By fitsnews – October 14, 2010
We take anything published on SC Hotline with the proverbial ocean of salt, but given the heat that’s on S.C. House Speaker Bobby Harrell following his recent botched robo-call (the latest skirmish in the South Carolina GOP’s ongoing civil war) … it’s possible that he could really be facing a new threat to his powerful position.
The Charleston RINO is already facing a challenge from fiscal conservative Ralph Norman (R-Rock Hill), who is receiving the support of numerous Tea Party groups. Of course given the liberal bent of so many S.C. Republican lawmakers (Danny Cooper, Bill Sandifer, Brian White, Dennis Moss, Liston Barfield, B.R. Skelton, Nelson Hardwick, Bill Whitmire, Mike Gambrell, George Hearn and Chip Limehouse, just to name a few), it’s doubtful Norman will be able to carve out enough votes to defeat Harrell.
That’s too bad … Harrell is a tax-and-spend liberal of the worst sort and one of the preeminent defenders of the state’s failed legislative tyranny. He’s also the author of the Palmetto state’s costly, ineffective education “accountability” program as well as the ringleader of our research universities’ “economic development” efforts - including that $150 million hole in the ground in downtown Columbia, S.C. that’s currently masquerading as a “research campus.”
Harrell is bad, bad news for taxpayers, in other words.
So if Norman can’t beat him, who can?
Enter Rep. Mike Pitts – a retired cop from Laurens, S.C. who’s about to begin his fifth term in the S.C. House.
According to the Hotline, a “movement” is afoot to “draft Pitts” to run for S.C. Speaker.
And while we wait for Pitts to issue the obligatory “I’m flattered but I support Speaker Harrell blah blah blah” press statement, it is interesting to consider that the one Speaker’s challenge Harrell was dreading – the aborted bid of Judiciary Chairman Jim Harrison – would have launched from the center-left of the House GOP Caucus (i.e. where Pitts can be found).
Obviously any House member (Republican or Democrat) would be an improvement over Harrell, but as we’ve said before it will take dramatic changes to the ideological composition of House GOP Caucus before we see a fiscal conservative elected to any leadership position.
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