Carolina In My Mind

History was made in South Carolina yesterday as the Republicans nominated Indian-American state representative Nikki Haley to run for governor and voters in the palmetto State's First Congressional District nominated Tim Scott, who is black, to be the Republican candidate for that seat in the fall. Scott would be the first black Republican congressman from South Carolina since Reconstruction and the first black Republican congressman since 2003. Both are likely to win in November.

As much as I want to praise South Carolina Republicans for looking beyond race, gender, and ethnicity in these primary elections, I choose to damn them instead. Haley and Scott won largely out of right-wing anger with Washington and the Obama administration. Haley, a wealthy businesswoman, and Scott, who had the backing of the anti-tax, Wall Street-friendly Club For Growth, both represent a philosophy that promotes an unfettered market and a limited role for government - the same ideology that got this country in trouble in the first place. To give you an idea of how toxic Haley and Scott could be, both were endorsed by noted book-banning wolf killer Sarah Palin. The end.

The Republican party in South Carolina has been redeemed by the star quality of its nominees, though, after the embarrassing revelations of last year involving Mark Sanford. It's now the state Democratic party - which somehow nominated a loser named Alvin Greene to take on the horrible incumbent Republican senator Jim DeMint and has less than zero chance of unseating him - that's the joke, and the less said about that, the better.

Meanwhile, next door in North Carolina, U.S. Senate hopeful Elaine Marshall, a favorite among progressives, defeated establishment candidate Cal Cunningham for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination. This should be a big deal. Marshall did what Bill Halter couldn't do in Arkansas - defeat a Senate candidate backed by the White House. She's running in November against Richard Burr, a rather unpopular fellow, though probably not as unlikable as Jim DeMint, and one who holds a Senate seat that is a political graveyard for those who have held it in the past thirty-five years.

No one cares. No liberal commentators at MSNBC are celebrating this victory over establishment Democrats within the party. Even Ed Schultz hasn't mentioned it. As noted, Chuck Todd considers it such a long shot for the Democrats he'd rather not talk about it. But it proves that progressives are getting energized and are ready to put forward more of their own candidates. They've not only nominated Marshall to run for the Senate, in North Carolina, they've nominated Joe Sestak to do so in Pennsylvania. Two out of three ain't bad. And they pulled off their latest coup in a state where voters lean Republican but have shown a willingness to hear out Democrats. Ask Kay Hagan, North Carolina's Democratic senator. If this primary is any indication, the left is not going to let Tea Partiers suck up all the political oxygen.