INDEPENDENT U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE SHOULD EASILY QUALIFY FOR NOVEMBER BALLOT AGAINST “REPUBLICAN” LINDSEY GRAHAM AND DEMOCRAT BRAD HUTTO
Lowcountry businessman, reality television star and former statewide official Thomas Ravenel has a new title … U.S. Senate candidate.
Ravenel – the star of Bravo television’s Southern Charm show – submitted more than 17,000 signatures to the S.C. Election Commission (SCEC) this week. Assuming at least 10,000 of those signatures are valid, Ravenel’s name will appear on the November ballot alongside “Republican” U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democrat Brad Hutto.
“When it comes to their voice in the U.S. Senate South Carolinians no longer have to make the false choice between the warfare state and the welfare state – between crony capitalists and bureaucratic apologists,” Ravenel said. “Before I filed these signatures, voters had to choose between a guy who wants to take most of their wallet and all of their liberties and a guy who wants to take all of their wallet and most of their liberties.”
“Now they can vote for someone who will protect both – advancing prosperity and freedom for all no matter their age, race, religion, gender or sexual orientation,” Ravenel added.
Ravenel said his signatures were collected by professionals and volunteers – and represented “all forty-six counties in the Palmetto State.”
The candidate – clad in a dress shirt with no jacket or tie – carried one of the petition boxes into the commission headquarters himself, surrounded by a throng of reporters.
Graham – a fiscal liberal with a lengthy record of betraying individual liberty – won 56 percent of the “Republican” vote in a low-turnout primary election a month ago. He was expected to cruise to reelection in November, but the emergence of Ravenel on the scene has jeopardized those plans. Not only could Ravenel cut into Graham’s support amongst “Republican” voters, he’s likely to appeal to broad swaths of independent voters who classify themselves as fiscal conservatives and social libertarians.
Ravenel’s candidacy was blasted by Graham’s party, which referred to him as an “embarrassment.”
Democrats took a different tack.
“We welcome anyone with serious ideas to the race and look forward to debating the issues that matter,” Hutto campaign manager Lachlan McIntosh said. “Lindsey Graham loves being a Washington big shot but he’s lost touch with folks in South Carolina. It appears voters will have several choices with whom to replace him with come November.”
The SCEC will send Ravenel’s signatures to the forty-six county commissions for verification – a process that could take up to one month.
UPDATE: Looks like several Republican leaders in South Carolina have decided to back Ravenel, not Graham.
83 comments
Glad to know he circled the trailer parks to get 17k signatures. Who knows? Maybe they’ll peel themselves away from watching reality TV dreck long enough to visit the polls?
In before Graham tramples everyone and easily wins.
It would be interesting to see how many of the same signatures are on both Ravenel’s and Armstrong’s petitions.
….or on Tom Ervin’s petition????
Knew Haley,s employees would steal the thread , just as they have hijacked all the others and made it about Ervin. They it’s be reading the polls showing the race a dead heat. Ervin makes them apoplectic ! I love to see Haley and her bunch of lists squirm!!!
T-Rav was heard to tell the clerk, “Each signature is more legitimate than my child!”
Hmm………so will he go for the throat or just sit back and ….”Smile”…?
“Now they can vote for someone who will protect both – advancing prosperity and freedom for all no matter their age, race, religion, gender or sexual orientation,” Ravenel added.
What? No mention of drug laws?
Good question. Will Ravenel support legalization of cocaine and Marijuana for recreational use, and gun rights for felons?? How can he not without being a total hypocrite.
Are you implying that felons should not be allowed to have guns? I believe that is the law currently but why? Felons that would commit future crimes will not worry about breaking the law to have a firearm to use in the commission of a crime so what good is such a law. Next, felons are typically not of an economic status that they can live in a gated community with little worry for their well being or property. They typically live in neighborhoods where crime is more prevalent and would therefore more likely need a gun to better protect themselves. Felons have, in theory, paid there dues for their crimes so why punish them more. There will always be recidivism of convicted criminals but denying those that are trying to rehabilitate themselves just makes it harder for them. Denying those that will commit more crimes just gives them something to laugh about.
I saw this weekend an ad by SC DOC wanting to hire correctional officers. One of the qualification requirements was no criminal record. Following your “idea” to its “logical” conclusion, SC DOC could hire felons.
Actually they do, they’re called “trustees”, and yes some of the “trustees” do violate the trust placed in them. Besides that, yes they should hire felons or anyone that meets the criteria for the position. Does excluding felons give them such stand up people that the guards don’t violate the laws? Surely you’ve heard of the ones that have been arrested for a whole slew of violations. Felons might even be better at interacting with the inmates and show them there is a way out of a life of crime.
