Politics and the Pee Dee: Apathetic or Just Pathetic?

Tuesday night was probably one of the more exciting nights in my short political career. I spoke with Katon Dawson in Berkeley County, and our differences from earlier seem to be overwith, Then I went to Summerville, and gave one of the better speeches in front of about 200 voters and 20 candidates. Then we have nights like tonight. The Pee Dee has a reputation of not being important among the rest of the state. Although it is true that Williamsburg and Marion Counties have trouble mustering enough Republicans to field a good poker game, Florence is traditionally a Republican county. So why don't candidates come there? Tonight is likely a good example. Where do we start? First point: If two bordering counties are meeting the same night, you might want to stagger the start times and hour apart, so we can go to both meetings. In their wisdom ( or lack of communication), Williamsburg and Florence decided to have their meetings at the exact same time, 30 miles away from each other. Needless to say, I missed the meeting in Kingstree, as did many other candidates. In Florence, I showed up about 20 minutes late ( work ran late). Our county chair was speaking for a few minutes, then adjourned the meeting. So instead of each candidate speaking for the usual 3 minutes, we ended up chatting one on one, and no straw polls were taken. It's not a big deal to me: I already know everyone there, and my seat doesn't have a poll. However, 3 State Legislature candidates, and Lt. Gov. candidate Mike Campbell were there, in addition to about 10 candidate representatives. Is it any wonder Florence doesn't get any good candidates to show up? Who wants to drive 2 hours , then get blown off? Spartanburg gets Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, we get the local Probate Judge. Back in 2004 , guess how many of the 6 Senate candidates spoke at the county meetings? One - Mark McBride. It might be time for some new blood to improve our image in the Pee Dee, because it's obvious that we aren't using the same playbook the rest of the state uses - we're kinda doing what we feel like doing. Next month's featured guest: Our local Dog Catcher Candidate (probably a Democrat).