OPINION: The Truth About Sanford's South Carolina Victory

• 

Mark Sanford won the special election in South Carolina’s first congressional district Tuesday night. Democrats really thought they could win this seat, going so far as to outspend Sanford.  

But it was not in the cards.  

Elizabeth Colbert-Busch, their preferred candidate, was a terrible candidate in a heavily Republican district.

In 2009 and early 2010, the Democrats won a series of special elections and trumpeted that voters were embracing Barack Obama. They went on to get spanked by the voters in the 2010 general election. Neither side should read more into this special election than there is.

Neither side should read more into this special election than there is.

What is there is the simple fact that, despite what the national media would have voters believe, there are still many parts of the country that do not like liberals.  

Just as a Republican could never win Nancy Pelosi’s district, Nancy Pelosi helped Mark Sanford rally conservatives to his side in a very Republican district.

Elizabeth Colbert-Busch showed her shallowness on a number of issues, including not recognizing what “Toomey-Manchin” is in a very second amendment state.  (If Ms. Colbert-Busch is reading this, that would be the gun control measure that failed in the United States Senate)  

Consequently, she opted out of most debate opportunities.  Instead of debating her, Mark Sanford toured the district with a life sized cut out of Nancy Pelosi.  It worked.

Sanford, for all his personal faults, is a master of retail politics.  He opted for large, wooden, spray painted campaign signs put in the front windows of local shops and the side of roads.  

He toured the district aggressively while the Democrat held meet and greets with rich donors.  

He ate a lot of barbecue.  

He shook a lot of hands.  

He spent time one on one with voters at their doorsteps.  

He let those who had issues with him address them on their front porch to his face.

On election day, Mark Sanford voted and make almost a dozen campaign stops.  Elizabeth Colbert-Busch voted and disappeared.  

The pace was consistent throughout the special election. Even with news about Mark Sanford getting in trouble with his ex-wife, Colbert-Busch did not hustle on the ground, just expecting voters to embrace her.  

In the end, Republicans found a mug shot of her arrest during a messy divorce. The Democrats were caught off guard and did not respond.

The irony now is that Democrats are left to say Mark Sanford’s victory is a loss for women.  These very same Democrats are putting up a man, Chuck Sheheen, to run against South Carolina’s female Governor, Nikki Haley.  

Democrats can claim the GOP is hypocritical voting for a guy like Mark Sanford while claiming to be for family values.  

Between Bill Clinton and Kermit Gosnell, no one would ever accuse the Democrats of being for family values.  They will also accuse the GOP of selling out its fiscal values by supporting a guy like Sanford who, while being paid by taxpayers, went to Argentina to see his mistress.

But the lesson of South Carolina’s special election Tuesday night is actually simpler than all that — some areas of the country just hate liberals. 

The Democrats may have yellow dog Democrats who’d rather vote for a yellow dog than a Republican, but the Republicans have Sanford Republicans.  They’d rather Mark Sanford, warts and all, than an elitist liberal whose greatest claim to fame is her brother Stephen.

Now the real fun begins.  

Mark Sanford is no fan of Republican leaders in Congress. They yanked their money from his race, choosing to let him fend for himself. 

On election night, the National Republican Congressional Committee, in charge of helping Republican candidates, mentioned Mark Sanford once and Nancy Pelosi twice in its press release on the race.

They opposed Sanford, a strident fiscal conservative, in the primary and did not help him against the Democrats.  

This should be fun to watch.

Erick Erickson is a Fox News contributor and editor of RedState.com.  Follow him on Twitter @EWErickson.

Erick Erickson

Related Stories

Sanford Wins With Mistress By His Side

View the original article here

FACTORY FLASHPOINT: N. Korea Dismantling Last Economic Link With South

• 

  April 6, 2013: South Korean vehicles arrive back from the North Korean city of Kaesong at Unification Bridge in Paju, South Korea.AP

SEOUL, South Korea –  North Korea said Monday it will recall 51,000 North Korean workers and suspend operations at a factory complex it has jointly run with South Korea, moving closer to severing its last economic link with its rival as tensions escalate.

The statement from Kim Yang Gon, secretary of a key decision-making body, the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, did not say what would happen to the 475 South Korean managers still at the Kaesong industrial complex.

The statement comes amid weeks of North Korean war threats and other efforts to punish South Korea and the U.S. for ongoing joint military drills. North Korea is also angry over the U.S.-led push for U.N. sanctions over its Feb. 12 nuclear test.

The complex combines cheap North Korean labor and South Korean know-how and technology. It is the last remaining inter-Korean rapprochement project from previous eras of cooperation.

North Korea closed the border to northbound South Korean managers and cargo last week, though managers already there were allowed to stay. About a dozen of the more than 120 South Korean companies at Kaesong have already shut down because they can no longer get needed supplies.

"The zone is now in the grip of a serious crisis," Kim said, according to state media. He said it "has been reduced to a theater of confrontation with fellow countrymen and military provocation, quite contrary to its original nature and mission."

"It is a tragedy that the industrial zone which should serve purposes of national reconciliation, unity, peace and reunification has been reduced to a theatre of confrontation between compatriots and war against the North," Kim said in remarks carried by the Korean Central News Agency.

The complex combines cheap North Korean labor and South Korean know-how and technology. Most of the employees at Kaesong are women. The complex is the biggest provider of jobs in Kaesong, the country's third-largest city. Shoes and clothing make up 70 percent of the goods produced; the rest are largely chemical and electrical products.

Kaesong is a rare source of foreign cash for North Korea. South Korea's Unification Ministry estimates that North Korean workers in Kaesong received $80 million in salary in 2012.

North Korea objects to portrayals in the South of the zone being crucial to the impoverished country's finances. Kim said North Korea "gets few economic benefits from the zone while the south side largely benefits from it."

North Korea has unnerved the international community by orchestrating an escalating campaign of bombast in recent weeks. It has threatened to fire nuclear missiles at the U.S. and claiming it had scrapped the 1953 armistice that ended fighting in the Korean War.

The threats against the United States are widely dismissed as hyperbole -- analysts say they've seen no evidence North Korea can build a warhead small enough to put on a missile that could hit the U.S. mainland. A direct attack on the U.S. or its allies would result in retaliation that would threaten the existence of the ruling Kim family in Pyongyang. But there are fears the North could launch a smaller-scale attack. Pyongyang recently suggested that foreign diplomats based there leave the country by April 10.

In the 16 months young leader Kim Jong Un has led the authoritarian nation, he also has conducted a nuclear test and launched two long-range rockets, though only one was successful. North Korea said the rockets were satellite missions, but the U.S., South Korea and others say they were a covert test of banned ballistic missile technology.

View the original article here