There is no rest for the weary in politics …
Once you clear a hurdle and draw a breath, the next hurdle awaits. For freshman state representative Katie Arrington, that “next hurdle” is a general election matchup against environmental attorney Joe Cunningham – one of the best candidates Democrats have nominated for a congressional seat in years.
Arrington, of course, is the candidate who seemingly came out of nowhere (well, not to our readers) to defeat incumbent “Republican” Mark Sanford in the GOP primary for the South Carolina first congressional district (map).
Arrington won this race despite being outspent considerably. She also won it largely without the help of U.S. president Donald Trump, who chipped in an eleventh hour tweet once it became clear on the afternoon of the election that Sanford was going down.
She certainly won it with zero help from The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier, which for the most part ignored her – or covered her unfavorably.
That trend is continuing during Arrington’s contest against Cunningham, it would appear.
According to reporter Caitlin Byrd, two coastal “Republicans” endorsed Cunningham’s campaign this week – citing their objection to Arrington’s alleged support for offshore drilling.
The problem? There are several problems, actually.
First, the mayors – Tim Goodwin of Folly Beach and Jimmy Carroll of Isle of Palms – are not partisan officeholders. In other words, they aren’t “Republicans.” Hell, they aren’t even “Republicans in Name Only.”
Both ran and won their municipal offices in nonpartisan races.
Second, Arrington doesn’t support offshore drilling.
[timed-content-server show=’2018-Jan-17 00:00:00′ hide=’2018-Jul-31 00:00:00′]SPONSORED CONTENT
[/timed-content-server]Arrington did support Trump’s decision to lift a ban on offshore drilling, but she has consistently argued that the decision to drill (or not) should be left to the states.
“It’s pathetic but not surprising that Joe Cunningham has to lie to people to get their endorsements,” Arrington strategist Michael Mulé said. “It’s also sad that mayor Goodwin and mayor Carroll simply listened to Joe’s lies instead of contacting representative Arrington directly on her position.”
In fact Arrington reiterated her position in response to the Post and Courier report.
“I do not support drilling for oil off of South Carolina’s coast,” she wrote on her Facebook page.
Somehow that quote didn’t make it into Byrd’s story …
“While there are those who are using scare tactics to politicize this issue, the Trump administration simply reversed the Obama administration’s national policy,” Arrington added. “I believe states should have the final say on this issue, and for South Carolina, nothing will change. I am not opposed to studying the issue, but we didn’t have an oil industry in our state before the Obama ban. We won’t have one after the Obama ban.”
So to recap … virtually everything about this story is wrong.
Cunningham got two endorsements, sure … but they weren’t from “Republicans” (to the extent that label even means anything) and they were offered on the basis of bad information.
#FakeNews? Pretty close if you ask us …
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