The Opinion Blog

Robert Bolchoz: "... Completely focused on the business of overseeing prosecution and serving as the lawyer for the state."

Robert Bolchoz, one of three candidates for the Republican nomination for attorney general, describes the need to return the office to a more workman-like approach, focusing on day-to-day legal matters. As chief of staff to former Attorney General Charlie Condon, Bolchoz can definitely make the argument that he knows what it takes and has done the job.

Bolchoz spoke with The Sun News editorial board May 25. The questions we asked him are listed after the video.

Mick Zais: "I have a record of success, particularly at reforming educational institutions."

Mick Zais, an Army general now president of Newberry College, began his discussion of his candidacy for state Superintendent of Schools with The Sun News editorial board with a nearly half-hour unbroken monologue. It was actually a pretty impressive display, easy to follow because it was so clearly ordered, and likely indicative of a highly organized mind. 

Among its highlights: After an impressive military career, Zais took the reins at Newberry in its death throws, he said, and over eight years restored it from the brink of dissolution into a highly regarded private college. As superintendent, Zais would concentrate on spending education money more efficiently, using public schools to develop the state's workforce, improving graduation rates, improving the safety of schools and improving choice in the public school system (including tax credits for low-income students or those in failing schools).

Zais spoke to us May 11. Find our questions, what few we had left, after the video.

• 0:00 Introduction.
• 28:59 Describe your leadership style during Newberry's turnaround.
• 37:30 How much of the state's education budget should make it into the classroom?
• 39:06 With more cuts expected to schools next year, how will you be able to begin your reform plans?
• As he was leaving, Zais realized he had forgotten to mention one more opportunity for reform: the state currently has 76 different education funding streams, he said, created to satisfy legislators' pet projects but often restricting the individual school districts' abilities to allocate money where it's most needed. Unfortunately, we had already disassembled the video camera and didn't catch this point. 

Elizabeth Moffly: “It’s not that we have bad education. We have bad policy. We have a one-size-fits-all approach.”

Elizabeth Moffly is running for state Superintendent of Schools not as a teacher, professor or administrator, but as an involved - and highly informed - parent. She ran four years ago, and though she lost in the Republican primary to Karen Floyd, she was later chosen to sit on Jim Rex's transition committee and saw many of the policies she supported implemented there.

Moffly spoke to The Sun News editorial board May 11. Our questions are after the video.

To the Willing

By Sunny Fry

Today, there's a lot that will be said about our armed forces, words of honor and praise, with flags and bands and a gaggle of politicians using the occasion to get face recognition.  You deserve the honor, but rather than saying something about you, as I sat to write, I wanted to write something to you.

I know you.  You served with my son, who's safe home now and taking advantage of that marvelous GI bill.  You met me when we went to drop him off, a group of you barreling down the barracks steps in your lousy loose shower shoes, and told me confidently not to worry, that you had his back.  I was with you when you left on that hot, hot day in your full uniforms, sweating and miserable, and all of you still looking so competent and strong and confident, and I felt better when I realized that he wasn't going to have to handle the whole thing all by himself -- that you would be with him, and you were trained and prepared and tough.  And that you loved him, as he loved you.

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Bill Connor: "I am kind of the ... anti-establishment reform candidate."

With his military experience, law degree and small-business background, Bill Connor is a undeniably well-rounded Republican candidate for lieutenant governor. He's also a very conservative candidate, earning the first endorsement the Myrtle Beach Tea Party handed out.

Connor spoke to The Sun News editorial board on May 20. A list of our questions appear below the video.

Absence of evidence

Sunday’s editorial criticizes the continuing revelations about our local campaign-finance scandal.

The fundamental premise behind our campaign finance laws is simple: The public has a right to know who is paying for a candidate’s political campaign.

Back in the Dark

Saturday’s editorial expresses our disappointment in the statehouse’s last-ditch evisceration of a campaign-finance reform bill.

Back in March, we hailed the passage of the S.C. House of Representatives’ surprising and largely unbidden reform to state campaign-finance law, giving voters insight into last-minute campaign donations by ending what is known as the “dark period.”

Sadly, it appears we spoke too soon.

Saturday's cartoon extra

By Kirk Walters, The Toledo (Ohio) Blade

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