South Carolina 2014 Congressional Races

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Apparently Ravenel is running as an Independent if Graham wins the primary and plans to spend all his money on anti-Graham attack ads.

http://www.thestate.com/2014/04/07/3374154/thomas-ravenel-eyes-independent.html

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lol

[rob in cal]

Lee Bright, the State Senator running against Graham announced the endorsement of Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie today.  Not sure how meaningful that really is, but would think it would help establish Bright's credibility a little.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Apparently Ravenel is running as an Independent if Graham wins the primary and plans to spend all his money on anti-Graham attack ads.

http://www.thestate.com/2014/04/07/3374154/thomas-ravenel-eyes-independent.html

He'll have a tough time doing it, especially if he waits until Graham wins to do the signature raising.  He'll need to get 10,000 valid signatures to run as a petition candidate.  He has to submit them by noon on the 15th of July (a Tuesday this year).  So that's basically two weeks if waits until after the runoff and four weeks if he waits until the primary.  That's just not enough time.  He'll need to start collecting signatures now if he wants to actually be on the ballot, and I doubt he can get the 10,000 he needs.

If he doesn't get on the ballot, Thomas could try a write-in campaign a la Strom 1954, but Thurmond's victory was due to the unique circumstances of that race, a dispute over whether a new primary should have been held by the Democrats when Sen. Maybank died two months before election day.

[rob in cal]

The 1st quarter fundraising totals are out and Graham's challengers raised about 1.3 million but that includes 300k in personal loans taken out by Cash and Conner. Graham raised only about 900 k in the quarter but he has about 7 million in cash ready to go and his opponents only about a million. Still, interesting that combined his no-name opposition did manage to outraise him for a quarter, but maybe Graham wasn't really trying, since he already has so much more than they do in the bank.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Graham will be debating his primary opponents.

http://www.thestate.com/2014/04/24/3407792/graham-agrees-to-sc-debate.html

It'll be on the Saturday before the primary and of course those opposed to Graham are treating the fact they've "forced" him to debate to be a victory.  Maybe a moral victory, but that's all.  Unless the polls are showing who will clearly be facing him in a possible runoff, his opponents are likely to spend a lot of their time attacking each other as they strive to make the runoff and I doubt Graham will agree to a second debate for the runoff if it is held, especially given that they already debated that month.

Anyway, it will be streamed on the internet for those of you who are interested.

There are plans for debates in some of the other races, but nothing has been finalized for those.

[rob in cal]

Glad to see Graham agree to the debate.  Read one article about two anti-Graham supporters who were worried about who to support out of concern that Graham would win out due to a split opposition.  Remember people that is the whole point of having a whole swarm of opponents, to get enough votes to deny Graham a first round majority.