WILL THERE BE ANOTHER COMEBACK BID IN THE SOUTH CAROLINA FIRST DISTRICT?
Former S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford may not be the only Palmetto politician plotting a comeback in the crowded special election for the South Carolina first congressional district.
Sources say former S.C. Treasurer Thomas Ravenel – who resigned his office after pleading guilty to drug charges in 2007 – is contemplating a bid for the seat vacated earlier this month by newly appointed U.S. Sen. Tim Scott. In fact multiple sources have confirmed to FITS that a poll testing Ravenel’s viability was in the field this week.
“T-Rav” defeated longtime incumbent Treasurer Grady Patterson in 2006 – a race co-managed by this website’s founding editor. Months later, however, he was forced to resign his seat after federal agents implicated him in a cocaine ring. Ravenel purchased small quantities of the drug for recreational use at parties he hosted – which as far as we’re concerned is nobody’s business but his (and his invited guests).
Nonetheless he spent ten months in a federal prison for his “crime.”
“I’m considering it,” Ravenel told FITS of the first district race. “I really haven’t decided yet.”
A tireless pro-free market advocate (and supporter of Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential bid), Ravenel’s experiences have made him increasingly frustrated with the federal government. In fact in November 2011 he briefly renounced his citizenship.
“After what I’ve done for this country, paying millions in taxes and creating thousands of jobs I don’t feel I owe it anything especially after it destroyed my reputation, confiscated my wealth and took my freedom,” Ravenel wrote at the time. “No, let someone else fix these problems. In fact, don’t even fix them. Americans like locking everybody up. Have at it America.”
Ravenel has been an outspoken critic of America’s failed “War on Drugs.” He’s also published guest columns here on FITS related to other issues – including the need to cut military spending.
Were he to run, Ravenel would join Sanford, S.C. Sen. Larry Grooms (R-Berkeley), S.C. Rep. Chip Limehouse (RINO-Charleston), S.C. Rep. Andy Patrick (RINO-Beaufort), S.C. Rep. Peter McCoy (R-James Island), former S.C. Sen. John Kuhn, Charleston businessman Teddy Turner and Charleston attorney Curtis Bostic as presumptive candidates.
Filing for this circus opens on January 18.
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72 comments
I thought he renounced his U.S. Citizenship and became a citizen of Argentina???…
Or am I confusing him w/ Someone else…????
PS: Never thought a Republican could make me long for the days of G-Pat…but this one does…
The brain damage he sustained from snorting three cups of cocaine must be more severe than we thought. He is obviously deluded.
Oh dear God let him run. That would be entertaining…
That’s about as laughable as Sanfraud running for office.
How ironic! Next to coke-head T-Rav is a petition drive advertisement for Barny Frank for Senate. Lol
Took his wealth????? A Ravenel??? Gimmee a break. This guy’s wealth has gotten him so out of touch with reality, he thinks the our laws don’t apply to him. I think SC Politics can survive w/o you, T-Rav. Go do another line.
Since the race already had an adulterer with Sanford, why should anybody be surprised if a dope head announces? Who’s next, a child molester?
Like Sanford, sounds like another guy, who’s got too much of a past, too much of a security risk in terms of blackmail potential, too many erratic personality problems, and a host of hidden agendas and shady associations. A shame they squandered it for addictions of one sort of another, that could prove to be a monkey on their backs for the rest of their lives. I’ll give them my mercy, but not my vote.
I hope democrats run a strong candidate for this seat in case Stanford and tom get in the runoff.
Yes he should absolutely run. He is the epitome of the modern Republican.
Or a typical Democrat.
Right up there with Sanford running….you can’t fix stupid.
All of you that are laughing at this, take a look at our current crop of elected officials. I know, right?
I would be very interested in supporting someone who is willing to stand up to the unreasonable, destructive and ignorant drug policy that exploits millions of citizens and is motivated by political expedenncy rather than scientific data. With the right approach there could be a lot of support as most parents would not what their child’s life ruined by being arrested as a first time offender for recreational drug use.
