Teaching a workshop at Queens, jabbering about politics at Wingate

A couple of things I'm doing over the next few weeks:

-- I'm teaching my "Writing In 3-D" workshop at Queens University on Feb. 18 and 25. More information and details about signing up are here on Queens' site. This is a good introduction to writing for people just starting out, but it also has some advanced tips for writers looking to get better.

-- On Feb. 9, I'll be part of an election roundtable at Wingate University -- it's free, and it starts at 6:30 p.m. at the McGee Theatre in the Batte Center. I'll be there along with Tony Nownes, a political-science professor at the University of Tennessee, and Scott Huffmon, a poli-sci professor at Winthrop University and director of the Winthrop Poll. So at least two of the people on stage will know what they're talking about.

Newt, Reagan and a Clemson joke: Notes from the campaign trail

I'm down in South Carolina this week, talking to voters and following candidates as we head for the Republican primary on Saturday. Some odds and ends from the road:

-- Candidates generally don't announce their vice-presidential picks this early, but Newt Gingrich has already made his selection: Ronald Reagan. With the former president being deceased and all, I'm not sure what federal laws might apply here, but I'm pretty sure Gingrich wants the Gipper on the ticket.

In his commercials you see him sitting next to Reagan, deep in conversation. In his speeches this week he's referred time and again to "the Reagan-Gingrich textbook" for turning around the country. He shared a Reagan bit on Jimmy Carter: If your brother-in-law is unemployed, it's a recession. If you're unemployed, it's a depression. If Jimmy Carter is unemployed, that's a recovery.

When the laughter died down, Gingrich said: "I may change the name but keep the story."

It can't hurt a Republican to align himself with the most popular Republican of our lifetimes. Of course, Reagan also (for Republicans, at least) projected warmth. Gingrich is still working on that warmth part.

-- It's hard to talk about how candidate spouses look and dress without sounding weird. So let me be delicate here. In person, Callista Gingrich doesn't look as... lacquered... as she does on TV. She sounded interested and engaged talking to voters one-on-one. Maybe she should spend a little time at the microphone.

-- It's early, but today is already showing how absurd the primary process is -- and how fast things can change. Mitt Romney became the prohibitive front-runner based on wins in Iowa and New Hampshire. Except it turns out Romney didn't really win Iowa -- Rick Santorum did. And it also turns out that Rick Perry is dropping out of the race and throwing in with Gingrich. Perry didn't have a lot of support in South Carolina, but Gingrich doesn't need all that much to push out in front.

So basically, a few dozen votes in Iowa swung the race in one direction, and a couple thousand in South Carolina could swing it the opposite way.

Good thing that we don't have an ex-wife scandal to throw the whole race into a blender. Wait, what?

-- And in case you've missed it: Stephen Colbert wants to run in South Carolina but it's too late to get on the ballot. Herman Cain dropped out but it's too late to get his name OFF the ballot. So Colbert wants people to vote for Cain as a way to vote for Colbert. And to drive all this home, they're doing a rally together in Charleston on Friday.

Which is a long way of saying, I know where I'm going to be on Friday.

-- As important as this primary is, folks in South Carolina are still talking college football -- especially West Virginia's 70-33 beatdown of Clemson in the Orange Bowl.

Up in Pickens County, where Clemson is located, county GOP chairman Phillip Bowers is a Clemson grad. We were talking at Yank's Place in Liberty when his buddy Dan Crosby came over to chat. Crosby mentioned hearing that a friend was in Columbia the other day and remarked on how nice the weather was. "It's 70 here," Crosby said his friend told him. "But I hear it's 33 in Clemson."

Yeah, that bruise is gonna linger a while.










--

Elizabeth Edwards and the rebuilt life

What pops to mind first, strangely enough, is Elizabeth Edwards playing with her kids.

It was at some campaign event back in 2004, when her husband was trying to be vice president, and Elizabeth was out there playing the good wife, even though everybody involved, including John and Elizabeth, knew she was the smart one, the one who in a just world might have been the face on the ticket.

Instead she stood a little off to the side and a little in back, and her two small children were crawling all over her. She tried to keep them still but after a while she gave in and turned all her attention to them. She clapped for John when everybody else did. But her eyes stayed on the kids.

