Mullins McLeod on Frank Knapp's Show

by: michaelrodgers

Sat Nov 21, 2009 at 16:23:35 PM EST

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mullins McLeod was on Frank Knapp's show UNeed2Know on Thursday, November 19 (listen).

He answered a lot of questions, including one about the Confederate flag:

[I]n my economic plan, my jobs plan, I mention that we need to remove the Confederate flag from the State House grounds. ... You know, we're competing every day for jobs against North Carolina, Georgia and Virginia, and don't think they don't use that against us.

Mullins McLeod's answer is exactly right. See the complete answer in the extended text.

Mullins McLeod said:

[I]n my economic plan, my jobs plan, I mention that we need to remove the Confederate flag from the State House grounds. And it's not that I would necessarily want to bring up the Confederate flag debate, but the point is we've got to be intellectually honest with ourselves in South Carolina. Where are we and where do we need to go?

You know, we're competing every day for jobs against North Carolina, Georgia and Virginia, and don't think they don't use that against us.

In addition, how can we be intellectually honest with ourselves and say we're going to market this state as a progressive state ready to embrace everything the 21st Century has to offer with the flag sitting there?

And it's not a theoretical discussion. It's hurting our state. If you look right now, I mean, we can't have an NCAA tournament here because of that. Those are millions and millions of dollars that would be infused to our local economies, in addition, the marketing from having the sports venues here. And we're losing that.

The ACC tournament in Myrtle Beach, the ACC commissioner has taken the tournament away because of that. That's not the image we need to portray. If we're going to move forward, that's something that I believe we need to do.

It's about jobs. I mean, it's about economic development. We've got to get serious about it.