Loveable dog named "Oscar," Tissues, and Baby Wipes
Jim Rex - 514,382 to Karen Floyd - 513,818
You know what I'm about to say next - The good guys lead by 564 votes now
Why We Don't Have To Worry About A Protest
Once this recount gets over with, and Jim Rex still holds a mandated lead, the Hurricane Floyd campaign will have till December 15th to protest. If you talk to Spartanburg County Republican Party Chairman Rick Beltram, he'll tell you that he would "highly recommend" a protest to the candidate that came up short in the recount. If you talk to Spartanburg County Democratic Party Chairwoman Liz Patterson, she'll tell you that she's hopeful that there won't be a need for a protest.
Liz got it right! If the recount takes place and Jim Rex still holds the mandated lead, there won't be a need for a protest. Why? Because the State Republican Party won't allow Hurricane Floyd to protest. If it wasn't embarrasing enough that they already ended up going with a super terrible candidate for this position before they realized it was too late, now it's even more embarrasing that Hurricane Floyd almost got whipped in her very own super red Spartanburg County backyard. I would like to think that the State GOP would like for the SC voters to forget this woman as soon as possible and forget all the (insert adjective here) who ran her campaign as well.
Thank goodness someone like Jim Rex came to the rescue and entered this race! Not yet, but pretty soon over half of South Carolina will let a big sigh of relief out once they get to know more about Dr. Rex and his plan and accountability!
27 comments:
at least i feel some degree of vindication for having supported bob staton in the primary.
but come on mike, get off the karen floyd thing? she's probably on her way to being yesterday's news, so forget about it ...
"If Jim Rex wants to run an effective campaign, this event isn't just bad image management, but it's a total waste of time and resources.""Last week, I awarded the Karen Floyd campaign a "Play of the Week". This week, I confer the "UN-play of the Week" to the Jim Rex campaign. Better luck next time!" - Earl Capps
Earl's been in love with this woman since day one
Earl,
Unlike you, and of course it is obvious with what you have published before on your blog and others, you are not an educator, and some of us are educators, and we are still pissed off at Floyd for insulting everyone of us. Maybe for you it's easy to forget about it, but it's not that easy for us.
Hey Michael - check out The Shot. We got a facelift. www.adailyshot.com.
Michael once again you are wrong. After the recount is certified by the State Election commission there is only a 5 day window to protest the vote. I only wish that you would get your facts straight before you speak on a subject.
Not to mention there are military ballots that are still coming in which must be counted according to federal law. Then there is a long list of convicted felons who voted not to mention all the people who are registered in a different state that voted as well. I hear the Floyd campaign has over 1,000 such incidents they are documenting now.
The HJ article states that The commission has until Dec. 15 to hear protests
Yes they have until Dec. 15 to HEAR the proteset not to FILE the protest. I only wish some people would get a grasp on things before they repeat it over and over.
Just because you're pissed off that you're candidate lost, don't take it out on Reese
Michael Reese is a LOOSER!
anon1, your quoting of my blog was awful selective. you might want to take a look at these recent postings which didn't earn me any admiration from the floyd camp:
Like this one ... or this one ... or maybe this oldie.
whoever you are, little nameless chickens ..., do your homework before speaking. otherwise, you'll look like a babbling idiot.
as to anon2, get over it. the race is over ... floyd blew it, so why don't you drop the hate? she's toast, and her short-lived involvement with education has come to an end, while yours will continue.
your precious monopoly over the education process will continue, along with your job security. no matter how bad the school may be, no matter how bad a job faculty and staff perform, you've got what you wanted.
the election of someone who is content to have a state where the poor and minorities will get an inferior education, and slowly become a permanent underclass with no hope and no future. someone who won't clean house. someone who won't change course.
do i hear "you bes' stay in yo' place, boy" ... ?
granted karen didn't offer a whole lot more than that. her country-club, jihadist private school agenda is no more the solution than your monopolist "f*** em if their schools are failing and dangerous" approach.
it's over, move on. life's too short.
Earl,
I've got to disagree with you on one thing: Rex has never said stay the course. He's talked about the need for radical change, of the need to bust the bureaucracy, short of giving vouchers and tax credits. He's talked about the need for stronger discipline, short of expelling students for passing notes in class.
Now, apparently, we'll get the chance to see if he can deliver.
well, i guess the next four years will tell the tale.
school choice is certainly part of a broad reform agenda. but i never agreed with those who took the view that it alone is reform, which too many of its advocates believe.
i see school choice as an escape hatch from really bad schools, and i think competition is a good thing overall.
but competition is based upon a level playing field, where public schools are free to compete - allowed to adapt curricula to the needs of their students, pioneer new ideas, and clean up their classrooms.
i know here in summerville, even in a choice environment, my kids would probably stay where they are.
but i still believe i have the right, as a parent, to make that choice.
for the eighty percent or so where there is hope for the schools, doing what it takes to allow them to excel is a good solution. if rex is willing to be part of that process, then that's a good thing.
then we can get back to the other twenty percent of schools that are beyond reforming ...
