South-Carolina
If Trump goes scorched-earth on Haley, it’ll be nothing new for South Carolina – The Boston Globe
For a state with a lengthy history of dirty politics, the 2000 primary is widely considered the low point. Now that title could be up for grabs.
Former president Donald Trump aims to knock former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley out of the Republican presidential race in her home state’s primary on Feb. 24. And his no-holds-barred approach paired with South Carolina’s anything-goes reputation could be a combustible combination.
“I think he’s going to use it as a license to be even uglier,” said Chip Felkel, a longtime South Carolina Republican consultant. “We’re going to hear about her ethnicity. We’re going to hear this allegation and that allegation . . . we’re probably going to hear a lot of innuendo.”
But Trump and his campaign advisers, who have publicly said Haley should prepare to be “absolutely demolished” in South Carolina, could overplay their hand, Felkel said — even in a state accustomed to scorched-earth politics.
“With a very, very long and justified reputation for being a bare-knuckled state, I think he could take that the wrong way and go too far,” Felkel said. “The risk he’s running is offending, and then motivating, a segment of the electorate that would vote for her.”
Haley has a sense of what she could be facing after being called a “raghead” and hit with allegations of two extramarital affairs during her successful 2010 campaign for governor. Haley denied the allegations, which resurfaced in January.
“Politics in South Carolina has a sad reputation as a blood sport,” she wrote in her 2012 memoir, “Can’t Is Not An Option: My American Story.”
The rotten roots can be traced back to South Carolina Republican operative Lee Atwater.
He was infamous for stoking racial fears in the 1988 presidential campaign with what became an infamous general election ad against Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis. It featured Willie Horton, a Black man convicted of raping a white woman while furloughed from a Massachusetts prison when Dukakis was governor. Atwater later said he had vowed to “strip the bark off the little bastard” and “make Willie Horton his running mate.”
Atwater had honed dark political arts in his home state. During a 1980 congressional campaign, he dismissed the Democratic nominee, Tom Turnipseed, a candidate who had spoken openly about receiving electroshock treatments for depression when he was a teenager, as someone who had been “hooked up to jumper cables.”
“I definitely think the national reputation we’ve had for rough politics probably comes as much from Atwater as anybody else,” said Danielle Vinson, a professor of politics and international affairs at Furman University in Greenville, S.C.
Atwater had engineered South Carolina’s shift to an early primary state in 1980, raising the stakes there and fueling the growth of a political consultant industry that used his tactics as its template, said Wesley Donehue, another longtime Republican consultant in the state.
“South Carolina became like the last stand in every race, and by our Southern nature, we’re probably a little more aggressive than those folks up in Iowa and New Hampshire,” Donehue said. “All the other consultants kind of took their lead from him. They were kind of disciples of Atwater.”
South Carolina politics took on Atwater’s style: combative and creative, with seemingly no limits.
In a 1990 congressional race, Rod Shealy, a Republican consultant and Atwater protégé, tried to exploit racial bias and drive up white turnout in a key part of the state for his sister’s lieutenant governor bid by helping pay for a Black fisherman to run for Congress. Shealy later was fined $500 for a campaign finance violation related to the incident.
It wasn’t the only time an unlikely candidate turned up in a South Carolina race.
In 2010, Alvin Greene stunningly won the Democratic primary to take on incumbent Republican Senator Jim DeMint without appearing to campaign at all. An unknown Army veteran, his name was listed first on the ballot alphabetically. After his victory, news broke that he was facing obscenity charges. Representative Jim Clyburn suggested at the time that Greene was “a Republican plant,” which Greene denied. DeMint sailed to victory.
The importance of the South Carolina presidential primary continued to fuel underhanded campaigning.
As the 2008 Republican primary approached, some voters received a Christmas card purporting to be from the family of Mitt Romney, who is Mormon, that included the line, “We have now clearly shown that God the Father had a plurality of wives.” In 2012, fliers were placed on the windshields of cars at an antiabortion event targeting the wife of Rick Santorum for an affair she had before she married him with a doctor who performed abortions.
“It is a very tough environment,” Felkel said. “I was quoted many years ago as saying, ‘Bring your big boy pants,’ because it’s not for the faint of heart.”
Felkel worked for Atwater early in his career and said he “learned a lot.”
“He was brilliant. He made mistakes. He realized it in the end,” Felkel said. As Atwater was dying from a brain tumor in the early 1990s, he apologized to Turnipseed and the public for some of his actions.
Still, the Atwater playbook stayed in place. But it might be losing its effectiveness, Vinson said, citing Haley’s victory in the 2010 governor’s race.
“There were some really nasty ugly personal attacks against her during that campaign, and it ultimately, I think, helped her in the long run,” Vinson said. “There were a lot of people that felt like she wasn’t being given a fair shot.”