1) He should admit he had a substance abuse problem. (I know he has but this article makes he seem arrogant and in denial.)
2) The punishment for first time offenders for recreational use is too excessive.
3) Cocaine should remain criminalized with other very addictive drugs that includes crack, meth, heroin, although not as much as these.
4) Tobacco should be criminalized and up there with the most addictive drugs. It is the leading cause of cancer and death by cancer. Is as addictive as meth, crack and heroin. 80% of addicts start before the age of 18.
5) Marijuana or at least hemp should be decriminalized. It’s just pain stupid to have it criminalized. Once again its simply political and scientific data doesn’t support it. There is overwhelming evidence that marijuana is not addictive, at least not, say, as much as caffeine, for example, and has vast medicinal benefits. I don’t think there would be an increase in use, as most people don’t do drugs and don’t need it, and wouldn’t like it. The most prominent agricultural agencies have been lobbying for hemp cultivation to be legal as it would save American farmers. The potential for hemp is off the charts. It can make almost anything, and is a miracle plant. The rest of the civilized world cultivates hemp, there is such a minor trace of THC that no one would bother smoking it, yet the DEA chooses to criminalize it.
In short we need to stand up to these belligerent, uneducated, political policies that are based on expediency rather than scientific data.
Just legalize and regulate all of it with the possible exception of Meth.
I’m surprised that someone who can see the failed war on drugs for what it is would want to crminalize tobacco. That’s about as rational as criminalizing marijuana.
Ravenel didn’t have a problem with U.S. drug policy . . . until HE got caught.
Shameful. He’s never showed any remorse for his actions, including being less-than-forthcoming to Judge Anderson in court. No surprise he gets love from Fits.
If he was using coke while performing official duties, then he has something to apologize for. But if he was simply using on his own time, hurting nobody but himself, he has nothing to apologize for — other than getting caught and imprisoned because of irrational and arbitrary laws.
OGOB,
He was giving coke to college girls. He’s an egotistical piece of shit.
Sounds like a consensual transaction to me, sort of like buying a girl a drink.
He may be an egotistical piece of shit, but he shouldn’t have been imprisoned for the coke thing.
“He may be an egotistical piece of shit, but he shouldn’t have been imprisoned for the coke thing.”
He’s lucky being a giant douchebag isn’t a crime, or he’d be in prison for life.
Great idea!!! Tyrone Biggums could be his spokesman.
Yawn… Any more John Kuhn updates?
Yeah. Here it is. At a press conference today, Kuhn, a former State Senator, outlined his agenda: “I HATE Mark Sanford, Mark Sanford is a sleazy fuck, Mark Sanford embarrassed South Carolina, FUCK Mark Sanford!”
Is that what you were expecting?
Between Kuhn, Sanford and T-Rav…the liberals cheaters and dopers (redundant, I know) vote will be broken up in the Primary…
That’s a good thing…
It worked for Marion Barry.
Bitch set me up.
“created thousands of jobs”, WTF is this brat talking about? you lost your freedom and some of your inheritance because you broke the fucking law buying coke from a drug dealer, now you want to run for US Congress, which makes since, because they are also in it solely for themselves and think they are above the law
is anyone running for that seat who is not a complete douchebag?
Didn’t the Black Dude walk…while T-Rav went down???
Only in 2013-America…Rich White Dude can’t get a break…
Hey Big T Sock Puppet, that happened in 2007, you fucking idiot.
By the way, Willie, your Big T mask is slipping. You need to dumb it up a little more.
Hey mph: I LOVE to turn it around on the Dumb@$$ pieces of $#!*…like you…
Everything’s Racial to you F%^*in Idiots, if (only IF) you can gain from it…
I’m Worth my weight in Gold at Ramming that Shaft up that leftwing Racist @$$#$…
Can you answer me?: why did the Black Dude get away with it…yet we have a criminal justice system that Took down the guy just because he was White and Republican…????
America has turned into a White-Hate, Hall of Injustice…
No the black dude didn’t walk, you ignorant shithead. He got 10 months.
