State Rep. Dennis Moss (formerly D-Gaffney) is now a proud member of the Grand Old Party.
With House Speaker Bobby Harrell and SCGOP Chairman Katon Dawson by his side, the District 29 Rep announced Friday that he is switching to the Republican Party.
"This was not an easy decision," Moss told the crowd. "But as my State House voting record indicates, I find myself serving with and siding with Republicans on the issues important to my constituents."
The Cherokee County legislator said he is joining the SCGOP because he feels that state and national Democrats no longer represent his conservative values on issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion, and gun ownership.
"[I]n the words of Ronald Reagan many years ago," Moss concluded, "'I did not leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me.'"
Moss' decision to swap teams was likely influenced by the recent election of Republican Steve Moss (no relation to Dennis), who won the neighboring House District 30 seat formerly held by the late Democratic Rep. Olin Phillips. Both districts have been trending Republican for many years and Moss would have likely faced another tough GOP challenger in 2010.
For those of you keeping score at home, Moss' defection and last month's HD 30 special election bumps the GOP's majority in the House back up to pre-election '08 levels - a commanding 73 to 51 seats.
*Special thanks to Brian Frank for sending us the above video of Moss' announcement.
*Seeing Red - read the SCDP's response to Moss' switch below the break.
Steele's nomination signals that the GOP has been paying attention to what's been going on in America and that it's looking for a change. He's telegenic, has won elected office, uses words like awesome, and he's not an old white guy. But, it's going to take a little more than a black face and a pearly smile to revamp the party. In the first RNC chairman debate, Steele railed against Republicans for lack of outreach to people of color. Perhaps he should heap some of that blame upon himself.
The new chairman, of course, has a plan to get the GOP back on track. Aside from being rather vague, he's taking a page out of Dawson's playbook: waiting for the Democrats to %$#* up. From his Blueprint for Tomorrow:
The Democrats will over-reach. And, when they do, our chance to strike a stark contrast will come. Shame on us if we're not ready.
President George W. Bush made it hard to be a white man in America. Katon Dawson is making it even harder. In what promises to be the dirtiest RNC chairman race ever, someone is sending out unsigned e-mails to RNC members of a mock USA Today front page with the titles "RNC Members Choose 'Whites only' and "White House Rejoices with GOP Selection." There's more salaciousness, and you can view it all here. Unfortunately, I can't take credit for this one. According to the Washington Times:
A month before declaring for the chairmanship, Mr. Dawson quit a country club that had barred blacks. Rivals don't call him racist but said they worry that the media and Democrats will exploit the "whites only" issue - even though black Republicans in his state have publicly supported Mr. Dawson for national chairman.
Rob Godfrey at the SCGOP is doing some damage control, sending out a statement pretending like Dawson's membership isn't embarassing and true:
Members of the national committee have come to disregard these anonymous attacks as sad attempts by cynical political insiders to manipulate the outcome of the chairman’s race. These attacks have proven to be as ineffective as they are uncreative. Those responsible for these attacks are clearly not interested in a Republican renewal and appear ready to embrace the failed political playbooks of the past. I hope candidates for chairman continue to hold their campaigns teams to higher standards than to circulate this material.
The RNC members vote on their new loser Friday. If Dawson wins, you can bet that 'whites only' will become the new moniker of the GOP. Well, not that new. Dawson will never whitewash his whites only membership matter no how many black friends he claims to have.
South Carolina’sfavorite conservative self-promoter is back with a new video. Katon Dawson makes it through a whole 1 minute and 27 seconds on YouTube without mentioning Reagan, South Carolina, conservative values, or anything about rebuilding the Republican Party. Instead, his new plan as the would-be RNC chairman is to harass the hell out of Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi until a dead hooker or a live boy falls out of the woodwork. Dawson’s strategy to revive the GOP is to be a mean, nasty, old, finger-pointing bastard because that worked soooo well for John McCain. Dawson also says he wants to be the Democrats' "worst nightmare" because that worked so well for George W. Bush. Politics first, country second…how very Southern Strategy of you Katon. I guess gotcha’ politics is all you got since the GOP’s got nothing.
South Carolina Republican Party chair Katon Dawson, also in the race, said Saltsman made a “mistake” in mailing the CD. “That doesn’t have any place in the public discourse,” he said.
But, Dawson also told The Hill something else recently:
Dawson, too, held back from attacking Saltsman, calling him "an honorable, experienced campaign operative" Dawson considers a friend. "Everyone makes mistakes and Chip made one last week. But for the media to dwell on it distracts from the real issues that we must debate in order to move the Republican Party forward," Dawson told The Hill.