But in Donehue’s view, the state’s tolerance for political dirt has only grown. He said Haley will try to play the victim in her race against Trump but that he doesn’t think it will help her in South Carolina.
“There’s going to be no backlash to getting nasty here,” Donehue said. “The state is used to it.”
And with the rise since 2000 of the 24-hour cable news cycle, social media, and finally of Trump’s flame-throwing style, he argued the state is no longer such an outlier. You can see comments as bad as the illegitimate child attack on McCain or the raghead slur against Haley every day on X and other platforms, Donehue noted.
“Politics,” he said, “has caught up with South Carolina.”
Jim Puzzanghera can be reached at jim.puzzanghera@globe.com. Follow him @JimPuzzanghera.
South-Carolina
More All-American honors come in for South Carolina baseball star
The college baseball season will end in the next couple of days as two SEC programs play for the National Championship. The Tennessee Volunteers and Texas A&M Aggies are the last two teams standing. In contrast, the South Carolina baseball team ended their season nearly three weeks ago in a loss in the Regional round of the NCAA Tournament and fired head coach Mark Kingston.
Leading up to the final days of the 2024 campaign, the best player for the Gamecocks was catcher Cole Messina.
The 2023 All-American backstop was having a good year for the garnet and black, but a blazing hot finish made it a great season as he finished with a ridiculous slash line of .326/.465/.701/1.166 and 21 home runs, 19 doubles, 64 runs scored, and 71 RBI. As one of the top defensive catchers in the sport, posting an offensive season like that earned him a number of postseason accolades.
On Friday, Messina was selected to his fourth All-American team. Baseball America, like Perfect Game, the National College Baseball Writers Association, and the American Baseball Coaches Association before them, picked Cole Messina as a 2nd team All-American. The NCBWA, ABCA, and Baseball America slotted Messina in as the 2nd team catcher, while Perfect Game picked him at designated hitter.
Next month, Cole Messina will have a big decision to make as he is expected to be a high pick in the 2024 MLB Draft. Messina has been mocked as high as the 1st round and has received the most projections in the 2nd round.
If he is not picked early enough to warrant leaving school, Messina has one more year of eligibility he can spend wearing garnet and black. His younger brother Carson, a right-handed pitcher, also will have a draft vs. school decision to make as he could jump straight from Summerville High School to the professional ranks if picked high enough.
South-Carolina
How much money do you need to make to be in the top 5% in South Carolina?
(NEXSTAR) – The disparity between the income that an average U.S. resident brings in yearly compared to those sitting at the top of earners in each state has always been a major topic of discussion.
In fact, WalletHub states that “the highest-earning 10% of individuals in the United States earn over 12 times more than those in the lowest-earning 10%, based on the latest Census data.”
And while looking up what the “average salary” is across the country, ($74,600, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve), appears to give a solid idea of how far off most Americans are from the 5% club, a closer look at the high-end salaries reveals that the disparity is even more stark.
WalletHub broke down the income of all 50 U.S. states and Washington D.C into three different groups: the average annual income of the top 5%, the average for the bottom 20%, and the median for all of each state’s residents.
Landing at No. 1 was New York where the top 5% makes about $553,000 a year. That’s almost $35,000 more than the next two highest states and nearly $100,000 more than the 10th-ranked state.
While the top 5% is thriving in the Empire State, its bottom 20% is falling well short, ranking 44th in salary with $13,301.
Right behind New York is Connecticut and Virginia where the average is about $518,000 apiece. Followed by New Jersey and Illinois which are both hovering around $505,000.
The state with the lowest top 5% threshold is Alaska, where earning roughly $321,000 will get you into the club. Hawaii and Vermont aren’t far behind where the top 5% makes about $334,000.
