Well, this mid-term election season is turning out to be another lukewarm exercise in democracy. The big money is on the pols that work for big money. Here in South Carolina, most of us don't even know who is running against Tim Scott. In fact, I just googled "Tim Scott opponent" and the first six hits were about the primary; number seven finally mentions Joyce Dickerson, but it is a summary of the upcoming primary, and only lists Dickerson with the other Democratic primary candidates.
Tim Scott was appointed by Nikki Haley, herself a proud cheerleader for the moneyed and powerful. Scott was sure to follow quietly in the footsteps of Jim DeMint, who presided in the Senate as the king of negative and stupid for eight years. Apparently DeMint couldn't handle the mockery and the limited financial reward of being a bought senator, so he bailed to the Heritage Institute, belying its identity as a "think tank." At Heritage, DeMint can hide behind his title, needs not speak to non-believers, and doesn't have to pretend not to be bought. No doubt, Scott would like to continue to follow the path of DeMint, and I will not be surprised when he resigns to be a wealthy right-wing figurehead with government connections.
With all the money flowing to Scott, it took a great deal of courage for someone to step up to oppose him, and Joyce Dickerson appears to have that courage. She has actually spoken out against anti-abortion legislation, stating unequivocally that the government does not have the right to step in to determine a woman's reproductive decisions. She will fight for veterans, unlike Scott, who never fails to send out flowery emails on military holidays and then votes against every bill that would improve the life of those veterans he claims to revere. She is not afraid to fight for immigrants or for the poor, in other words, those of us who will not make her rich but deserve a better life.
Joyce understands that big money has corrupted our system of government. The unfortunate irony is that that big money controls our elections, so that candidates like Dickerson have to fight to be heard, and are overshadowed by the millions of dollars going into keeping Tim Scott in Congress, where he will turn that investment into bigger bucks for his true constituent, big business.
It feels hopeless. But Joyce Dickerson has taken the challenge. So we need to do what we can to spread the word. We need to let people know that she is running against someone who has consistently voted against the people of South Carolina. Her web page includes Scott's voting record, which provides undeniable proof of who he is working for. Don't be afraid to ask friends and family if they know who is running against Scott, and then tell them a little about our -- the people's -- candidate.
Share information, her website, this blog, any other information you might have, on Facebook and Twitter, because that is the low-budget way to get out the word. And it does work. But it takes work.
You may not be surprised to hear that the mud is already flying down in Texas, and being directed at Wendy Davis.
We can thank our media for being watchdogs of every little scrap of meat, stinking or otherwise, that campaigns toss at them. In fact, the stinkier the better. In this case, Politico ran a story about all the holes in Wendy Davis' biographical narrative, wherein the burning questions were whether she left her husband at 19 or 21 and that she got financial help getting through Harvard from her second husband.
Frankly, I expected better of Politico. You don't have to sniff too closely to learn that the article was actually written by conservative Rich Lowry of the National Review. Wendy's campaign fought back with the facts, and the critical assertion that trying to find dirt is what a campaign will do when it can't attack on the issues.
This nonsense reminds me of another campaign that fought successfully against the attempt to divert attention from issues to petty, irrelevant, and fallacious details. I'm thinking about Elizabeth Warren, and Scott Brown's silly insistence on spending time talking about whether Warren ever claimed to be American Indian.
In both cases, on one side, we have really smart and gutsy women who know the issues, and know what's wrong and what needs to be done. They are unafraid to stand up for what's right, and they know how to talk to the American people. It terrifies their opponents.
Mitch McConnell is a typical bully -- mean spirited and whiny. Last year his attacks on his presumed opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes, came early and ugly. McConnell is finding out that Grimes is unafraid to stand up to his nonsense. He's also going to find out that the voters have had it with those games.
Just as Elizabeth Warren took the Senate seat from Scott Brown, Wendy Davis is going to win the governorship of Texas from her opponent, Greg Abbott, and Alison Lundergan Grimes will take on and beat McConnell.
As the season progresses, we voters need to look beneath the headlines, ask the right questions, confront the lies and keep returning to the real issues.
Myself, I'm looking forward to some smart tough women here in South Carolina to take on those bullies, the ones who won't spend a penny to provide health care to an infant but bleat about the need to control women in order to save a fetus. I know those women are out there.
You know who you are.
