What Really Matters in the Race



How should we start comparing candidates in the wide open race to represent the 7^th District? That’s the topic Sunday’s editorial attempts to address:

Counting candidates in the race to represent the Grand Strand’s new 7th Congressional District has become like trying to track rabbit generations. As soon as you count them all, another one is born.

Four months before filing officially begins, the roster of hopefuls seemingly grows each week, with a number of familiar names testing the waters. In the past two weeks we’ve seen Horry County Council Chairman Tom Rice and Myrtle Beach City Councilman Randal Wallace toss their hats into the ring, among others. Local attorney Andrew Preston Brittain and Florence attorney Jay Jordan have also raised their hands.

If long-time teacher and Horry County Schools critic Bobby Chandler (see the letter on this page) joins the race, there will be at least 13 vying for the new seat. We have more than enough people running to form their own football team (The Candidates?). Unfortunately, everybody wants to be the quarterback.

As the race expands – and there’s no reason to expect the number of candidates won’t continue to grow – it’s worth reflecting upon just what we’re looking for in a person to represent our area. The bare minimum, of course, is found in the Constitution: Someone who is at least 25 years old, a resident of South Carolina and who has been a U.S. citizen at least seven years.

But our needs and hopes for a competent representative obviously go much deeper than that, and they strike at the heart of both our moral and political values. As the 7th District looks in the coming months for somebody to represent its concerns and embody its views on a national level, voters should be setting their sights on not just for a candidate well-versed in local issues, who says the right words, puts up the most signs and looks like a politician. Instead, we should all endeavor to look deeper, as much as possible, into the heart of a would-be leader, in search of those important intangibles that count for much more: honesty, integrity, grace, intelligence, compassion and courage.

John F. Kennedy quoted an anonymous Cabinet member in his 1955 classic, “Profiles in Courage,” even then despondent about the state of national politics:

“While I am reluctant to believe in the total depravity of the Senate, I place but little dependence on the honesty and truthfulness of a large portion of the Senators. A majority of them are small lights, mentally weak, and wholly unfit to be Senators.”

Our new district offers us a chance – an amazing opportunity afforded us every two years by our democratic republic – to elect a representative who defies this political stereotype, a leader who embodies the best of our qualities and who helps us achieve our aspirations and reach our goals. That candidate may be in the race already, or he or she may be still undeclared. Sussing him or her out will not be as easy as picking a party or reading a pamphlet, but the payoff is worth the effort.

Anyone can parrot a speech and learn to sound pretty. The leader we hope to elect has more than ambition behind his or her words. In whittling down names over the coming months, it would be well to keep in mind the warning about leaders offered by former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, taken here from a 1928 court opinion:

“The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men [or women] of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”

The hopefuls in the race have a long road yet to travel, and we wish all of them well as they set out on the path to success or – for many of them – disappointment. But as the campaign continues and voters try to sort the best from the rest, it would behoove us to focus as much of our attention, if not more of it, on the character of our prospective leaders as on their ideological positions.

 

If long-time teacher and Horry County Schools critic Bobby Chandler (see the letter on this page) joins the race, there will be at least 13 vying for the new seat. We have more than enough people running to form their own football team (The Candidates?). Unfortunately, everybody wants to be the quarterback.

As the race expands – and there’s no reason to expect the number of candidates won’t continue to grow – it’s worth reflecting upon just what we’re looking for in a person to represent our area. The bare minimum, of course, is found in the Constitution: Someone who is at least 25 years old, a resident of South Carolina and who has been a U.S. citizen at least seven years.

But our needs and hopes for a competent representative obviously go much deeper than that, and they strike at the heart of both our moral and political values. As the 7th District looks in the coming months for somebody to represent its concerns and embody its views on a national level, voters should be setting their sights on not just for a candidate well-versed in local issues, who says the right words, puts up the most signs and looks like a politician. Instead, we should all endeavor to look deeper, as much as possible, into the heart of a would-be leader, in search of those important intangibles that count for much more: honesty, integrity, grace, intelligence, compassion and courage.

John F. Kennedy quoted an anonymous Cabinet member in his 1955 classic, “Profiles in Courage,” even then despondent about the state of national politics:

“While I am reluctant to believe in the total depravity of the Senate, I place but little dependence on the honesty and truthfulness of a large portion of the Senators. A majority of them are small lights, mentally weak, and wholly unfit to be Senators.”

Our new district offers us a chance – an amazing opportunity afforded us every two years by our democratic republic – to elect a representative who defies this political stereotype, a leader who embodies the best of our qualities and who helps us achieve our aspirations and reach our goals. That candidate may be in the race already, or he or she may be still undeclared. Sussing him or her out will not be as easy as picking a party or reading a pamphlet, but the payoff is worth the effort.

Anyone can parrot a speech and learn to sound pretty. The leader we hope to elect has more than ambition behind his or her words. In whittling down names over the coming months, it would be well to keep in mind the warning about leaders offered by former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, taken here from a 1928 court opinion:

“The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men [or women] of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”

The hopefuls in the race have a long road yet to travel, and we wish all of them well as they set out on the path to success or – for many of them – disappointment. But as the campaign continues and voters try to sort the best from the rest, it would behoove us to focus as much of our attention, if not more of it, on the character of our prospective leaders as on their ideological positions.