Check out what you need to make in your state:
Rank | State | Average Annual Income of Top 5% | Median Annual Income | Average Annual Income of Bottom 20% |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | New York | $553,436 | $91,366 | $13,301 |
2 | Connecticut | $518,757 | $114,156 | $14,576 |
3 | Virginia | $518,296 | $89,393 | $18,694 |
4 | New Jersey | $505,621 | $117,847 | $16,445 |
5 | Illinois | $504,800 | $78,304 | $16,192 |
6 | Georgia | $487,870 | $66,612 | $16,472 |
7 | Texas | $481,483 | $70,513 | $16,802 |
8 | Washington | $474,067 | $103,748 | $18,223 |
9 | Florida | $470,308 | $68,818 | $15,375 |
10 | Massachusetts | $466,208 | $127,760 | $13,689 |
11 | Minnesota | $464,981 | $86,364 | $19,797 |
12 | Colorado | $456,603 | $97,301 | $18,451 |
13 | California | $454,829 | $123,988 | $13,949 |
14 | Tennessee | $453,539 | $59,077 | $15,679 |
15 | District of Columbia | $450,892 | $162,265 | $9,011 |
16 | North Carolina | $450,592 | $63,025 | $15,836 |
17 | Utah | $448,195 | $89,786 | $22,491 |
18 | Michigan | $446,114 | $62,446 | $17,019 |
19 | Missouri | $446,069 | $59,715 | $16,821 |
20 | Pennsylvania | $445,261 | $74,711 | $15,801 |
21 | Ohio | $436,922 | $61,904 | $16,188 |
22 | Maryland | $427,135 | $124,693 | $16,647 |
23 | Arizona | $424,913 | $74,375 | $16,604 |
24 | Kansas | $423,517 | $68,489 | $17,176 |
25 | Nebraska | $416,325 | $72,384 | $17,380 |
26 | Arkansas | $416,224 | $51,032 | $14,069 |
27 | South Carolina | $412,771 | $62,909 | $13,996 |
28 | Kentucky | $411,897 | $55,629 | $13,800 |
29 | Oklahoma | $405,113 | $57,215 | $15,205 |
30 | Idaho | $403,737 | $70,041 | $18,372 |
31 | Delaware | $402,989 | $87,173 | $16,930 |
32 | Wisconsin | $402,256 | $72,602 | $17,973 |
33 | Nevada | $401,062 | $80,366 | $14,472 |
34 | New Hampshire | $400,343 | $110,205 | $18,075 |
35 | Indiana | $399,270 | $64,170 | $16,670 |
36 | Alabama | $398,584 | $55,480 | $13,242 |
37 | Montana | $395,720 | $68,937 | $15,337 |
38 | Louisiana | $395,155 | $56,282 | $11,504 |
39 | Iowa | $395,093 | $68,974 | $17,621 |
40 | South Dakota | $393,809 | $69,266 | $17,252 |
41 | North Dakota | $387,548 | $79,874 | $15,661 |
42 | Wyoming | $387,280 | $76,307 | $16,199 |
43 | Oregon | $377,399 | $91,100 | $14,720 |
44 | Mississippi | $377,040 | $46,880 | $12,168 |
45 | Rhode Island | $353,721 | $104,252 | $12,668 |
46 | New Mexico | $351,972 | $58,911 | $11,944 |
47 | West Virginia | $345,239 | $52,719 | $12,477 |
48 | Maine | $338,866 | $79,800 | $13,749 |
49 | Vermont | $334,470 | $89,695 | $14,477 |
50 | Hawaii | $334,369 | $141,832 | $14,014 |
51 | Alaska | $321,634 | $113,934 | $15,646 |
As for what state’s residents make the most money on average, Washington D.C. finished with the highest median income of $162,265. Unfortunately, D.C. also finished with the lowest salary for the average annual income of the bottom 20%, with $9,011.
Other states that had a high median income were Hawaii ($141,832), Massachusetts ($127,760), Maryland ($124,693), and California ($123,988).
These states with a smaller gap between the average earner and the top 5% make it easier to make the jump, but it’s still difficult.
According to GoBankingRates, it will take a variety of factors to make that jump. First, you need a steady increase in income. This could mean you are making better financial decisions, investing wisely, or perhaps experiencing career advancements.
Another factor is maybe having a solid investment strategy, look to see that you are getting positive returns on your investment and that you have a well-diversified portfolio.
Finally, prioritize your long-term financial stability. Look to prioritize saving over short-term pleasures.
And if you’re looking to go even higher than the top 5%, Forbes found that to be one of the top 1% of earners in the U.S., you need to bring in an annual salary of at least $597,815, so start saving up!
South-Carolina
Miss South Carolina, Miss Pennsylvania take Day 3 Preliminaries at Miss Volunteer America Pageant, Friday – WNWS Radio – Jackson, Tennessee, USA
Jackson, TENNESSEE – Berkley Bryant was back for seconds, Friday.
Bryant, Miss South Carolina Volunteer, was named the winner of the Fitness and Wellness competition during Day 3 of preliminaries of the Miss Volunteer America Pageant at the Carl Perkins Civic Center, Friday.
One day earlier, Bryant won the Talent competition.
Miss Pennsylvania Volunteer, Alyssa Gallagher, won Friday’s Talent competition.
A new Miss Volunteer America Pageant will be crowned when festivities continue at 7 p.m., Saturday, at the Carl Perkins Civic Center in Jackson, Tennessee.
The event is live streamed for free at www.MissVolunteerAmerica.net.
(PHOTO: Berkley Bryant, Miss South Carolina Volunteer and Miss Pennsylvania Volunteer, Alyssa Gallagher – courtesy Mykenzy Norman – Social Media Manager – B3 Creative Agency)
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