1 Congressional race their full attention. See the bottom of the post for a discussion of a new poll showing surprising standings in the race.

The Grand Strand’s position as a critical battlefield in the fight for the Republican nomination to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Henry Brown was further solidified by two significant endorsements this week.

First, Carroll Campbell III chose his grandfather’s old Cadillac Court hotel on Ocean Boulevard as the site to receive the endorsement of former Gov. David Beasley. With both Tim Scott and Paul Thurmond running strong campaigns, the Beasley endorsement was an opportunity for Campbell to reassert himself - but the Myrtle Beach site demonstrates our community’s growing importance in a crowded race where three frontrunning candidates hail from the Lowcountry.

Notably, despite the dominant rhetoric about “out of control spending” in Washington, Campbell didn’t dwell on this theme Wednesday. He stressed instead the importance of Interstate 73, described fairly lucidly a commitment to the port of Georgetown’s role in the state economy, and mentioned the need for federal dollars for beach renourishment.

“My commitment on getting government funding,” Campbell said, “it has to have a positive economic impact on the area that’s receiving it, and it also has to have a positive impact on quality of life. ... I want to make sure we create the infrastructure, and we give ourselves all the tools to make sure we are successful.”

This is a more traditional description of a Congressman’s role, and frankly a much more sensible approach, than the blind crusade against projects that no candidate is really taking but all of them pay homage to before the tea parties. Our nation’s fiscal future is undeniably unsustainable, but it’s not merely an earmark problem (they’re 2 percent of the deficit). Nor is it simply a war problem, an entitlement problem or even just a spending problem: It’s an overall deficit problem. We’re asking too much of our government, and expecting to pay too little for it.

Some spending is obviously wasteful, and ought to be eliminated for its own lack of merits, perhaps even an across-the-board halt so the larger imbalances can come into focus. But pursuing the projects that have a clear impact on improving our country and our region - our highways, our beaches and our ports - must be our next Congressman’s priority.

With the Congressional race so up in the air, every serious candidate that visits the Grand Strand will likely offer similar promises, and voters must do their utmost to evaluate who will be the most effective. A second significant endorsement this week - this time, from new Burroughs and Chapin CEO Jim Apple - demonstrates how difficult a choice it is. Apple was prominently listed as Horry County Co-Chair of “Business Leaders for Tim Scott,” and told us today that he is convinced Scott has the ability to help expand the Grand Strand’s job base beyond tourism - partly through securing an interstate.

Board chair Egerton Burroughs said the influential company has no position on the race, and that Apple’s decision represents his thoughts as an individual. In fact, Burroughs himself is leaning toward a different candidate, he said, the son of his old friend Strom Thurmond. “Paul’s like family to me, so I’m leaning his way,” Burroughs said, also noting the importance of federal projects for Horry County - and a similar rationale was given by Myrtle Beach City Councilman Randal Wallace in his recent endorsement of Thurmond.

Burroughs noted that in addition to Campbell, Thurmond and Scott, Myrtle Beach accountant Clark Parker is also running a strong campaign that may appeal to Horry County voters. Less than two months now remain before the June 8 primary, so the decision is upon us. These candidates are in our backyard and - more than in any other race this year - we should take every opportunity to hear what they have to say and how they back it up.

The Charleston Post & Courier has an article today about a poll of voters in the district. The results are relatively surprising on their face: Campbell is first with 18 percent, Scott is second with 16 percent, former Charleston County School Board member Larry Kobrovsky comes in third with 10 percent and Thurmond is fourth with 7 percent. The two Horry County candidates, Clark Parker and Katherine Jenerette, are polling at 3 and 2 percent, respectively. Three percent either went for one of the remaining three candidates or refused to say, leaving 40 percent undecided.

What does this poll tell us? Not much, in my opinion. First, the sample was 500 “likely Republican voters,” which the pollsters say gives a margin of error of 4.5 percent. With numbers so low to begin with, that margin wipes out all but the double-digit distinctions; i.e., more people support Campbell or Scott than do Parker or Jenerette, but not necessarily in that order.

Second, the big upset in the poll is Kobrovsky’s place near the top, but he’s the one who commissioned the poll. His numbers on their face are pretty suspect: in a district where there are nearly equal numbers of Republican voters in Horry and Charleston counties (click "View all data" here), a former Charleston school board member is pulling twice the support of the two Horry candidates combined. Granted, “Giant Killer” Kobrovsky recently won a straw poll at a local GOP club – but for the most part for this to be plausible you’d have to assume he still had the support of everyone who remembers him down in Charleston and everyone he’s spoken to up here. And that means winning over the local Tea Party crowd who already seemed pretty taken with Jenerette.