Your facts are as good as your presidential prognostications.
mph — Will is not big t unless Will has been using the same schtick for almost 15 years on various message boards.
The black dude was released but arrested again on something and charged with resisting arrest the last I heard. He was in the jail while Thomas Ravenel was not.
Black dude def. Went to prison. Where were u when THEY BOTH got sentenced the same day? Smh
First, what jobs has this guy created? He’s a fucking trust fund baby that hasn’t worked a day in his life. Hell, after he won the S.C. Treasurer job, he didn’t show up for work, preferring to stay in Charleston and drink in bars and snort coke with his buddies. Second, millions in taxes? On what income? The fucker never worked.
Go cry me a river, you little shit.
Yet mph: The black guy got away with it…
You are a KKK-Level Racist if you can agree that one man goes to jail if he’s white…yet the Black guy gets off…
You got a lot of ‘splainin to do….So start talkin’….
Know your facts MPH – Thomas Ravenel started the Ravenel development coporation and built many shopping centers and yes the requires him to hire a lot of people for the construction project and pay taxes. You sound a bit jealous maybe….
From the Post and Courier:
When Rocky D asked how he felt about people dragging his father’s name through the mud over this, Ravenel sounded a little whiny.
“Just the name Ravenel, quite frankly … it’s a sin, in the Bible: envy,” he said. “I think people envy us of the name, thinking there are special privileges afforded to the name. But it comes with a lot of responsibility, too.”
So he’s kind of like Spider-Man?
But it got worse. He compared envy as a sin much more problematic than drug use.
“It’s worse than cocaine, in my opinion. It doesn’t talk about cocaine in the Bible. It talks about envy.”
What a turd.
But why do you think it’s OK to prosecute the WHITE giy…while the Black Dude go off???
Are you a leftwing RACIST, who hates White people…????
Nice to know that a half kilo is a small amount.
1.1 lbs.
Yes, I hate white people. But I do know how to read a calender.
So if the Racism happened in 2007…you’re cool with it…
Nice (Typical) Liberal….
Totally cool with it.
I hear they’re going to empty the prisons of black folks just as soon as they print that trillion dollar coin and round up your guns. The final chapter will be putting our white women in FEMA detention camps to be later handed out to you know who.
You are a Hitler clone…
I thought Thomas Ravenel had renounced his United States citizenship.
I guess he bought it back to run for Congress.
Mark,
I actually worked with them on a project in 2004 or there abouts. The notion that guy is some sort of John Gault, carrying thousands on his shoulders is absurd. He’s a lazy trust fund baby that used his daddy’s money and connections to get into real-estate. I guess that makes his sister a mogul, too, since she did the exact same thing.
At least she actually showed up at Rushland on occasion, though she wouldn’t get out of her truck.
small amount? The cocaine in his case amounted to THREE cups of cocaine over the years. Imagine 3 cups of flour for oatmeal raisen cookies….3 CUPS!!!
Go back to the Bahamas
“over the years”
He was not convicted of selling it — which shouldn’t be a crime anyway — but of using it. Sounds like the guy had a serious drug problem, but that should be a health issue and not a criminal issue.
He was warned they were looking at him and his buds. He did it anyway. That speaks to his sense of entitlement more than anything.
So he’s a dumbass that probably should have been exposed and lost his political seat. But that should have been the end of it.
All you natives in the Lowcountry have been looking for ways to run off the Yankee horde. This race should be your answer. When they see this motley crew running for the seat and realize these are the kind of people who live along the coast, it’ll cause a traffic jam on I-95 northbound the likes of which you’ve never seen.
Get them to make national ad buys so EVERYONE knows what kind of losers, rich primma donnas and nutjobs infest the coast.
It’ll work better than the naacp boycott ever did.
It’s Ohio we don’t like.
“After what I’ve done for this country, paying millions in taxes and creating thousands of jobs”
Jesus Christ. I just projectile vomited all over my computer.
When asked by a Congressional committee what had he done for this country, mobster Frank Costello said, “I paid my tax”. So did Thomas.
