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With tensions rising simultaneously in the South China Sea, Eastern Europe and the Middle East – the three most volatile hot spots in the world – it was a most inopportune time for the United States to be visited by a major natural disaster.
Yet that’s just what happened last week as Hurricane Helene pounded the American southeast – drawing divergent responses from the 2024 presidential candidates.
Add to that disaster a potential supply chain debacle due to a major port strike on the east and gulf coasts… a labor stoppage that has put the administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in quite a political pickle.
With the current election cycle apparently still searching for peak chaos, there’s no better time to get your political stock portfolio in order. Who is rising? Who is falling? Who is holding?

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For more than a year, our founding editor Will Folks and political columnist Mark Powell have been monitoring the unprecedented insanity of the 2024 election cycle via our FITSNews Political Stock Index. As noted, each installment is an assessment of how our subjects fared over the previous week. Positive reports don’t reflect endorsements, and negative ones aren’t (necessarily) indicative of vendettas.
We just call ‘em like we see ‘em…
To view the most recent index, click here. And to get your historical fix, click here.
Got a hot “stock tip” for our consideration? Email Will (here) and/ or Mark (here). Just be sure to include “Palmetto Political Stock Index” in the subject line.
Where should you invest your political capital this week? To the index…
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HENRY MCMASTER
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STOCK: SHARPLY FALLING
When a massive statewide disaster showed up, Henry McMaster checked out. To his credit, the governor did a commendable job in the run-up to Hurricane Helene, urging South Carolinians to take heed, pay close attention to warnings and prepare for the storm.
Then he dropped the ball. Badly.
In fairness, Helene exploded into monstrous size and intensity with jaw-dropping speed. Plus, hurricanes have a mind of their own. Predictions beforehand are merely educated guesses. Though meteorologists had expected the storm to to go in one direction, Helene shifted course and walloped the western half of the Palmetto State. When the high winds had moved on, some 1.3 million citizens of our state were left in the dark. In fact, power still remains out for tens of thousands of them right now, five days after the storm.
And what did we get from our state’s chief executive? A shoulder shrug and a response that amounted to little more than, “well, dagnabbit, these things happen.”
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Compare that to governor Ron DeSantis in Florida, where Helene made landfall. He was all over the Sunshine State before and after the storm, personally directing preparation, rescue and recovery efforts. Or compare that to governor Roy Cooper in neighboring North Carolina, who told stranded Tar Heel residents, “we are working around the clock to reach you.”
Also, compare that to one of McMaster’s predecessors. Politics and personal shortcomings aside, Mark Sanford won accolades during his time as governor for how his administration managed horrific disasters. Unlike McMaster, Sanford made input from local officials on the ground his top priority – and coordinated the response into a partnership with affected counties. Sanford wasn’t afraid to ruffle feathers in Columbia by paying more attention to what folks on the scene said they needed than what government functionaries in the capital thought should be done.
In short, it was a bottom-up approach far different from the top-down model practiced by McMaster and Company.
As if McMaster’s overall lethargy wasn’t bad enough, consider the cringeworthy tweet sent by his chief of staff Trey Walker one hour before Helene reared its ugly head. By that time, it was readily apparent this was a very powerful, very dangerous storm. What did Walker do? He sneeringly derided Richland County for closing its offices.
On any other day, Walker probably had a good point… but as they say in show business, timing is everything.
It’s becoming obvious that the term-limited 77-year-old McMaster is on autopilot, increasingly sleepwalking through the last two years of his tenure. South Carolina needed an active, engaged, hands-on leader last weekend. And we didn’t get it.
Henry McMaster failed every citizen of the state he was elected to serve.
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J.D. VANCE
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STOCK: RISING
The first rule of a political debate is the same thing that’s taught to young doctors: “First, do no harm.” Republican senator J.D. Vance of Ohio and Democratic governor Tim Walz of Minnesota met that objective Tuesday night – although Vance’s performance clearly outshone that of his rival.
How do we know? Even CNN declared him the victor.