It isn’t punishing them more, it is PART of the original punishment. Why do it? You’d be surprised how many convicted felons are arrested on that charge, either as an additional charge with whatever NEW crime they were committing, or BEFORE they can commit another crime (traffic stop, arrested for felon in possession of pistol. mask in back seat floorboard. Was on his way to rob a store).
You are wasting your time, he will never understand. That guy was a law abiding citizen. He could have changed his mind right up until the time he blew the store clerks head off. Then he has to give up his guns, unless he gets out on parole. In which event we should give him another chance at responsible gun ownership.
Why were the police harassing that citizen on they way to his biathlon class anyway. There are many reasons a ex felon now model citizen would have a gun and mask in his car.
Yet such things happen now and your precious gun control does nothing to deter it. Fact is gun crimes are down while gun ownership is up. In all the recent gun shootings that have made the national news there were already gun control laws that by your reasoning should have prevented those shootings but they happened anyway, because criminals don’t obey laws. If a law was passed that you had to jump three times before you could enter your home you would probably do it even if no one was looking but the bad guys just don’t care and just because someone is convicted of a felony doesn’t make them a “bad guy”. These chicken poop laws are like using a leafless branch as an umbrella, just because you call it an umbrella doesn’t mean it will keep the rain off you. By the same token if you patch an umbrella with a hole it will keep the rain off you whereas before it let rain wet you.
Yes, felons that commit additional crimes with a gun are charged with that violation but what happens when it comes time to sentence, they are served concurrently. In other words no extra time, wasted law. Felons that want to rob stores now are not deterred by current law your own statement above proves that, wasted law. A felon that is trying to go straight but lives in a bad neighborhood and runs into bad elements during his everyday life feels the need for the added protection, working, paying taxes, with the exception of his prior conviction is as upstanding as you or I, gets a gun and if caught a productive citizen is put behind bars again. Its like pulling wings off of flies, those laws don’t stop the criminal element it only makes criminals out of otherwise law abiding productive citizens.
Let me ask you, if you were in danger of losing your life and a felon with a gun were to come to your aid, would you thank him or turn him in. Silly question but if you were actually in that situation, after you wiped the pee off your leg, you would probably kiss his ass and buy him supper at the best restaurant in town.
Like Haley. Breaking a few laws NEVER stopped her from breaking other laws, God’s or man’s! Aybe it us a Sikh or Infian thing, like Obama’s Muslim, Socialist/Comunist upbringing! Ohaley and Obama twins separated at birth.
I think they should make you live in a neighborhood full of felons with guns.
How far will you people go. Is there anyone who should not be allowed to have a gun? How about convicted murderers. They paid their dues, shouldn’t they have guns. How about child molesters and rapists. Shouldn’t they be allowed to have guns? They paid their dues. How about drug dealers. Why shouldn’t they be allowed to have guns? After all they have to protect their stash.
There you go with your big government ideology, “make you live in a neighborhood full of felons with guns”, actually I would probably be the safest person in town.
I didn’t say all felons just that generally felons shouldn’t be disallowed to have firearms. There is room for common sense restrictions, we do it in nearly every facet of modern life. Used to was sex between Jews and Catholics was illegal as between blacks and whites. The whole time the prohibition of sex with minors has stood (of course SC did finally change the age of consent from 13 to 16).
You need to get over your irrational fear of guns. Yes its terrifying to have a gun pointed at you but at least if you have your own you can do something about it if you choose to. For all the times you hear about a guy shooting up a movie theater and killing a bunch of people you don’t hear anything about the times crimes are prevented by someone using their gun for good. When a bad guy kills five people you can count the bodies and quantify his carnage but when a good guy stops a bad guy with a gun its had to quantify his good deed. Had the good guy with his gun not been there it could have been just like Newtown with 26 dead but instead all you hear, if you hear anything, is that a good guy with a gun pulled out his gun and the bad guy ran away. Passing gun control laws don’t help, criminals by definition don’t obey laws.
He is saving those for his initial bills to introduce when he is elected to the Anti-Senate of the Dis-United States of Vespucci-Land, on the square planet Htrae a.k.a. The Bizarro World.
No mention of the Army and Air Force positioning either….
http://www.stripes.com/opinion/the-army-s-next-enemy-might-be-peace-1.293115#comment-1484440921
….dare to wonder how Ravenel will counter Lindsey on Boko Haram…?
I’m a couple steps ahead of you FITS:
A vote for Ravenel is a vote for Obama and Harry Reid
Great explanation: http://scdigest.blogspot.com/2014/07/a-vote-for-ravenel-is-vote-for-obama.html
You can barely form a complete sentence. Why would I read your/Emily Peterkin’s blog?
