Looking ahead to 2012 (already?)

Barack Obama isn't even halfway through his first term, and politicos across the country have already started talking about the Republicans who will try to replace him in 2012. Consequently, I've compiled an analysis of where the GOP primary race stands, and how it will change over the next two years. Of course, there are several unresolved variables which could profoundly impact the 2012 election, and this post will attempt to identify and examine as many as possible.

Palin was against robocalls, until she started making them

Remember when Sarah Palin used to give actual interviews to the media other than Fox? I know it's been a while, but try to think back -- all the way back to October 2008, when Palin told reporters the McCain campaign's automated robocalls "irritate" voters, and that she wouldn't use them if she called the shots.

Palin said that if she had her way, the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee would not be flooding battleground states with automated phone calls tying Barack Obama to former radical William Ayers, as they have done over the last week.

Calling robocalls "kind of draining out there in terms of Americans' attention span," Palin went on to say voters "get a bit irritated with just being inundated" by the pre-recorded campaign calls. No kidding.

GOP official caught breaking SC campaign laws

South Carolina isn't exactly unfamiliar with boneheaded politicians who think they can get away with anything, and it looks like Republican state Treasurer Converse Chellis and his deputy, GOP operative Scott Malyerck, are no different. It seems Chellis and Malyerck visited the Spartanburg Herald-Journal last week to meet with the editors about a possible endorsement in the June 8 primary election. But in a blunder that would make Mark Sanford proud, Chellis may have instead exposed serious violations of state law during his interview with editor Lane Filler:

About 20 minutes into the sit-down, Chellis was summarizing what his agency does on a day-to-day basis. He explained how his agency functions for several minutes, ending with an explanation of what Malyerck's department does, at which point alarms started chiming.

"You work for the Treasurer's Office?" [Filler] asked Malyerck.

Malyerck: "Yes."

[Filler]: "Then what are you doing here?"

GOP environmental group asks "What Would Reagan Do?" on climate change

Ronald Reagan's cult appeal has reached an almost mythical status in the Republican Party. During the 2008 GOP primary, every candidate argued ad nauseum over who was more like the Gipper. Last fall, Republican National Committee members proposed a conservative purity test based on Reagan's "unity principle," that "someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent." Of course Reagan would have failed the test, but don't tell the RNC.

Especially on teevee, it seems like nearly everyone on the right is asking "What Would Reagan Do?" about every political issue du jour. When the compromise climate bill hits the Senate next week, it will undoubtedly face fierce opposition from many conservatives. Some may use Reagan to illustrate their disapproval. But a Republican environmental group (yes, it sounds like an oxymoron) is using Reagan's own words to challenge the GOP consensus on climate change and energy legislation.

Henry McMaster: Playing Politics With His Office?

South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster has been in the news a lot lately for leading a group of state attorneys general in a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn President Obama's health care reform law. McMaster knows it, too -- he produced a video of his many teevee appearances saying health care reform threatens our "liberty, freedom and sovereignty," which are "held by a thread" (presumably by McMaster?):

Christian Exodus: Building a Theocracy, One Family at a Time

In the Biblical reference, the word ‘exodus’ refers to the Jewish prophet Moses leading his people out of slavery in Egypt to the “promised land” in present-day Israel. Millions of Jews celebrate Passover, the yearly six-day commemoration of this momentous event. In modern times the term is much less monumental, used to describe anything from a reasonably large emigration of people to a Bob Marley song. The California-based group Christian Exodus is seeking to apply that term to politics. Their goals are controversial at the least, and at worst could reopen old wounds which have been slowly healing for the past 150 years.

Christian Exodus and its founder, financial planner Cory Burnell, aim to move thousands of Christian conservative families to South Carolina county by county, eventually influencing local and state elections as more families emigrate. According to their website, the group’s ultimate goal is to turn South Carolina into an autonomous state with constitutionally limited government founded upon Christian principles by 2018. They hope to accomplish this through the electoral process, but support secession as a viable alternative.

But as you may already know, South Carolina already unsuccessfully tried that option in the 1860’s. However, Burnell doesn’t think another secession would meet the same bloody end as the first. In fact, he believes another Civil War wouldn’t even take place over it. “Should the federal government invade a State whose people have voted for independence, Washington's despotism would be on stage for the entire world to witness,” Burnell said, going on to reference images of Soviet tanks invading dissenting Eastern Bloc countries.

Christian Exodus’ main belief is in the supreme governance of the Constitution. Burnell says current legislators and officials, both Democratic and Republican, are violating the Constitution by denying states individual powers left to them by the 10th Amendment. “No local, state or federal official should ever be allowed to violate the U.S. or SC constitutions, which must be applied exactly as their text reads and in light of the text's original meaning when written,” says Burnell.

The solution, the group says, is to move more and more families with similar beliefs into the state until they are concentrated enough to make a legislative difference. “We have over 1,400 members nationwide,” Burnell says. “We've determined to focus on Spartanburg, Greenville, Pickens, Anderson, Lexington and Dorchester to begin with.” Burnell wouldn’t give the specific order of the counties, but says each emigration would coincide with a particular election cycle.

Christian Exodus advocates many right-wing political policies currently under argument, including giving the death penalty to second-offense child molesters and defining marriage as solely between a man and a woman. Burnell is not a hard-line Republican, however, and will be the first to tell you so. “President Bush holds contempt for the U.S. Constitution, and is himself a dangerous threat to American law and liberty,” he said in January.

For now, Christian Exodus remains largely small-scale. So far only 15 families have actually relocated to South Carolina as a part of the organization, though more are expected. Few state legislators who were questioned had even heard of the group, and the rest did not see it as a threat to South Carolina’s place in the United States. But that may change if South Carolina continues its slide to the right of the political spectrum, as some commentators have predicted.

In the 2006 state elections, Republican candidates won every single office up for grabs in South Carolina except for Secretary of Education. However, Burnell says Christian Exodus played no part in that at all. “Those victories are attributable to gerrymandering and the continued leftward movement of the Democrats,” Burnell said. “Hardly anyone in South Carolina can identify with left-wing communists like Nancy Pelosi.”

Christian Exodus’ lack of influence in 2006 won’t be repeated in 2008 if Burnell has his way. “C.E. will not be a force at the statewide level for some time; however we will significantly impact the elections in our county of choice in 2008.” As to the specific county, though, that’s top secret for now.