She died Tuesday at age 61.

From one angle this is perfect evidence that life is not fair. The husband cheated. The mistress had his baby. The aide told their secrets. And the one person worth rooting for in the whole depressing story suffered the most.

Before we drape her in white, we must be honest. She knew about the cheating husband by the time he ran for president in 2008 and still asked people to vote for him. She wrote a book that profited from the whole mess. And if another book on the ’08 campaign is to be believed, she was hard to deal with and sometimes a little nuts.

Balance that against these two facts:

1. Her husband humiliated her in front of the entire world.

2. She was living with cancer, and dying from it.

The cancer came first in 2004, at the tail end of that losing campaign. It returned in 2007, this time digging into her bones, and the doctors said they could treat it but not stop it. Imagine knowing that, on top of all the other things she knew.

More unfairness. In their wedding photos she’s as good-looking as he is. But as often happens, over the years his good looks hung on a little longer, and hers rounded and wrinkled.

But her eyes still glowed and she could still crack a joke, and there was no question who’d be better company over drinks.

They met at the UNC law school, and she became a bankruptcy lawyer while he went after personal-injury cases. Early in their marriage, they had two children, Wade and Cate. But in 1996, Wade died in a one-car wreck on the way to the family’s beach house. He was 16. After that John and Elizabeth quit life for a while.

Then they got up and faced the sun. They decided they wanted more children. And so she took fertility drugs, and she had Emma Claire when she was 48, and Jack when she was 50.

It happened over and over. Her life crumbled, and she made herself a new one. When you do that enough times, the pieces don’t all fit right anymore. But she pressed them together and moved on.

What does someone like Elizabeth Edwards live for? She must have thought she’d be First Lady, even though she knew she could’ve been more. Later she must have felt like a fool, even though she knew how many people still loved her.

Life is not fair, and Elizabeth Edwards is dead at 61. But she had four children, and she lived a fascinating life, and in the end she rose higher than the small people around her. If she had a chance to live that life again, I bet she’d take it.

John Spratt goes one more round

Readers: I'm writing about the John Spratt-Mick Mulvaney race in South Carolina... I'll have more tonight as the results come in. For now, here's a little bit from earlier in the day. -- TT

A black Prius pulled up to Cotton Belt Elementary in York, S.C., and John Spratt got out, hunched over against the chill.

Spratt woke up at 4:45 a.m. Tuesday so he could make it to the shift change at the Bowater paper plant. He had breakfast at Ebenezer Grill in Rock Hill to meet some more voters. And now he was out at the elementary school to cast his own vote, and campaign a little bit, and try to squeeze out a win with the political world tilted against him.

He and his wife, Jane, headed for the cafeteria to vote, and he gave a quick prediction: "It's a tossup."

Of all today's political face-offs in the Carolinas, Spratt's race against Mick Mulvaney feels like the one most closely tied to the country at large -- a Democrat in trouble, a Republican riding the hot issues, a veteran politician pushed to the edge.

Spratt was first elected to Congress in South Carolina's 5th District in 1982. Ronald Reagan was in his first term and Barack Obama was a college student. Spratt made friends, and built seniority, and now he is in a powerful role -- chairman of the House Budget Committee. Over the years he gained a reputation as a fiscal conservative, as a Democrat who could work with Republicans, and as a rare congressman known more for what he does than what he says.

But Spratt voted for the TARP bailout, and he voted for the stimulus package, and he voted for Obama's health-care plan, and now he's in political trouble. Mulvaney, a Republican state senator, has made a smart and unusual argument: He admits that Spratt has been good at his job, but he says that's not the case anymore. "Those times have changed," Mulvaney says, "and it's time for us to change congressmen."

Spratt wasn't helped by a terrible TV ad run in his behalf by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The ad portrayed Mulvaney as a villain who would make Social Security illegal and put your grandma in jail. No, really -- there was a picture of an elderly woman behind bars. The ad didn't come directly from his campaign, but either way, it was an un-Spratt way of doing business.

So now, as Spratt and his wife rode up to the school, they had to pass not just Mulvaney signs but red-and-yellow signs that say SACK SPRATT.