I think we can easily figure out who you will vote for…LMAO….
Actually, that would be you and your fellow Tea Baggers.
I’d be amazed if he even read it himself.
Hmm…..so by this thought puzzle; you are saying that by reading FITSNEWS is like a vote for Obama and Harry Reid too..?
Grand Tango…..you can do better than that…..
…keep trying, Thomas Ravenel’s media team may figure out how to use you to smile at Jim Clyburn and Lindsey Graham at the same time…..
No puzzle to it. Ravenel has NO CHANCE to win. He simple wants to get publicity, since he snorted up his reputation. And/or he wants to get Hutto elected. FITS wants the same.
No need to make it complex or a puzzle. Only a liar would have to. You’re not a liar are you?
You go GRAND TANGO….we can hardly wait to read your counter to this piece of Ravenel “bump”..!
“Hutto’s Ravenel parade begins”……
“Three Cheers for Graham and the Hutto dance..”
“FITSNEWS is a Ravenel Wikileaks”…….
“Ravenel who in Lancaster South Carolina…”
No link to your blog? Your slipping Emily.
Big deal, nobody reads your site so it’s kind of a moot point. I checked it out earlier and the most comments I could find on any article were four… and two of those were from you.
Yes it is-just like a vote for Tom Ervin is a vote for Sheheen/Obama and Harry Reid.
I have a thing for Tom and Vin;but, I was born that way sweet pants!
Dear Ravenel Campaign “wonks”………( yep, YOU…)
Does one have to tell you that you are making the same maneuvers that NANCY MACE made during the primaries..? The efforts are made to get signatures but yet no real effort is made to inflict media proactive synergy..? Its one thing to spend some cash to get a Senator’s attention to award an appointment; but its a totally different meaning to spend loot after signatures have been submitted to just play patty cake. We wonder if you really have the savvy to do what it takes to WIN…
Your on the clock now after these signatures………Ravenel has money; but what will you have AFTER the dust settles..? A win…?
Let’s see what you got……………
Little Lindsey is going to mop the floor with that Charleston Easter Egg.
My friend ….we feel certain that some Charleston Easter Eggs can be used to show the “candy” being used down at the Border crossings…!!
Dare to wonder how a Ravenel campaign spot featuring a new baby can be used to ask Lindsey some questions about drowned children in the Rio Grande…!!!
Tick tock ……hickory’s knock….
They will have to go all out. How he does against Graham will be directly proportional to the effort he and they put into it and how they grow their grassroots campaign.
Not as dashing a figure in that pic as the way he is usually shown. Looks every bit the over-privileged middle-aged man-child he is.
Dear Lindsey Graham……….it looks like Boz knows something about you being a “..over-privileged middle-aged man-child..”…!!
By the way Senator Graham, where have you and Tim Scott and Jim Clyburn been in Texas lately…?
We were at The Donkey Show…you know, near the border…
Careful Bill,….Jesus did ride a donkey…..
Phil, do you EVER do a comment that makes any fucking sense?
LOL…..Buz, I rarely ever make comment “cents”…!
But ya know……..I know that since your a very smart man, that you have at least once asked yourself why Fits or any presser in our state has not shoved a mic in Lindsey or Tim or Jim or Mark’s face and asked them if they have been down on the border lately..!
We know you do know that the border fiasco is costing US all tax dollars……..
Yes it is, and now that you’ve esplained it, it does make more “cents.”
Dr . Hutto is smiling today.
No he is not……………all he has to do is look at a twitter bloom and he is gonna take a big DUMP…!!
Dr . Hutto is smiling today.
We wonder if Nancy MAce and Jenny Sanford and Anita Zucker are going to campaign for Lindsey Graham of Thomas Ravenel…?
Ravenel is a daddy….but where is Graham’s diapers at…? Has Lindsey ever changed a diaper..?
Thomas is gonna take some “wet wipes” and wipe Lindsey’s backside from now til November……
What will be interesting to see if if he can get 17,000 votes in the election.
I wonder how many of those signatures look like they are in the same handwriting.
lol!!!
Tom Ervin apparently got away with it-why not T-Rav? :-)
Ervin used different color crayon at least.
What is with your Tom Ervin Obsession?
Sick obsession, thank you.
T-Rav was on a Southern Charm? I never heard that before. The things you can learn from FITSNEWS. Next we will find out that Nancy Mace was the first female grad of The Citadel.
Have you heard that T-Rav is also a “drug dealing”, “cradle robbing”, “baby daddy” who also got into trouble with the FEC?