Michael,
I just don't understand the continued personal attacks against Karen Floyd. The "victors" are supposed to be gracious... Is that beyond the avg Dem now? Are u guys totally classless
Yes we will see if a carrer educrat can make any changes to the system. I bet he will divorce his third wife and marry someone in the department and promote them to one of his deputies. I hear that he just loves the women.
I also understand that he did this at Withrop and Costal Carolina.
Michael,
I just took another look at your recent postings, and the general tenor of your comments, and I think they are infantile.
I imagine that in a few years you will look back on these postings and will not be proud of them. There is nothing enlightening, or uplifting in them…just childish boastings and petty insults toward a woman that did her best but lost…so you are simply kicking a woman while she is down.
You seem to be a bright enough fellow…I hope you mature in a way that will allow you to be useful to others.
Chris
Hmm…. I will stand up for what I say and I will write my name on it. What a concept.
The woman had no business running in this election. It was a slap in the face to every educator in South Carolina. People have been dogging Rex from the beginning because he has a career in education!?!?
Earl I see your gripes as I parent. I would be in the same boat with the SC education system. (Although you don't deal with near the problems being in Dorchester)
School choice when implemented the right way does work. We could make a better case for it in South Carolina after putting some money in the schools that are receiving below average ratings to begin with. I realize everybody has this Sanford mindset of "money won't fix education" but I can't see how it won't help when used in the right ways. Raise teacher salary, recruit better teachers, use our alternative schools, lower classroom size... these are all solutions that revolve around money.
With a republican governor, house, and senate in our state there is no telling what could have been passed on the voucher side of things, which would have been terrible to the money problem we already have.
Now with a governor like Sanford, will Rex actually be able to implement large scale change?? I don't know. It is time for South Carolinians to value public education and take action. I hope that the first step was electing Jim Rex.
(Earl I'll post something about vouchers and school choice, if Michael lets me, when I finish my research)
I feel really sorry for all of the people who honestly believe that K Flo was in this race for the right reasons and not the wrong reasons.
Geeze, you guys are such wimps. You can't handle it at all when a democrat unveils the truth about a candidate and really fights back can you?
I want to thank the K. Floyd campaign for running a 100% clean and positive race against one of South Carolina's greatest educators, Jim Rex. Her campaign showed dignity and class all around the board and her work ethic for this race was incredible. I wish her well for everything she continues to do after this race.
jc - i backed staton in the primary, for three reasons - 1) he's worked in education, 2) his agenda addressed more issues, and 3) when i talked with him about workforce development and vocational issues, he knew what i was talking about.
floyd's unwillingness to broaden her focus on the issues cost her at the polls and may well have been the best asset of the rex campaign. i spoke out plenty about this major weakness, and i appear to have been vindicated.
you're right - in dorchester 2, we are lucky. however, my daughter has a half-sister who had a choice between brentwood middle and the military magnet schools in north charleston.
as a gifted and talented student, she would be poorly-served in either school. brentwood has a horrible situation for violence and test scores, and military magnet schools are not suited to meet the needs of above-average students.
in a full choice enviroment, she would have access to several other schools in the area, public and private, that could better meet her needs.
i worry that this girl's future will be beat out of her by high school, as many in her situation are.
my daughter is college-bound. great grades, safe school, and good opportunities for extracurricular activities. her sister, who lives 15 miles away, doesn't have anywhere near the same quality of education.
that's not right.
THAT is why i support choice - i want her to have a future. the irony is the liberals who often demand immediate action on issues when they proclaim a "crisis", don't seem to care about her, or many others who are stuck in schools that don't educate them, but rather consign them to failure.
talking about money IS important, because for too long there was no concern about where the money was going. not only did it not get results, but it actually facilitated bad policy-making.
but we've already cut class size significantly, raised the salaries of teachers, in real dollars, greatly, and made massive improvements on the kinds of facilities we use.
after all this, when we're still seeing inconsistent performances, it is fair to ask if the money was well-spent, or if there might now be better directions for that money.
or maybe if we've reached a saturation point, where we don't need to increase funding, but rather redirect funding to more effective avenues.
What is Michael Reese..... 25 or 26?? I think it's clear that he will remain immature for the duration of his life. The fact is, we need people like this.
If not for Mr. Reese's father, who obviously has to pull strings to keep his son out of a janitorial position, we could count on him and his limited mental capacity to be the best janitor in the state.
gray - come on now, he's not that bad a guy. how about lay off the cheap shots?
Earl I understand you man. Thanks for sticking up for Reese as well. I also voted for Staton in the primary.
People need to seperate school choice and vouchers. The full choice you speak of I guess is the two lumped together.
The vouchers program is still a bad thing for our state, and has done nothing but segregate schools everywhere it has been put in place.