Yet people are talking about the Vance-Walz showdown not because of what it was… but rather because of what it wasn’t.
Missing was the snideness, the eye-rolling and the poorly masked contempt for opponents that have become the hallmarks of modern “debates.” Instead, the two treated the event – and each other – with the decorum and respect worthy of the high office they’re seeking. At times, they even displayed touches of the humanity and basic decency that’s so lacking in today’s politics.
For instance, when Walz mentioned his teenage son had witnessed a shooting, Vance replied, “I didn’t know that your 17-year-old witness had witnessed a shooting.”
“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “That is awful.”
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“VP JD Vance demolishes Tim Walz in the full 2024 debate.” pic.twitter.com/kNKLb9gQHV
— 1776 (@TheWakeninq) October 2, 2024
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As in ABC’s Harris-Trump debate last month, CBS moderators blatantly focused on “fact-checking” the Republican over the Democrat. Though at one point, Vance turned the tables on moderator Margaret Brennen.
“Just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio, does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status, temporary protected status,” she said at the end of a Vance answer.
Vance wasn’t having any of it…
“The rules were that you got a fact check, and since you’re fact-checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on,” Vance said. “So, there’s an application called the CBP One app where you can go on as an illegal migrant, apply for asylum, or apply for parole and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand.”
Fact-check. Checkmate.
For the most part, Vance came off as confident and at ease. Meanwhile, Walz appeared rattled at times – displaying none of the feistiness for which he’s famous in his home state. He had an especially difficult time when confronted about his repeated false claims that he was in China in 1989 during the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests. After a meandering explanation that wandered through everything from his boyhood to his National Guard service, Walz eventually ran up the white flag.
“I will talk a lot,” he said. “I will get caught up in the rhetoric. I’ve not been perfect, and I’m a knucklehead at times.”
Partisans on both sides, as always, saw their guy emerge on top. But the real victor was the simple fact that a debate was held that didn’t end up resembling the food fight scene in “Animal House.”
“Hands down, one of the best debates in many election cycles,” one political strategist told us.
A final takeaway: The long-term winner was Vance. Regardless of whether he wins or loses next month, Tuesday’s debate marked his emergence as a new force in the 2028 GOP presidential field.
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LINDSEY GRAHAM
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STOCK: FALLING
Like the late John McCain before him, South Carolina’s senior senator never met a war he didn’t like – no matter the cost. The veteran “neoconservative” was in an especially opportunistic mood this week after Iran showered nearly 200 missiles on Israel. Lindsey Graham practically tripped over himself, saying Tehran’s onslaught deserved an “overwhelming response” from the United States.
Long known as one of Washington’s top warmongers, Graham outdid himself this time. Though Tel Aviv didn’t request strategic advice from the retired Air Force Reserves colonel, that didn’t stop him from giving it.
“I would urge the Biden Administration to coordinate an overwhelming response with Israel, starting with Iran’s ability to refine oil,” he said in a statement issued while the bombs were still raining down.
The possibility of dragging the U.S. into a war halfway around the world was an especially welcome distraction for Graham. Appearing on television over the weekend, he tried to minimize on-again, off-again bestie Donald Trump‘s recent comment that vice president Kamala Harris is “mentally impaired.” He told CNN, “I just think she’s a crazy liberal.” That drew flak from advocates for the mentally challenged.
Whether in the Middle East or Eastern Europe, Graham will never miss an opportunity to beat the war drums. And it turns out it’s easy to find a rhythm, too, when you’re expending other people’s blood and treasure.
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PRESIDENTIAL POLLING
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STOCK: RISING
Here we are, T-minus 33 days and counting until the election and the presidential race remains an even money affair.
Looking at 538’s aggregate polling, things remain essentially plateaued, with Harris leading Trump 48.6 percent to 45.9 percent percent. And that 2.7 percent difference is easily within the margin of error.