Ah, Katon, you change your mind like a girl changes clothes. And, while Saltsman continues to assert only he understands the invisible line between subtle irony and overt racism, you are probably hoping this will deflect attention from the whites-only country club membership thing. You can’t point too many fingers when you’re missing a few. But, at least your's and Chip's good ‘ol boy credentials are firmly established.
It will be interesting to see if either of these milk duds are questioned or cornered about their particular foibles in the upcoming RNC debate. I wonder if Saltsman will provide the music for them to tap dance around the answers.
So who besides S.C. GOP Chair Katon Dawson also belonged to Forest Lake in ’04?
According to the club directory, two likely 2010 Republican gubernatorial candidates – S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster and lobbyist Carroll “Tumpy” Campbell III – are both members of the non-inclusive establishment.
A few other notable S.C. public officials listed:
State Senator John Courson
Joe Taylor – Gov Sanford’s Commerce Secretary
Kirkman Finlay – Columbia City Council
Kit Smith – Richland County Council
Bristow Marchant – Federal Judge Magistrate
You can view the entire directory, waitlist, and club bi-laws in PDF here and here.
South Carolina’s own Katon Dawson wants to call the shots at the RNC, but his gums keep getting jammed. He likes to muster faux outrage at Obama, but no one is really paying that much attention. Undaunted, Dawson proclaims in the New York Times:
“If I were the national chairman, I would hold the administration accountable for doing what it said it was going to do.”
House Speaker Bobby Harrell has been so busy suppressing mutiny and flogging junior Republicans that he hasn’t taken the whip to Wallace Scarborough. Harrell owns an insurance agency, so you would think he understands what it means to limit liability. Katon Dawson and Mark Sanford, competing for most telegenic, won’t reign in little Wally, even though they both have the Ward Cleaver hairdo. This begs the question, where is the Republican leadership in this state?
Scarborough picked a bad time to go rogue given that two of the state’s biggest media gluttons are actively campaigning for higher offices. It’s kind of hard to sell your leadership abilities to the rest of the country when you can’t control the guy who lost. Just ask John McCain.
Any number of powerful South Carolina Republicans should have nipped Wally in the bud, and now he’s going to bite you all in the asset.
S.C. GOP Chairman Katon Dawson's bid for the RNC's top post has gotten off to a rocky start. The national media has rightfully made a big fuss about the would-be GOP Top Dog's 12-year membership in a whites-only Columbia country club.
So today, in an attempt to mitigate some of the damage done to Dawson's image, his staff sent out an email blast highlighting this post from the Minority Report, which includes a letter in defense of Dawson by Glenn McCall, a fellow South Carolinian and African-American RNC committeeman:
A few months ago, a local newspaper wrote an article about a country club where Katon was a member. The article pointed out that the club did not have any minority members. There was some confusion about whether or not it was club policy or a longstanding deed that prohibited minority members - none of that really matters. What matters is this: Katon Dawson tried to change the club's practices to allow minority members. When he realized that things were not likely to change, Katon resigned his membership.
Sadly, Katon's opponents are trying to use the fact that he was a member of this country club to disqualify him from serving as RNC Chair.
It shouldn't. I believe it won't.
I see what Katon did as evidence of his commitment to including and involving people from all walks of life and all races. Katon took a stand for what was right. He stood up in front of his friends at the club and told them what they were doing was wrong, and when they refused to change, he decided to leave. I'm not saying that Katon deserves a medal for the courage he showed that day, but I do think this one incident revealed the depths of Katon's personal commitment to inclusion.
When I hear Dawson and supporters like McCall claiming that the S.C. GOP Chair didn't realize he was a member of a whites-only organization until weeks before announcing his bid for the RNC chairmanship, it reminds me of that scene in A Few Good Men -- you know the part where Tom Cruise, during his redirect, tries to prove the existence of the unwritten Code Red amongst Corp members by asking Noah Wyle how he knows where the mess hall is if it isn't in the official Marine manual.
Like the Marine's Code Red, Forest Lake Country Club's 'Code White' is well-known to most people inside (and outside) the exclusive organization, regardless of whether or not it's written down in a policy manual for new members.
Dawson's argument that he was unaware of the country club's whites-only policy for 12 years is ludicrous, insulting, and raises serious questions about his suitability as the new figurehead of the Grand Old Party. As a dear friend of mine and prominent Lowcountry GOP leader pointed out to me today, either Dawson knew about his club's discriminatory policies for more than a decade and did nothing, or he was oblivious to serious problems within an organization he belonged to for years. Either way, given the Republican Party's urgent need to re-brand itself and grow its base, the prospect of tapping either a potentially racially-insensitive or completely clueless leader as the new face of the GOP should greatly concern all Republicans -- no matter how many warm-fuzzy letters Dawson's black friends pen for him.