I've got a little more research to do (stats and such) but I'll write about it soon. Good luck with your children and their education! One thing is very clear... we need more parents like you involved in their child's education. That would change everything. Have a good one.
earl said: "the irony is the liberals who often demand immediate action on issues when they proclaim a "crisis", don't seem to care about her, or many others who are stuck in schools that don't educate them, but rather consign them to failure."
That's simply not true Earl. I am a liberal whose children are zoned to a failing school. They will go private until the schools improve. Yes, it pisses me off that 60% of my property tax in Sburg Cty. goes to paying for a failing school when less than 2 miles away an "excellent" rated school sits that they could attend. I just don't agree that Sburg taxpayers should pay for me to educate my children privately. Instead, I believe Sburg taxpayers should get off their asses and demand accountability in ALL of their schools...
If I am given a voucher, it will give me the opportunity to put my kids in an even better college prep private school at the taxpayers expense...sounds good I guess...but I don't feel like that's right.
tammy - i feel you should be free to send your children whereever you feel they'll get the best education, and that you shouldn't feel guilty for doing so.
the tax dollars should follow the child, instead follow the bureaucrats. if the child leaves, then is it fair to leave the dollars behind?
i believe they don't care - at least they don't care enough to see what they're doing is not working and that it's better to give these kids some sort of escape route.
it's like the battered spouse who stays around "for the kids" ... if that spouse put their kids first, they'd get the hell out of dodge and create a better enviroment for them.
if they cared more about the kids than being right about their failed education agenda, they'd be open to other options. but they aren't.
i'm not prepared to continue down their primrose path to hell. we gave them higher teacher pay, smaller classroom sizes, and new schools, and we're not seeing results. who can really believe that doing more of the same will accomplish anything different?
i think we should have the confidence to say that we have nothing to fear from school choice. but if every school was as well-run as the ones here in summerville, there would be nothing to fear.
jc does touches on a point that is one of the dirty secrets of the south - most private schools in rural areas date back to the year the local schools were integrated.
while i think it's unfair to say a similar outcome would occur in all cases, there is still a fair likelihood many schools in a full choice environment would be more, not less, diverse.
a lot of school choice advocates favor school choice so they can have Jihad HS, which is wrong, and would leave children less prepared to interact with the real world.
i want school choice to facilitate freedom of choice for parents and the best education for the children, but i don't want the public schools left unable to compete on a level playing field, nor do i want to facilitate cultural separation.
i do want full school choice, but there are still a lot of questions that need to be answered before we can move forward with such a system. those who believe just handing out vouchers next fall will automatically cure what ails our schools are as delusional as those who think parents have no right to choose.
In education terms, school choice and vouchers are two different things. We have been blending them together and it is getting confusing. Good school choice doesn't include take money out of public school and sending it to private schools.
jc - how come you monopolists always say it's "taking money from public schools"?
by that, couldn't you argue that graduation is taking money away from public schools, since we allocate funding, in part, on a per-child basis?
when a child goes to another school, isn't that also reducing the cost of doing business for the school?
this is simple business finance they teach to sophomore business majors at most colleges.
as there are plenty of private schools who charge less than the average public school per-child cost, it is possible that this could actually show a net increase in funding for the students who remain at that school.
so how is something which reduces the cost of doing business greater than reducing the total revenue taking money from public schools?
anytime you make a statement that presents half the truth, it's intellectually dishonest. that's what you're doing here.
i'd like to think you're bigger than that.
there seems to be an amazing fear of competition among the school statists that is only equalled by the fear of some religious righters of having their children in a secular public school, exposed to us "common folk".
i wish i could understand why this fear is so deeply-rooted.
as someone who has always worked in the private sector, competition doesn't scare me. sure, it's a risk, but you don't see me demanding protectionist laws passed to guarantee my well-being.
Man Earl... I respect you, but you are a little off your rocker on this subject. Spitting out terms like monopolist….please…. Do not claim that I am being dishonest, especially intellectually, and especially on a matter involving education. This is something I am involved with, and a part of everyday. You need to read a little bit about this subject and become educated on the matter before spouting off.
I hope you don’t actually believe some of what you just wrote. Yes, I understand what is taught in a sophomore finance class so quit trying to discredit me. HERE is the truth. I would like to hear about a quality private school that has a lower tuition than the cost per child amount. That is one of the typical stupid statements thrown out about vouchers. You and I both know the average private school costs MUCH more than the cost per child amount spent in every district in our state.
You know it will be taking more money away from public schools because all our schools are operating right now with some tax base from private school parents. Those funds are already built in to the per child cost and to take that away all of the sudden will kill plenty of districts.
What you seem to not understand is our country’s foundation of providing a free and appropriate education for all citizens. That is provided for EVERYBODY. If you choose to not take advantage of that, it is your decision.
I’m going to write a long blog about this by the end of this break so you can see the arguments for and against vouchers. The things that keeps coming up in all of my research are….. vouchers segregate, vouchers still require a tax hike to cover, and they hurt the public school.
Do not label me as dishonest Earl.
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