Spratt is South Carolina's last white Democrat in Congress. He's in a state that historically trends conservative, with a Republican (Nikki Haley) favored for governor, and a Republican lock (Jim DeMint) for the U.S. Senate. He's running in a year when Republicans expect to gain seats nationwide.

He's also fighting other battles. He's showing the early symptoms of Parkinson's disease; as he talks, his right hand shakes. He turned 68 on Monday, and he wears a hearing aid, and he has never been much of a grip-and-grin guy. He's earnest and he looks you in the eye when he talks. It's impressive face-to-face, but maybe it loses a little under the bright lights.

"You'll need a picture ID or your voter card," the guy at the polling place said, and everybody laughed because they all knew who it was. But he got out his ID anyway, and he and Jane cast their votes, and then he went around saying hey to everybody and asking about turnout. (At 11 a.m., in a precinct with 1,600 voters, more than 200 had voted and another 200 had voted absentee.)

"We've had good turnout so far, but I hope we get more, for democracy's sake and for my sake," he said. "It looks like it's going to be a pretty day. I remember some Election Days that looked a lot rougher than this."

Fourteen times in a row, Spratt has come away from Election Day a winner. What does he think about this time?

He looks away. Then looks back.

"I won't be surprised at anything."

Why I Vote

It's Election Day, and this morning we reveal the results of the Why I Vote project. I asked readers to send photos of themselves with a description of why they vote. We didn't get as many responses as I'd hoped, but what we got is top-quality. Thanks to everyone who participated. And if you haven't voted yet, get thee to the polls.


David Bayer:




Jimmy Locke:



Jessica Eiden Smedley:


If you're not sure what that means, this will help.


Mike Lynch:




Edwin Walter:



To me, it is very simple. I do because they can’t. They can’t because in the simplest terms, they gave their lives to defend my ability to do so. It isn’t about silly ads or stupid pundits. It is about our bedrock responsibility as citizens. Bicker we may about MANY things, but nowhere else in the world should this simple act be taken any more seriously than right here, right now. It is our duty, sanctified by their blood. Can anyone really argue for an excuse not to? The recurring examples of pettiness and yes, apathy, make MY blood boil.


Neca Bennett:



Full disclosure: The guy in the chair is my brother, Ronald. And he really was asleep.

UPDATE: Here's one more, from Larry Bumgarner... for some reason this got caught in my spam filter, and I didn't see it until Larry called to check. My apologies.

Last call for Why I Vote

We've gotten a few good submissions for the Why I Vote project, but I'd love to see some more before Election Day next Tuesday. The idea is to send me a photo of yourself, with a card or caption or something explaining why you vote.

Here's a great example from David Bayer:


You can e-mail the photo to me, ttomlinson@charlotteobserver.com. If you have any questions about how to do that, holler.

As we all know, voting increases your sex appeal, makes hair grow back and causes your stocks to increase in value. But you probably have your own reasons. Let's hear 'em.

Thoughts on Nikki Haley?

So I'm getting ready to spend a few days on the road, in preparation for a profile on Nikki Haley (the Republican candidate for governor in South Carolina, and the favorite to win).

Sometimes I go into this type of story with a particular angle in mind -- although often the reporting in the field leads me in another direction. This time, though, I'm pretty wide open. So I'd love to hear your thoughts.

What have you read about Haley (or the governor's race) that you'd like to know more about? What would like to know LESS about? And what do you think her candidacy says about politics in general, and South Carolina politics in particular?

Let me know what you think. And if you're interested in seeing Haley for yourself, she'll be at a rally in Rock Hill on Friday.

Lindsey Graham, Shirley Sherrod, and the death of thoughtfulness

Today we give props to Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, who -- for this week at least -- appears to be the only thoughtful person in Washington.

Graham was the only member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to cross party lines in the vote to confirm Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court. All 12 Democrats voted with Graham to confirm; the other six Republicans all voted no.

It's fair to say Graham is no fan of President Obama. He stumped for John McCain in the 2008 campaign, and voted against Obama's stimulus package and health-care bill. But he has studied what the framers of the Constitution intended for the Supreme Court nomination process. And Graham believes that as long as the candidate is qualified, the president's choice should stand -- regardless of party.

