South Carolina's Governor's Race

So Jim Rex unveiled his jobs plan for South Carolina today, which, while not as "easy to process" as Sen. Vincent Sheheen's endorsement news from Charleston mayor Joe Riley, is still pretty big news because it actually gives us a sense of what he might try to do as governor. I've decided to provide some quick analysis on what's in here, and what's not. As a quick disclosure, I've kept in mind a simple suggestion from Ashley Woodiwisss offered in Bill Davis's recent article in the South Carolina Statehouse report that I think would work well for Democratic chances: a Newt Gingrich like "Contract with Carolina" or "Palmetto Priorities" that would offer clear, tangible goals that the Democrats could be judged upon during their terms (of course the tricky part is that they'd have to keep their promises). Remember, Gov. Hodges won his election basically by making it a referendum on the "education lottery," and I think the Democrats best chance is to do something similar. So, without further delay, my take on the Jim Rex Jobs Plan.

A new poll out from Public Policy Polling mirrors the results from Rasmussen's poll a week earlier, but PPP adds a wrinkle by including Sen. Robert Ford in the comparison. PPP shows Rex to be the strongest Democrat in the field, polling better than Sens. Robert Ford and Vincent Sheheen against Gresham Barrett, Andre Bauer, and Henry McMaster. Again, Rex beats Bauer and loses to Barrett and McMaster in a head-to-head. What's interesting about the PPP poll, however, is the comparative showing between Sens. Ford and Sheheen. The two state senators have nearly identical numbers against all three Republicans. First, this shows the relative weakness of Bauer, as Bauer's lead is within the margin of error against Senator Ford, and barely outside the margin of error against Senator Sheheen (McMaster and Barrett have comparative numbers agains Sheheen and Ford; however, McMaster fares better against Rex than Barrett). However, this can't be good news for Senator Sheheen. Last quarter, he raised more money than his Democratic counterparts, but that fundraising advantage hasn't translated into any polling success (the bright spot, if you could call it bright, is that he's the least known among the candidates; his "not sure" in the favorability ratings was the highest at 78%). These results also seem to indicate that the "not a Republican" vote is concentrated at around 26-28%, which is where Ford and Sheheen sit against McMaster and Barrett. However, as I mentioned in reference to the Rasmussen poll, these polls are very early in the contest, as the "undecided" vote seems to hover around 30%, which indicates that there's plenty of room to grow for all these candidates.

Mike Huckabee's recent unwanted publicity (his commutation of a man who later went on to murder four Seattle police officers) has not stopped Lt. Governor, and 2010 candidate for the top South Carolina job, Andre Bauer from posing for a picture with him tonight in New York. Not only was he seen with Huckabee, but he is promoting it as if a Huckabee affiliation or later endorsement can be an asset to him. On Twitter Bauer writes, "Speaking with my good friend, Gov. Mike Huckabee in NYC" attached with the picture posted here. This is very interesting considering that public endorsements usually don't translate into votes, but controversial affiliations can doom a candidacy. I'm not sure what the Huckabee effect will be, but I think that it would likely hurt Bauer more than help him. This is a very tough on crime electorate, especially in the upstate. Interestingly, a recent PPP poll suggests that Huckabee actually hasn't been hurt much by the controversy. I wonder what it would look like if they polled just South Carolina residents.

Thanks to Jim Rex's Facebook status, I'm now aware of a new batch of polling released by Rasmussen. The highlights: Jim Rex does the best of the two named Democratic candidates. He loses by 7 to State Attorney General Henry McMaster, by 6 to Rep. Gresham Barrett, and he actually beats by Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer by 1 (which, of course, is within the +/-4.5% margin of error, so technically it's a tie). State Senator Vincent Sheheen loses to all three candidates. Barrett does better against Sheheen than McMaster, but both candidates have an advantage of at least 17 points. Of course, "Some other candidate" and "Not decided" earn at least 28% in each matchup, so there's plenty of room for these numbers to change over the next few months.

Does anyone else remember reading Highlights as a kid? Do you remember how they would show two images side by side and it was your job to pick out the differences? Well, check out these two websites, one from Jim Rex (current Superintendent of Education):


And now from Frank Holleman, running for Superintendent:



I think the two candidates might have used the same web designer.

Over the course of the next month, scgovernorsrace.com will be launching as the news site for information about the 2010 South Carolina Governor's Race. We'll be serving as a centralized hub for all your 2010 news, which will be supplemented by analysis from two of South Carolina's self-proclaimed up and coming political minds. Watch us over the next month as we experiment with formatting and design, and look for our first posts on the state of the election and the impact of the Sanford Ethics Investigation on the election and its candidates.