Ravenel, Sanford, and Haley—what a triumvirate of badass people.
Ravenel is a real arrogant bitch.
The GOP is so sleazy in South Carolina.
I remember when the Dems were the bad guys. They got their comeuppance at the very end.
The same will happen to the GOP.
There is something about being the party in power that makes it so evil, regardless of the party.
As I recall,when he ran for State Treasurer,he ran ads identifying himself as a “Reagan Republican through and through.”
Certainly Reagan was a “consevative” but hardly a “libertarian”
When did Tom Ravenels conversion occur?
Anyway,while good for a few laughs,the fact is he probably wont run,but if he does?
He wont win.
Yayo!
Sure why not.
Being a convicted felony is usually a big plus with the Black vote.
Get in T just to make the others squirm when you ask tough questions in the debate.
Mark’s crime worse in my opinion, he was not set up, he was stupid just to get some strange pussy.
What an ego-maniac! The guy does absolutely nothing with his time, typical trust-funder. Polo doesn’t count.
The fellow wearing the Manning jersey and the baseball cap on backwards left a lousy tip last night at Casa Linda’s. Just saying man…
Who is Thomas’s father?
Say what you will about T-Rav – dare I say TR? – but the man has style; and so few politicians do these days. It is no longer politically correct to have too much style. When asked what advice she would give then candidate Jimmy Carter in his campaign against Gerald Ford, (and did give to Gerald Rafshoon), the cultural anthropoligist Margaret Mead said, “(s)tyle over substance. Style over substance.” It would be nice to see our 1st district/think-beach representative show a little more joie de vivre after years of the pedestrian Col Sanders and the opportunistically Republican Jar Jar. If you require moral purity, there is a televangelist mentioned above as one of the candidates presumptive. Good luck with that.
Fuck the son of a bitch. He is as dumb as his stupid ass old man. Both are jerk offs.
the funniest thing Womanbeater Will has ever written: “Ravenel purchased small amounts of (cocaine)for recreational use at parties he hosted- which as far as we’re concerned is nobody’s business but his (and his invited guests)…” LMFAO!!!!!! really? how about this: he was the elected state treasurer who was/is a DEGENERATE COKEHEAD. LOL! i mean, you mustve got alot of hits and lots of comments, so i guess its working for you. some may call it desperate, lowclass, pathetic, insincere, disingenuous, but i say its one degenerate, scumbag, drug addict buddy looking out for his richboy cokehead friend. in womanbeater’s will’s twisted, demon-possessed black heart, its what passes for an act of loyalty and kindness. (it must suck to have to sign your name to this kind of shit. but i guess some people will do anything, including sucking cock for coke.)
The guy wearing the Manning jersey and the back-asswards hat left a lousy tip Friday night at Casa Linda’s, too.
The dude s nothing but a charlatan. The guy is just wasting oxygen and does absolutely nothing, though typical for a trust funder.
I would like to see Teddy Turner win. I really don’t know any of the candidates that well, but at least he would have some integrity and is intelligent. That’s the real problem with the rest of them. They just aren’t that bright and, in addition, in their own little world of influence peddling. Meanwile, this has turned into a circus. I don’t know if Thomas can make a comeback with his past drug use in office. I just don’t know him that well although I’d like to meet him and hear what he has to say. I think his is honest, as in not a thief, and I also don’t dismiss the candidates or individuals who have been humbled by their own mistakes.. that is if they have atually been humbled. Anything is better than the arrogant SOB who run the government now, although maybe it’s not really their fault and our system needs an overhaul, as they all have the same common denominator of special interest and live a bipolar life, saying whats expedient and doing the exact opposite. It also doesn’t help that so many of our officials make so much profit off real-estate that is a clear conflict of interest. It’s really no different that doing coke while in office.
Yeah Fits, put the spotlight on Teddy and lets hear what he has to say and what he has been doing most of his adult life, to see if the two coincide. All the rest of this troop do seem bi-polar in their message versus their actions. It would be a shame to have someone win this office and continue their aggrandizement simply by default or the lesser of two evils.