The Man Who Blew Up Vincent Sheheen’s “Whore-Gate” Scandal

MEET JOHN OSBORNE … 

By TAYLOR BROWN || I sat down to meet with South Carolina political operative John Osborne in his “natural habitat,” which turned out to be a Starbucks.  This bearded revealer of secrets ordered a mocha frappuccino, and we then sat down outside to chat while he drank his beverage and chain smoked Marlboro Reds (which I’ve since learned are called “Cowboy Killers”).

In this election cycle, Osborne has been an equal opportunity killer – of political aspirations.  He is the man who single-handedly cost establishment Republican Sally Atwater her primary election for state superintendent of education.  He’s also the man who “partially” cost Vincent Sheheen the South Carolina governor’s mansion, although Osborne doesn’t want to take “full credit” for breaking the scandal that effectively nixed Sheheen’s already slim gubernatorial aspirations.

After dispensing with awkward pleasantries, Osborne and I quickly got down to the hard and pressing questions about “whore-gate” – the flickers of which he fanned into a full-fledged political conflagration.

Missed this scandal?  Sheheen – still clinging to the faint hope of an upset win in South Carolina – “inadvertently” called incumbent Republican governor Nikki Haley a “whore” during a Democratic campaign rally last last month.  He almost got away with it, too, as the controversial exchange – and the laughter that followed his gaffe – was not included in the initial mainstream media coverage of the rally.

In fact “whore-gate” might have never become a story had Osborne not gotten involved.

Osborne told me he first mass emailed the story to various news pundits, people like Andy Shain of The (Columbia, S.C.) State newspaper and his peers – yet not a single one of them picked up this damning story.  Well, except for FITSNews.

Sheheen’s gaffe – which quickly unspooled into a national scandal – transpired a week and a half before the election, perhaps the most critical time for a campaign.  It ended up being, as Osborne put it, “the final nail in Sheheen’s coffin,” though he cites Sheheen’s ineptitude in communication as one of the many reasons why he was a failed candidate from the very start.

Of course that didn’t stop Team Sheheen from venting over the incident – and pointing the finger of blame in Osborne’s direction.

While politicians like Haley and Sheheen seek (and need) the limelight, operatives like Osborne prefer the shadows.  And the accompanying secrecy.

Neither on nor off the record would Osborne disclose who he works for, and the same tight-lipped mentality carries over to his lack of taking credit for the brutal political assassinations that he’s carried out.

Despite FITS founding editor Will Folks trying to save some face in his recent “Haley Mandate” article, the truth is Nikki Haley dramatically increased the margin by which she defeated Sheheen this go-round.  And while Folks is correct in saying voter turnout was low (SCVotes puts the turnout at 43.64 percent – the lowest it’s been in at least four decades) the margin of victory can’t just be chalked up to the few who showed up at the polls.

According to the Associated Press, Haley’s support was due largely to “white evangelicals and tea party supporters … (faring) best among older voters, capturing 63 percent of that group compared with 46 percent among young voters.”  According to CBS exit polls, the female vote was split down the middle.

While a modestly higher percentage of women still voted for Sheheen than Haley, a higher percentage of women voted in this Midterm election (54 percent).  And when these percentages are broken down further into race, white women (who turned out at 35 percent) voted for Haley by a 71-26 percent margin.  Even six percent of Democratic women voters cast ballots for Haley.

“Whore-gate,” without a doubt, was partially responsible for Haley getting a supermajority of white women votes.

Osborne begrudgingly admitted that had the “whore-gate” scandal not blown up, the percentage of people voting for Sheheen would have “most likely” increased closer to 42 percent – still meager, but a full percentage point higher than he got in real life.  Additionally, whether or not Osborne admits it, thousands of women voters did not vote for the South Carolina Democratic Party pushed candidate because of the video Osborne force-fed to the state media and national MSM.

Hell, even Sheheen’s own county (Kershaw) went bright effing red!

Osborne, a former card-carrying Democrat, switched his political affiliation to the GOP back in September of 2013.  This, coupled with the fact that he still has many friends inside of the South Carolina Democratic Party made his promotion of “whore-gate” even more hurtful to some.  Rumor has it, Osborne even went to the South Carolina Democratic Party with the news that the story was about to be leaked.

A courtesy call, if you will.

I asked Osborne if he thinks “whore-gate” debacle is a career-ender for Sheheen (especially when coupled with his post-gaffe laughter and the “you gotta tell the truth” comment – both of which Haley referenced in responding to the debacle).

His response?  “Check Wikipedia,” he stated.

Indeed, a big chunk of Sheheen’s Wikipedia page is now specifically devoted to the fact that he called Nikki Haley a whore.  Osborne did hypothesize that Sheheen may be allowed to work in politics again, though, only because a double standard exists within the Democratic Party (Lena Dunham and Alec Baldwin, for example).

I continued to push this issue of the double standard and the Democrat-fabricated “War on Women,” raising the issue of whether this scandal damages their ability to claim “Sexism!” at the drop of a hat.  Osborne absolutely believes so.  Democrats have had the tables turned on them, and it is now their party fighting to keep a middle-aged white man who called an ethnic woman “a whore” from impacting the 2016 election cycle.

Osborne theorizes the best way for Democrats to recover is to have them nominate either Lizzy “I’m Really Native American, You Guys!” Warren or Hillary “I Got A Child Rapist Off Despite Knowing of his Guilt” Clinton.  Either way, Democrats are left hopelessly grasping at an ideal that the American public rejected in droves in this 2014 midterm election.

I asked Osborne if he thought “whore-gate” would generate sufficient national sympathy for Haley so as to give her a bigger chance of getting the GOP nomination for President – but he didn’t agree in this regard.

He believes Haley, and South Carolina, are far too “red” to have the breadth of appeal necessary to make it to the White House.

Also, Sheheen’s “whore-gate” caused yet another perception problem for the Palmetto State – opening up “old wounds for the people of South Carolina,” Osborne conjectured.  In other words even though “whore-gate” didn’t damage Haley at home – it did damage her home state on the national stage.

“When the former gubernatorial hopeful called Haley a ‘whore,’ intentional or not, it broke open those memories of allegations of Haley’s infidelity and the ignorant and racist statements about Haley by Dick Harpootlian,” Osborne said.

Indeed.  Not exactly the sort of image South Carolina needed to have reinforced heading into the 2016 presidential primary election.

Speaking of that race: Who does Osborne like?  Not surprisingly he’s playing those cards – like every political hand he’s dealt – close to the vest.  Which means candidates are likely to continue feeling his impact long before they figure out where the impact came from.

Taylor Brown is a 20-something Wofford College graduate who somehow got sucked into politics at an early age.  She is easily won over with Rush’s fast food, wine, and spirited political arguments.

***