That last paragraph might have sounded weird if you read a lot about politics. Because you don't often see a political story where someone makes a decision regardless of party -- much less that they'd studied it first.

Around the same time Tuesday that Graham was explaining why he supported Kagan, a more typical Washington story was breaking.

Shirley Sherrod, who ran a Department of Agriculture office in Georgia, gave a speech back in March at an NAACP banquet in Douglas, Ga., not far from where I grew up. A Web publisher named Andrew Breitbart put out a segment of video from the speech. In the segment, it sounds like Sherrod admits she deliberately didn't do her best to help a white farm family in trouble. Breitbart's cut features a special appearance at the end from Geraldo Rivera, so you know it's quality journalism.



Problem is, when the full video was released, it's clear that Sherrod did exactly the opposite. The whole thing is 45 minutes long -- you can also read the key parts of the transcript.



It turns out Sherrod did end up helping the family, and told the story as an example of how she struggled with her own prejudices and overcame them. That's exactly what we want in a leader, right? Someone honest enough to admit her flaws, and capable enough to learn and grow?

Um, no. What we really want, at least in Washington, is somebody who won't give a sound bite that will help the other side.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack asked for (and got) Sherrod's resignation Tuesday, after the short version of the speech had come out but before the long version. I've actually spent a little time with Vilsack; he was on a fellowship in Boston when my wife and I were up there. He seemed like a decent guy. But in this case it looks like he acted without knowing or caring about the context of the speech, just so the Obama team could salvage a bit of the 24-hour news cycle.

So let's try to sum up: A right-wing blogger clips a woman's words to twist them exactly backwards. (Breitbart, for his part, said this on Fox News: "I could care less about Shirley Sherrod, to be honest with you.")

And a Democratic official, instead of backing her up or even waiting for the full story, dumps her on the side of the road.

In other words, a woman who was humble and brave was run out of her job because of arrogance and cowardice. Nothing that happened was because a principle was at stake, or because it mattered to the business of America. No one involved thought about anything but winning.

And so, at least for today, let's appreciate Lindsey Graham. He took a difficult issue, thought about it for more than five seconds, and went against his own party to do what he thought was best for the country.

As Shirley Sherrod could tell you today, that's a rare thing.

UPDATE, 6:25 p.m.: Vilsack has apologized and offered Sherrod a new job with the USDA.

Alvin Greene, being there

Alvin Greene, the unknown, unheralded, un-everything U.S. Senate primary winner in South Carolina, kept reminding me of something -- and somebody. Finally figured it out.

If you've seen Greene on TV, you learn two things: One, his interviews set the Guinness record for awkward pauses, and two, it's clear he doesn't have a clue what's going on. All he does is repeat the same lines about "Sixty percent of the vote is no accident" and "I just conducted a simple old-fashioned campaign," which is especially funny because I'm still not aware of anyone in South Carolina who went to an Alvin Greene rally, or had Alvin Greene come to their house, or even saw him on the side of a road waving a campaign sign like those kids doing a car wash for the glee club.

He might have won the Democratic primary because he's black, or he might have won because he was the first candidate alphabetically, or he might be a Republican plant, but one thing is clear -- he didn't win because the people of South Carolina deeply desire to put him in Congress. Although they've probably done worse.

If you watch him on TV, you think, what a disaster. But when I figured out who he reminded me of, it started to make sense.

The 1979 movie "Being There" is about Chance (Peter Sellers), a gardener born with "rice pudding between the ears." All he can talk about is gardening. All he likes to do is watch TV. But through a series of events, he ends up in the home (played by the Biltmore House!) of a rich businessman with political connections. And so Chance the gardener becomes Chauncey Gardiner, whose empty-headed homilies about the weather sound like Zen in a different context.



(He also ends up in bed with Shirley MacLaine, who doesn't quite get what he means when he says "I like to watch.")

So it's possible we've misunderstood Alvin Greene this whole time. He might be our Chauncey Gardiner, our homegrown Zen master of politics, and we're just not deep enough to get it.

I will just add this. If he does ever hold a campaign rally, and it's by the side of a lake, bring your camera.