Politics
Citadel Split by Republican Presidential Primary
(Jan. 21, 2012) CHARLESTON, S.C. — At the Citadel, cadets wear matching uniforms, march in lockstep and endure rigorous physical training together. But these days, the Republicans among them — and they are overwhelmingly Republican — are divided on a crucial issue: whom to support as the next commander in chief. The Citadel, a public military college, is an almost mandatory stop for presidential candidates, especially Republicans. Its fortress-like buildings and clean-cut students make an ideal backdrop as politicians court South Carolina voters, 9 percent of whom are veterans. But unlike in the 2008 election, when the Citadel and its powerful alumni united behind Senator John McCain, the current cadets are still making up their minds.
Read MoreBefore Presidential Primary, Republicans Reach Out to Black Voters
(Jan. 17, 2012) MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — On Martin Luther King’s Birthday, Newt Gingrich spoke to black voters about growing up in segregated Georgia. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas said he had appointed a “descendant of slaves” as the Texas Supreme Court’s first black justice. And Mitt Romney said “we must never rest” until Americans are judged for their merits, not their race. The Republican presidential candidates spent the holiday on Monday reaching out to wary black Americans. In the struggle for every last vote, some candidates were hoping to appeal to a small number of black voters in the South Carolina primary on Saturday — even if those voters end up supporting President Obama in the fall. The King holiday gave the all-white Republican field an opportunity to speak about race — and their work on civil rights — as the candidates try to unseat the nation’s first black president. But it is a challenge to reach black voters in South Carolina, where they made up only 2 percent of Republican primary voters in 2008.
Read MoreUneasy Neighbors in a Southern Gothic Tale
(Jan. 13, 2012) LAURENS, S.C. — The Redneck Shop has been selling Confederate bikinis and white satin robes on the historic courthouse square in this former mill town for so long that most people have learned to ignore it. “The only people who really get caught up and interested in the store are from out of town,” said Sharon Brownlee, the mayor, who is white. “The store causes no problems that I’m aware of.” That is a matter of perspective. Since 1996, the Rev. David Kennedy, who is black, has been fighting the shop and the Ku Klux Klan leader who runs it. Now, in a quirk of fate laced with lawsuits, religious conversions and a small-town Southern narrative Harper Lee might deliver, a black pastor will eventually control what just might be the most famous white supremacist shop in America.
Read MoreBlogger for Al Qaeda Killed in Drone Strike
(Oct. 1, 2011) CHARLOTTE, N.C. — From his parents’ basement in a part of town where homes have lots of bedrooms and most children go to college, Samir Khan blogged his way into the highest circles of Al Qaeda, waging a media war he believed was as important as the battles with guns on the ground. His parents — by all accounts a low-key, respected couple who had moved south from Queens in 2004 — were worried about the increasingly radical nature of their son’s philosophy and the increasing media reports that exposed it. They turned more than once to members of their religious communities to impress upon their college-aged son the perils of such thinking and behavior. It did not work. In 2009, he left his comfortable life in Charlotte for Yemen, started a slick magazine for jihadists called Inspire that featured political and how-to articles written in a comfortable American vernacular, and continued to digitally dodge government and civilian efforts to stop his self-described “media jihad.”
Read MoreNew Fishing Museum Becomes Symbol of Waste in Georgia
(Jan. 17, 2011) PERRY, Ga. — Every weekend, Michael Morris and his 2-year-old son, Jacob, visit this small town’s enormous new $14 million fishing museum. They watch bream and bass swim in aquarium-size tanks. They play with an interactive model of a fishing boat and try to catch fish on a computer simulation using a rod and reel connected to a video screen. And because the museum, the Go Fish Georgia Educational Center, is primarily financed by the state, their father-and-son outings cost only $5. “It’s amazing,” said Mr. Morris, a car salesman and recreational fisherman. “When Jacob gets old enough, I hope this will be part of what makes him really get into fishing.” But not all Georgia taxpayers are so thrilled. Even before the museum opened in October, “Go Fish” had become shorthand in state political circles for wasteful spending. Republicans and Democrats alike groaned over $1.6 million a year in bond payments and operating costs. And even supporters concede that the museum would never have gotten financed in 2007 if the legislature knew where the economy was headed.
Read MoreMark Sanford, South Carolina Governor, Bounces Back
(Nov. 10, 2010) COLUMBIA, S.C. — Recently, Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina watched “The Blind Side,” the Oscar-winning movie about a white woman from Memphis who mentors a homeless black teenager. The film so “touched my heart,” the governor said, that he wrote a letter to the woman who inspired the character, praising her “acceptance and unconditional love.” It is easy to see why those themes resonated. Mr. Sanford, who confessed last year to having an affair with an Argentine woman, has grappled since the scandal to save his political career and earn the public’s forgiveness. And there are indications that he is succeeding — at least with South Carolinians. As Mr. Sanford, 50, a two-term Republican, prepares to leave office in January, he is enjoying a degree of political success that seemed unimaginable in the precarious days after his teary appearance on national television in the summer of 2009.
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