Tag: John McCain

The Dirty Tricks Campaign Against Johnny Gardner

We live in a political climate where dirty tricks are used to create rumors to smear those seen as enemies by the rumormongers.

These rumors, lies are what they really are, come in all shapes and sizes, but they have the same thing in common – to discredit the person they are aimed against.

How well they work depends on the gullibility of the audience they are targeted to influence.

Some of the more ridiculous rumors about public figures we have heard include:

Justice Brett Kavanaugh as a young man attended parties where women were routinely gang raped. That one pushed the envelope too far to be believed.

In late 2015 when Donald Trump had established himself as a serious contender for the Republican nomination, a fake story said he told a magazine in 1998 if he ever ran for president it would be as a Republican because “they’re the dumbest group of voters in the country” and that “he could lie and they’d still eat it up.” Rather than hurt him with Republican voters, Trump went on to win the nomination and election.

In the 2000 primary season, John McCain was accused of fathering an illegitimate black child, which was actually a child from Bangladesh that McCain and his wife adopted. This one stuck a bit with South Carolina voters as George Bush came from behind to win the South Carolina primary and go on to be elected president.

Rumors were circulated about Nikki Haley having multiple affairs during the 2010 primary season, which the voters disregarded. In fact, the rumors were so poorly presented that Haley vaulted from fourth place to win the Republican nomination and go on to twice being elected South Carolina Governor.

More recently, Horry County citizens have been presented with a rumor about county council chairman Johnny Gardner. Interestingly, the Columbia website that played a prominent part in publishing a leaked memo about the fictitious plot from county attorney Arrigo Carotti, written in conjunction with administrator Chris Eldridge, was the same website that played a prominent part in the Haley rumors.

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Bob Kelly Goes Negative on Bubba Owens

The special election campaign for Horry County Council District 3 took a negative turn this week with an attempt to smear Republican candidate Bubba Owens.

This was not unexpected as the campaign of Bob Kelly has been trying for weeks to get out what it thought was damaging information about Owens.

The information came from a search of the public index of court records on Owens.

After that search, Kelly’s campaign consultant, Jim Wiles, sent an email to GSD and other media, which, among other things, decried the “22 year criminal record (of Owens) in Horry County” including “two convictions for criminal domestic violence.”

The email went on to claim “15 criminal convictions” and called Owens a “violent felon with a 22 year history of domestic violence.”

A search of the SLED CATCH system, which is the Criminal Justice Information System of South Carolina, reveals only three entries.

Owens plead guilty to unlawful use of a telephone (a misdemeanor) in January 1997 and public disorderly conduct (a misdemeanor) in June 2004.

Owens was arrested for criminal domestic violence (a felony) in 2013, but the charges were dismissed because no probable cause for the arrest was found.

(The SLED CATCH documents are attached at the end of this story.)

Another attached document is a summons for Owens to serve as a federal district court jurist in December 2015. For those of you not familiar with the law, a convicted felon cannot serve on a jury in South Carolina, neither federal nor state.

So, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division records do not show Owens to be a felon. Neither do SC court system records.

One has to wonder, however, why the Kelly campaign, one which claims his career as a police officer as some kind of shining endorsement and touts the words “Zero Tolerance” as if it were a Bible verse, felt the need to stoop so low.

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Political Bloodsport

Having lived in Horry County for over 28 years, I fully understand that politics is a sport, often a full contact sport where truth and reality are lost in the scrimmage.

There are no requirements for truth or fact in political speech and political advertising. In fact, virtually any truth or fact that finds its way into the political discourse is by mistake not design.

We are now inundated with presidential candidates who hope to convince voters to support them in next Saturday’s Republican presidential primary. Below is a piece by College of Charleston professor Christopher Lamb who does a great job of describing what we have to look forward to over the next seven days.

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Romney Visits Conway Tomorrow

Holding a 43 percent to 14 percent edge over second place Ron Paul in recent New Hampshire polls, Mitt Romney is making a trip to South Carolina beginning today.

Needing to demonstrate a strong showing in a socially conservative evangelical state, Romney will begin his visit in Charleston this afternoon. He will be accompanied by S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley and 2008 Republican nominee John McCain who endorsed Romney yesterday at an event in New Hampshire.

Romney, Haley and McCain will appear at a “grassroots rally” at the Peanut Warehouse, 107 Main St., Conway tomorrow morning beginning at 7:45 a.m.

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