Not to mention his DUI charges. “But, your honor, I wasn’t drunk, I was just really getting into these CDs that Cato sent me!”
I always forget the DUI….
only in posts to Sic Willie’s bromance articles. Sic Willie seems to forget to mention those attributes.
Tisk….Tisk……..
A wise General understands that when meeting a foe on the field of Battle that if a General has no earthly way to fight fair …eye to eye….then a wise General takes a more wounded “dove” approach. If one realizes the establishment has no “seat” for them at a larger table then one must improvise on a different timetable and realm.
The question is……..is Ravenel stalking wounded “prey” or is Ravenel matching wits to ensure a plumb “position”..?
What would a Charleston Navy Yard veteran ….observe..?
That Mr. Charlie Ravenel would be embarrassed by the actions of someone who carries the name Ravenel. Fortunately he will not have to hear about them.
Pro Criminal Illegal Alien Graham condones secret – Leaked Data Shows 10-Fold Increase In Obama’s Asylum Approvals
Guess what? Lindsey Graham is going to win reelection, just like he easily won his primary. Run along.
Not before Sic Willie can milk T-Rav’s candidacy for all the hits he can get.
“Ravenel…submitted more than 17,000 signatures to the S.C. Election Commission (SCEC) this week.”
16,975 of them were his coke customers waiting on the discount on their 8-balls.
I saw SC GOP press secretary Matt Orr’s comments about Thomas’s campaign. I suppose Matt, the gentleman that he is revealing himself to be, would rather be proud of the likes of Harrell and Goldfinch representing the conservative values of SC GOP. What a jerk !
Spoiler and spoiled candidate – that simple. You go to Washington and that little red pussy will be all over North Charleston.
Wonder what other felonies FITS has no problem with?
Ain’t no way a Low Country candidate is going to win that Senate seat. Fritz Hollings anyone?
Straw man much?
Mulch much?
FITS is becoming more and more beholding to the democrat party. I’m guessing Lizenby bought him part the way out, so she can espouse her leftwing views on this site, unabated. She likely gets money from her fellow leftwing lobbyists.
At nay rate: FITS inflexibility just means one more cookie-cutter, march-in-leftist-lockstep would-be information source…
This news (bought-propaganda) is so staged, it’s not even funny…
Get with it: read: http://scdigest.blogspot.com/
R good, D baaaad!
“I’m Brick Tamland. It’s sunny out. We are here today to witness the
miracle of birth. Soon a stork will fly overhead, delivering a baby
panda. Let’s take a look… I DON ’T UNDERSTAND !”
Pro criminal illegal alien Lindsey Pigsh-t is helping Obama in ways many do not know. His support of Obama and this massive invasion of illegals flowing like an incoming ocean tide is a result of this >>>> ‘BORDER CONTROL’ AGENT: DISEASES COMING IN WE HAVEN’T SEEN IN DECADES… http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2014/07/14/Border-Control-Agent-Diseases-Coming-In-We-Havent-Seen-in-Decades
I did not vote for Lindsey Graham and will not vote for Ravenel. He should have run as a Republican and should never had got into the drug business. I will take a sorry Graham over a manipulator who tries the play with the deck! All Republicans who wish to support Ravenel are just going to get a Democrat elected!
Did Co-Defendants Pellicoro, Etcheber, and Miller sign for him?
So 17,000 South Carolinians are willing to be props to the PR exercise of TV-star wannabe Ravenel? And people wonder why things don’t change in this state?
The Senator from Seneca who spiked the football June 15th after spending 7 million dollars in media ads in the primary trembles in his prophylactic at Ravenel’s approach.
The dress shirt with no tie and jacket was from Sanfords campaign, it worked for him kinda like the transparent campaign of Nimatra.
It’s from the Charleston Douchebag collection.
Oh thank God! The suspense was killing me! Now maybe he’ll *finally* be able to get some exposure here on FITS and get this damn campaign rolling!
Hutto should be careful what he asks for…even if all 17,000 of those signatures vote for Ravenel (which, of course, they won’t), the R’s won’t lose too many of the pro-dope, pro-baby-daddy, trailer park vote. Lots of those clowns’ votes will come straight out of his ass…
Graham – 55%
Hutto – 40%
Ravenel – 4%
Others – 1%
if 4% = 17,000 votes then it means Graham should get 233,750 votes. That’s kind of an ass kicking from a Nancy boy.
This whole thing is a publicity stunt for his TV show. The joke is on us.
About your update. Two is not “several.” Only one is an actual party official. The other is a hanger-on from an affiliated group, not the GOP. Sad.