By Scott Graber
It is Wednesday, and we’re just in from an early morning bike ride — this morning checking out the construction on Paris Avenue. My mind, however, keeps going back to a recent wedding.
My wife and I are in our 80s and are rarely invited to weddings. We do attend funerals; celebrations of life; and often scan newspaper obituaries looking for our own write-up.
In this case the groom is an old friend and currently serving in the South Carolina Legislature — many of his guests wearing a small pin attesting to their membership in the General Assembly.
At the sit-down dinner following the exchange of vows, I found myself amongst a cohort of Republicans and was compelled to confess that I was a “yellow dog democrat.”
“When I arrived in Beaufort (in 1970) I could count the Republicans on one hand,” I said to the man on my left. “These days I can count the Democrats on one hand.”
The well-coiffed man stopped, turned and said, “Do you want to know how we did it?”
“Yes.”
“We began in the Upstate,” the cuff-linked, well-barbered Republican said.
“We recognized there was a block of people who made tires and textiles but did not vote. This same group did go to church and their religion was fundamental to their lives.”
“They had a strong, negative view on abortion and we built that into our strategy,” the well-nourished man continued. “Today that block of Upstate voters is the bedrock of our Party.”
His tutorial then turned to the African American vote that had been the bedrock of the Democratic Party — when I came back to South Carolina in 1970, the Black vote was 25% of the total vote.
“In the 90s we were gaining strength well beyond Greenville and Spartanburg — The Black members of the General Assembly saw these gains and wanted to create districts that had a majority of Black voters.”
To concentrate Black voters into these new, so-called “majority minority districts” South Carolina’s legislative districts were redrawn.
“When we met with the Black Caucus they agreed to eight Senatorial Districts,” said my new friend as we moved through the buffet line. (The remaining 38 Senatorial Districts were drained of minorities.)
This racial sorting effectively removed white moderates from the Democratic candidates across the State. In the November 1994 elections these newly shaped white-majority districts propelled the Republican Party in into a majority in the South Carolina House.
Today when one looks at voters and voting patterns across South Carolina it appears that there is no organized effort to push Black voters off the rolls, however, the Post and Courier recently editorialized, “We have seen efforts in other states to push lower-income and black voters off the rolls. There’s no evidence of malfeasance here, but nevertheless the most notable decline in voter participation is in rural counties with with large minority populations.”
As I sat with my wife — the wedding feast having moved to the toasts and the cake-eating part of the program — I began to think about the 200,000 northern retirees coming into South Carolina every year relocating to Myrtle Beach and in the sprawling Hilton Head/Hardeeville metroplex.
These folks are here because of the lower (property) taxes; the perceived lower cost of living; and believe that your average S.C. Republican lawmaker is a fiscal conservative unlikely to raise taxes for schools, food stamps, or engage in much social spending.
The Republican Party is clearly the beneficiary of this massive immigration that has now made Myrtle Beach (and the lower coast) a big part of the Republican firmament.
So why, you may be asking, does the Democratic Party put candidates into play when they see these demographic realities?
Well there is dissent and discord in South Carolina’s GOP ranks.
There is a faction that does not believe Sen. Darline Graham is worthy of support. Many of these folks supported Congressman Ralph Norman in his bid for Lindsay Graham’s Senate seat and they remain resentful.
Some of these right-of-center folks also believe that Ukraine is our natural ally and wonder why we are about to buy Russian diesel fuel; some pollsters forecasting that Greenland, Canada, Iran, tariffs and the cost of gasoline will reduce Republican turn-out.
While sitting at the wedding banquet — surrounded by the glittering GOP hierarchy — I felt a glimmer of hope that this year, in some races in South Carolina, Democrats would prevail.
Perhaps this is the year the pendulum swings back to the left.
Scott Graber is a lawyer, novelist, veteran columnist and longtime resident of Port Royal. He can be reached at cscottgraber@gmail.com.