Katon Dawson has a plan. An eight-page plan, to be exact. I could have been reading Tolstoy or Dickens, but I’ve learned it’s never good to ignore the giant elephant in the room, especially if he's running to be the face of the GOP.
The Dawson Plan is pretty much an extension of his Politico essay, with similar mentions of Ronald Reagan, the Republican brand, and his 3141 Plan, which he stole from Howard Dean. The South Carolina Republican also talks about youth outreach and diversity, making sure to add conspicuous pictures of Glenn McCall and Tim Scott. This is about as subtle as a Sarah Palin wink. By the way, Dawson, did they know about your country club membership before you three became BFFs?
Dawson's manifesto, if not inspired, is very oxymoronic. In true Republican form, he likes to repeat stale party mantras even though those words conflict with his own actions. For example, he quotes Reagan as saying “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Ok, if this is true, why is one of Dawson's biggest selling points his 80% success rate for getting Republicans elected to government? And, wasn’t Reagan in government, too, for like 8 years?
After many of us have cooked our turkeys and stuffed our stomachs, Katon Dawson hopes we have room for extra helpings of cliché and self-aggrandizement. This intrepid Republican has taken his campaign for RNC chairman to Politico, with a two-page love letter crafted with just the right amount of contrived humility, GOP catch phrases (lower taxes, smaller government, fiscal responsibility), and a not too subtle mention of President Ronald Reagan. Dawson also attempts to trump Howard Dean’s 50 State Plan with Project 3141, which is pretty much the same thing: 50 states, 3,141 counties.
Dawson likes to wax poetic about how the GOP needs the "courage of convictions” and other trite alliterations. However, no part of his strategy seriously considers increasing diversity in his party philosophically, geographically, or demographically.
Katon Dawson also wants the Republican Party to inspire “Americans from all walks of life to do great things.” In fairness, the Republican Party has inspired a diverse group of Americans to do great things: put Obama in the White House and give Democrats greater control of the House and the Senate.
Now that I think about it, he might be on to something. Keep up it up Katon. If he gets his dream job, he can inspire Americans to do more great things in another 2 to 4 years.
Please pick Katon Dawson as your RNC Chair and as the “new” face of the GOP. If you want Democrats to continue to make strides with an increasingly diverse, less white, more educated, more urban national demographic, nominate the former member of a whites-only club in a blood red state that continues to fly the Confederate flag. That’s a great message to send to moderates, people of color, and Republicans who are not from the South. Also, ignore that fact that South Carolina’s Republican controlled legislature and executive continue to cannibalize each other amidst massive budget cuts that are killing jobs and our economy. After all, Hillary voters aren’t the only PUMAs, so I guess this shows some diversity in the Republican Party. Plus, Dawson’s job is to raise money and get folks elected. Why should the head of South Carolina’s Republican Party be bothered with creating and solidifying party unity among Republicans? Nominate him, and he can not do the same for Republicans everywhere. Also, this golden good ol’ boy will help you reinforce the size of your tiny tent by choosing a leader who is the epitome of your incredible shrinking Republican base.
McCain put the gun to your head. Let Dawson pull the trigger.
The last few days have been bliss. Long walks on the beach, sleeping 'til noon, and a self-imposed ban on all electronic correspondence was just what the doctor ordered following last week's conclusion to our marathon '08 campaign season. And while I figured I might miss one or two political scoops while I was away, I had no idea how interesting post-election week would be.
Later today, Sanford will join fellow GOP prez hopefuls Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty in sharing their vision for the future of the party when he addresses the Republican Governors Association in Miami.
Cabinet Making For the Dems, it's been all about building a strong Obama Cabinet to deliver us out of darkness over the next four years. Topping the list of potential Palmetto State Obama appointees are U.S. Rep. John Spratt (OMB), Inez Tenenbaum (ED), and U.S. Rep. James Clyburn (HUD). From what I'm hearing, Spratt is the most likely S.C. leader to be offered a cabinet position in the future Obama Administration, but whether or not he'd accept an appointment is still up in the air. As expected, the GOP is already circling the SC-05, waiting to pounce.
House Speaker Bobby Harrell has been so busy 
The last few days have been bliss. Long walks on the beach, sleeping 'til noon, and a self-imposed ban on all electronic correspondence was just what the doctor ordered following last week's conclusion to our marathon '08 campaign season. And while I figured I might miss one or two political scoops while I was away, I had no idea how interesting post-election week would be.
