Comments on: Nelsen: Economic Recovery Requires New Leadership

By: Nelsen: Economic Recovery Requires New Leadership — Nelsen for Governor Campaign Blog

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:04:55 +0000

[...] This op-ed was recently featured on South Carolina’s most read political blog, FITSnews.com [...]

By: Alex Hampton

Alex Hampton — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:14:35 +0000

I do not get the feeling that Nelsen is railing against any one person or set of policies but instead he feels like the political institutions in the state have failed. I think that Nelsen is for reforming our obsolete constitution to let a governor govern and a legislature legislate rather than the current legislature hegemony. As far as specificity is concerned, Nelsen is more thorough and innovative with regard to his ideas than any other candidate in the race and he only had a small amount of space to describe his platform in this op-ed. If you look on his website posted below his article you will find many good ideas listed in the issues sections. I do not believe that Nelsen wants to use the controversial Fair tax as Jethro implied but rather implement a reasonable system that attracts businesses and jobs to this state. I think Nelsen’s best idea is to make education a community issue where adults become engaged in at risk children’s lives and give them the helping hand that they never got from their own parents. I heard him speak the other day about his church and his wives involvement in the BookBuddies program and it seems as if his wife and others like her play a big role in the lives of our state’s children by acting as role models to those whose parents are not good role models.

By: baker

baker — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:08:48 +0000

This is pretty good stuff here:

“We must give parents more choices for educating their children. We must encourage innovation in public schools and charter schools.

We must free teachers and administrators from unnecessary paperwork and the pressure of unjust evaluation methods. We must give merit pay to the successful while cutting loose the incompetent.

We must call our communities—our parents and grandparents, churches, civic groups and businesses—to get involved in the schools, befriend children from unstable homes, provide after school care, and safe transportation.”

Given that Dr. Nelson isn’t advocating private school tuition tax credits in this piece, I’m sort of surprised that Will Folks hasn’t labeled him a RINO. Really, the positions Nelson advocates here are quite reasonable — and consistent with a lot of pro-public education, progressive thinking in South Carolina.

We’ll see how the professor’s rhetoric and campaign develops. But, for now, it’s nice to see a “reform” Republican not trot out the old tired (and misleading) Policy Council claims about education spending….and not push the tired (and misleading) claims about how much money tuition tax credits will save the taxpayers and public schools and how this will solve the vast and complext problems of educating our poorest and most struggling students. Nelson is promoting true community involvement and philanthropy, along with innovation within the public system.

Bravo, Dr. Nelson!

By: Charleston Conservative

Charleston Conservative — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:49:20 +0000

Brent Nelsen is the conservative choice our state party needs–not one of the “Big Three” stooges (Bauer, McMaster, and Barrett) whose self-promoting ilk got us where we are now.

The Furman prof has my vote…and more Lowcountry fiscal conservatives are sure to follow.

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:56:58 +0000

Dr. Nelsen is a political scientist by trade as well as the former on-air political analyst for WYFF-4 (NBC) in Greenville. I would love to have the chance to ask to chart out his course for victory in the Republican primary. Of course now that he is a candidate speaking “on the record” he probably would not get into it in the detail that political junkies like myself would like.

Anyone who works in politics knows that not every candidate who runs for office has the expectation of winning. Many candidates run to come in second-place. I wonder what Dr. Nelsen’s motivations are. Of course, he could see a six-way primary with no true front-runner splitting up the vote so much that he has a chance. Plus, he is the only non-politician in the six-way race, and he knows that a lot of the primary electorate is going to be the “throw the bums out” crowd–the ones who responded to WORD radio’s “We’ve Had Enough” campaign in the June 2008 GOP primary which told people to vote against all the incumbants. And a lot of these people live in the Upstate–and Nelsen is the only Upstate candidate besides “Bailout” Barrett. With that said Nelsen is a smart guy, not really a populist (esp. being an “academic”) and when you read what he writes and listen to what he says, it’s kind of a “smarter” type of politics. So can this college professor talking about the “new economy” also make a play for the anti-government “tea party” crowd as an alternative to Haley and Grooms? We will see…

By: Jethro

Jethro — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:02:29 +0000

Specificity is lacking.
We already know our unemployment rate is high, we have poor schools, and the governor and the general assembly do not get along.

What precisely would you or could you do as Governor?

Define what a “fair” tax system would look like if you could make it happen.

What “unnecessary paperwork” would you recommend eliminating from a teacher’s job?

By: CNSYD

CNSYD — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:48:49 +0000

If we are truly dissatified with the form of government and division of power in SC then change can only really be effected by Constitutional change. Unless that occurs then a situation like the present can recurr. However there is a way to work within the present system. As we should have learned as a youth, a soft word turns away wrath. Railing against the present form, ala Sanford, does nothing but cause the opposition to dig in their heels. It might get the Governor press but it does little to help the citizens.