More fundamentally, 10 percent of the sample is roughly 50 people. The copies of the Constitution Kobrovsky hands out may indeed be winning people over, but I’d like to see a larger, independent poll before I’m convinced of it.

 

First, Carroll Campbell III chose his grandfather’s old Cadillac Court hotel on Ocean Boulevard as the site to receive the endorsement of former Gov. David Beasley. With both Tim Scott and Paul Thurmond running strong campaigns, the Beasley endorsement was an opportunity for Campbell to reassert himself - but the Myrtle Beach site demonstrates our community’s growing importance in a crowded race where three frontrunning candidates hail from the Lowcountry.

Notably, despite the dominant rhetoric about “out of control spending” in Washington, Campbell didn’t dwell on this theme Wednesday. He stressed instead the importance of Interstate 73, described fairly lucidly a commitment to the port of Georgetown’s role in the state economy, and mentioned the need for federal dollars for beach renourishment.

“My commitment on getting government funding,” Campbell said, “it has to have a positive economic impact on the area that’s receiving it, and it also has to have a positive impact on quality of life. ... I want to make sure we create the infrastructure, and we give ourselves all the tools to make sure we are successful.”

This is a more traditional description of a Congressman’s role, and frankly a much more sensible approach, than the blind crusade against projects that no candidate is really taking but all of them pay homage to before the tea parties. Our nation’s fiscal future is undeniably unsustainable, but it’s not merely an earmark problem (they’re 2 percent of the deficit). Nor is it simply a war problem, an entitlement problem or even just a spending problem: It’s an overall deficit problem. We’re asking too much of our government, and expecting to pay too little for it.

Some spending is obviously wasteful, and ought to be eliminated for its own lack of merits, perhaps even an across-the-board halt so the larger imbalances can come into focus. But pursuing the projects that have a clear impact on improving our country and our region - our highways, our beaches and our ports - must be our next Congressman’s priority.

With the Congressional race so up in the air, every serious candidate that visits the Grand Strand will likely offer similar promises, and voters must do their utmost to evaluate who will be the most effective. A second significant endorsement this week - this time, from new Burroughs and Chapin CEO Jim Apple - demonstrates how difficult a choice it is. Apple was prominently listed as Horry County Co-Chair of “Business Leaders for Tim Scott,” and told us today that he is convinced Scott has the ability to help expand the Grand Strand’s job base beyond tourism - partly through securing an interstate.

Board chair Egerton Burroughs said the influential company has no position on the race, and that Apple’s decision represents his thoughts as an individual. In fact, Burroughs himself is leaning toward a different candidate, he said, the son of his old friend Strom Thurmond. “Paul’s like family to me, so I’m leaning his way,” Burroughs said, also noting the importance of federal projects for Horry County - and a similar rationale was given by Myrtle Beach City Councilman Randal Wallace in his recent endorsement of Thurmond.

Burroughs noted that in addition to Campbell, Thurmond and Scott, Myrtle Beach accountant Clark Parker is also running a strong campaign that may appeal to Horry County voters. Less than two months now remain before the June 8 primary, so the decision is upon us. These candidates are in our backyard and - more than in any other race this year - we should take every opportunity to hear what they have to say and how they back it up.

The Charleston Post & Courier has an article today about a poll of voters in the district. The results are relatively surprising on their face: Campbell is first with 18 percent, Scott is second with 16 percent, former Charleston County School Board member Larry Kobrovsky comes in third with 10 percent and Thurmond is fourth with 7 percent. The two Horry County candidates, Clark Parker and Katherine Jenerette, are polling at 3 and 2 percent, respectively. Three percent either went for one of the remaining three candidates or refused to say, leaving 40 percent undecided.

What does this poll tell us? Not much, in my opinion. First, the sample was 500 “likely Republican voters,” which the pollsters say gives a margin of error of 4.5 percent. With numbers so low to begin with, that margin wipes out all but the double-digit distinctions; i.e., more people support Campbell or Scott than do Parker or Jenerette, but not necessarily in that order.

Second, the big upset in the poll is Kobrovsky’s place near the top, but he’s the one who commissioned the poll. His numbers on their face are pretty suspect: in a district where there are nearly equal numbers of Republican voters in Horry and Charleston counties (click "View all data" here), a former Charleston school board member is pulling twice the support of the two Horry candidates combined. Granted, “Giant Killer” Kobrovsky recently won a straw poll at a local GOP club – but for the most part for this to be plausible you’d have to assume he still had the support of everyone who remembers him down in Charleston and everyone he’s spoken to up here. And that means winning over the local Tea Party crowd who already seemed pretty taken with Jenerette.

More fundamentally, 10 percent of the sample is roughly 50 people. The copies of the Constitution Kobrovsky hands out may indeed be winning people over, but I’d like to see a larger, independent poll before I’m convinced of it.