The situation changes, though, when you look at it on a state-by-state basis (which is, after all, how the president is actually chosen) As this index has reported for several months now, this election will be decided by a handful of swing states. To say polling there has been all over the place is an understatement. It’s a dog’s breakfast, a mishmash of surveys showing the lead flipping back and forth like a worn-out pennant flapping in a gusty breeze.
Not so fast, cautions the Guru of Campaign Pollsters.
“There are some real garbage polls out there this week,” Atlanta-based pollster Robert Cahaly posted on X late last week.
Cahaly’s keeping an especially watchful eye over places like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. He says the contest there is unbelievably close, closer than most traditional polling indicates.
Cahaly backed that up by releasing the results of his latest sampling in Pennsylvania. It found Trump ahead by 2.2 percent, edging out Harris 47.5 percent to 45.3 percent. Since then, he’s released results from Wisconsin (Trump +1.1 percent) and Michigan (+2.2 percent) – with four more swing state polls set to be released this week.
If Cahaly’s numbers are right (which they were in 2016), we could be in for a very interesting election night…
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CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIENS
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STOCK: RISING
Three core issues are driving voters this election cycle: Inflation, illegal immigration and abortion. Their urgency depends on which party is doing the talking. But sooner or later, the national dialogue winds back to one of the Big Three topics.
And on the immigration front, the feds just dropped a bombshell stat that’s shooting it to front-row status.
“As of July 21, 2024, there were 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories on ICE’s national docket.”
So wrote deputy director and acting ICE head Patrick J. Lechleitner in a letter sent to congressional Republicans on Friday. That figure includes 425,431 convicted criminals plus another 220,000 illegals facing charges that require them to be deported but haven’t been.
And those are just the cases ICE knows about…
“It’s beyond shocking,” one South Carolina law enforcement officer told us privately.
Those undocumented residents have committed a rogue’s gallery of heinous crimes, such as murder (13,099) and sexual assault (15,811)
Some have reoffended since being here. Consider these recent arrests in “sanctuary state” Massachusetts alone:
- A 49-year-old Guatemalan man accused of 11 counts of sex crimes against a child
- A 30-year-old Salvadoran MS-13 gang member was charged with multiple counts of assault and battery.
What do we hear from Kamala Harris, the Biden Administration’s “border czar?” After visiting the border Saturday for the first time as Veep, she said in typical Washington Speak, “I reject the false choice that suggests we must either choose between securing the border or creating a system of immigration that is safe, orderly, and humane. We can, and we must, do both.”
Yet the question remains: Where was her deep concern about the crisis, even if she was the Biden-Harris Administration’s point person on it, over the last 3.5 years?
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4 comments
lol
JD Eyeliner completely shit the bed when he whined about being fact-checked on some of his lies and then when he couldn’t say Biden won in 2020.
The bar is so low for Trump/Vance that people think Vance did well because he was able to almost make sense (if it weren’t for all his lies).
With Trump chickening out of another debate and an interview with 60 Minutes, JD was maga’s last word before the election.
Will certainly has a hate boner that won’t go away for McMaster.
“The rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact check” is a statement from someone who lies.
“If Cahaly’s numbers are right (which they were in 2016)”
And wrong just about every other year. After weeks of ignoring the polls Will has finally found one he likes so he is going to run it into the ground.
One thing you can count on. If Trump is elected we will be at war with Iran, he has already expressed hopes that it will be “obliterated.”
Good god this is so stupid.
Doesn’t Will Folks call himself a “Libertarian”?
Why is he wasting space whining about McMaster and the government not doing enough to help him out?
Pull up them bootstraps, big alpha-boy! It’s bad enough you take PPP loans from the taxpayer that you’ll never pay back, but begging the government to do more is beyond weak.
I’m no fan of McMaster, but what is the actual criticism you have of the state’s response? It seems rather vague. DeSantis did well because he’s appearing on TV, and Cooper did well because he gave a good quote?
The tweet about Richland County was bad, but that’s the exact type of thing Fits would normally applaud (and you even note that here). Will is bending into pretzels to find some lane of criticism.