Colbert's Sister-- Next Tuesday

I'm rooting for Colbert's sister-- and not just because she's Colbert's sister. And not just because Mark Sanford is likely to be one of the worst members of Congress-- far worse, in fact, than he was when he was in Congress the first time. Colbert's sister, thoroughly embraced as she is by the DCCC, doesn't need any help from Blue America and there's nothing to make me think she would qualify for a Blue America endorsement any way-- the way these guys have-- but... I'm still rooting for her because there's a lot of room between someone as good as Alan Grayson, Keith Ellison and Donna Edwards and someone like Mark Sanford.

From what I can tell, if I lived in South Carolina's first congressional district, I'd go beyond rooting for Colbert's sister; I'd probably even vote for her a week from today. She's a normal, decent Democrat on social issues-- pro-Choice, pro-equality, etc-- and kind of like a New Dem type on the economic issues. Like I said last week, I don't know if Colbert Busch will wind up voting with Republicans half the time. But it's what I suspect from watching the campaign. Still, that's better than voting with Republicans 100% of the time, which is what we can expect from Sanford. She's already come out in favor of marriage equality and background checks and her approach to Chained CPI was pretty good as well: “Not only does President Obama’s plan fail to put our finances back in order, it would cut benefits for our seniors, which is wrong. I believe that our seniors earned their Social Security by putting money away every single paycheck for a lifetime-- knowing that they could count on Social Security when they retired... Simply put, Social Security doesn’t contribute to the deficit, and politicians should keep their hands off the trust fund." If she has to, for the sake of election in South Carolina, attack Obama from the right, it's cool she can do it from a populist anti-bankster perspective.

Right wing propagandist John Fund writes that even if South Carolina voters know too much about Sanford for comfort, they don't know enough about Elizabeth Colbert Busch and if the turnout is really, really low, Sanford still has a chance to win.

The local and national media haven’t delved into Colbert Busch beyond her platitudes, and so far she’s avoided being tagged with any liberal labels. Her success at flying under the radar may serve as a model for other Democratic candidates in 2014. She plans to participate in only one debate during three months of campaigning. Some 500 of her pre-campaign tweets have been airbrushed away but thanks to the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation have been returned to the public record. In them, her favorite topics include “backing equal rights for our LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender] friends” and supporting President Obama’s proposed hikes in the minimum wage. Regarding Obamacare, she mocks its Republican opponents: “GOP Logic: Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound public policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.”

South Carolina is the least unionized state in the country, but Colbert Busch 1.0 was a big fan of unions, even tweeting that she wanted the support of the AFL-CIO. Unions opposed Boeing’s plans to build a new plant in right-to-work South Carolina, but Colbert showed no misgivings about seeking union support: She eagerly accepted donations from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, who tried to use the National Labor Relations Board to block Boeing’s move. “The voices of the union and all unions need to be lifted up,” she declared in a video she sent to union leaders as she prepared to run. “Nobody is recognizing that, and I promise to be that voice for you. Know that I hear you. Know that I’m working closely with your team.” Tara Servatius, a talk-show host and columnist for Charleston’s City Paper, concludes: “Bottom line, Elizabeth 1.0, the deleted version, is a hard-core liberal Democrat.”

So, yeah... let the DCCC use their money ($458,000) to push her, but-- what the hell-- vote for her next Tuesday instead of watching Sanford win this blood red district. They both fought for the center in their one debate, which was last night. Here's a small piece from it-- not especially interesting.