Only one Democratic congressperson representing an early primary state has yet to step into the fray of presidential politics: South Carolina's Only one Democratic congressperson representing an early primary state has yet to step into the fray of presidential politics: South Carolina's John M. Spratt Jr, the subject of a short Politico piece today. Reporter David Paul Kuhn offers up a few possible explanations for Spratt's reticence. First elected in 1982, Spratt is a conservative Democrat on many social issues, and a deficit hawk. He's also the only white member of his state's Democratic delegation. With so much buzz over the racial implications of Saturday's South Carolina primary (Will Edwards and Clinton split the "white vote?" Will a victory for Obama be discounted if most of his support comes from the African American community?), it's understandable that Spratt would want to avoid getting too involved.
But a quick look at Spratt's congressional website shows he's also a locally-minded politician, with press releases touting legislation that increased disaster relief for farmers in the Southeast, named a local Civil War battlefield part of the National Park System, and cracked down on Internet predators. And despite a 100 percent pro-union voting record, Spratt is well to the right of all three Democratic front-runners; he supports a border fence, for example, as well as restrictions on second and third term abortions. He's been consistently wary of removing troops from Iraq. In short, Spratt's particular brand of Democratic politics doesn't make for an easy alliance with any of the presidential candidates.
Politico's Kuhn, the author of a book arguing that the interests of Southern white male voters should be taken more seriously by the Democratic party, would probably say that Spratt's odd-man-out status signals a major problem within the party, a forfeiting of important social conservative votes. South Carolina hasn't voted for a Democrat presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter. Indeed, they've been handing Democrats large margins of defeat ever since. But considering the moral imperative of the Democratic party being an outspoken proponent of women's rights and civil rights, the question is, as always, whether states like South Carolina are really where Democrats should focus their energies beyond primary season, instead of looking toward the Rocky Mountain West, or even to newly purple Virginia.
--Dana Goldstein
