Spring is Here, and the Campaigns are in Full Bloom..........

Less than 6 weeks to go before the Primary, and things are beginning to heat up a little. All that money that was raised is finally being spent. I'll focus on the local races, but first a comment or two on the Statewide races. For the past two weeks , I have had breakfast, dinner, and bedtime with Greg Ryberg. No doubt about it, he is putting plenty of that $2M on getting facetime with SC. I do notice a distinct loss of accent on TV, but it makes him sound a little mushmouthy. I did see the Staton ad. It is cute, but do people mispronounce his name that much? If you want you're name butchered on a consistent basis, live in my world for a day or two! Personally, I've seen Mike Campbell referred to as Carroll more than Staton has been called Stanton.

On to the Local Races:

House Seat 60 . It has been relatively quiet so far, as to be expected. Just signs posted at various areas, but Phillip Lowe seems to be better equipped so far. His signs are bigger, in better locations, and there are more of them. I'm not so sure about the takeoff on Lowe's stores ( For State Legislature Improvement), but that's not my expertise. Licia Stone's signs are smaller, and on sunny days the back side shows through, making it hard to read. The part I like about this race is that money is not a major factor, so it will depend on shoe leather and effort.

House Seat 63. Bubby Floyd and Kris Crawford are beginning to become familiar faces to me. Both are following the rules on yard signs, but who needs them when the billboards have been up for a month. Crawford has his Red Smurfs, and is now airing TV ads on cable. Bubby has fullpage newspaper ads, and a strong mail campaign. The last two weeks of this one could get crazy, but Crawford has a measurable amount of ground to make up. This leads to a problem. He will have to wait til the end, or start now and spend a ton of money - which will still be less than Bubby has.

County Council Seat 8. Not a peep. There is no Primary on either side, so both Mr. Schofield and Mrs. Chewning are laying low and taking it easy. In a 90% Republican district, Mrs. Chewning better not take too much time off, especially against a former two term City Councilman.

County Council Seat 3. Al Bradley has a couple signs in the area, although they are pretty hard to read. James Archie has nothing out yet, but one of my staffers (A Democrat), got a flyer that was grammatically incorrect. Pretty bad, considering that he was Superintendent of Florence School District 4. As for myself, I'm keeping pretty quiet.... just working on what I can right now.