See If You Can Find The “Liberal”

There’s an old word floating around again that’s trying to con you into believing things that simply aren’t true.
It’s the word “liberal,” an old GOP label hauled out again at the end of an election cycle to try to link Democratic gubernatorial challenger Vincent Sheheen to some mysterious dark force that’s apparently more toxic than Ebola.
“’Liberal’ has been used as a pejorative in the South for a long time,” said College of Charleston political scientist Gibbs Knotts. “The simple definition — open to change — means that many of our political leaders are liberal. But more recently, the term usually characterizes a person who favors government intervention in the economy, wants the government to correct social injustice, but also wants the government to stay out of people’s private lives.”
In other words, the term “liberal” might actually mean one thing — that a politician wants new policies, whether that’s a new health plan or a new strategy to dramatically cut taxes — but the GOP has turned the term on its head to make it seem ominous.
So if you use the dictionary definition of “liberal,” four big liberals from history were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. Or as some might say — the guys on Mount Rushmore.
Couldn’t you consider Washington and Jefferson to be dangerous liberals because they wanted change so big that colonists could form their own country? (It was called a “revolution,” you know.) And Lincoln was the Republican who led the fight against slavery and had all of that rosy rhetoric called the Emancipation Proclamation. And Roosevelt, also Republican — he wanted to rein in monopolies through government regulation and have the government preserve millions of acres of land. Hmmm. Doesn’t sound very “conservative,” does it?
So let’s have a “liberal” test. Who said the following:
1. “Every year, an average of 9,200 Americans are murdered by handguns, according to Department of Justice statistics. This does not include suicides or the tens of thousands of robberies, rapes and assaults committed with handguns. This level of violence must be stopped.”
2. “We cannot pretend that we are preparing South Carolina’s children for the world that awaits if some of them remain unaware of what that world looks like. Especially when that lack of awareness is not their choice but is imposed upon them by circumstance, or worse, by our indifference. South Carolina is going to invest in education technology in a way we never have before.”
3. “The goal of tax reform should not be to raise taxes. To achieve true economic success, our state must reform how it taxes goods so that it can reduce the rate for everyone.”
4. “This administration intends to cut taxes in order to build the fundamental strength of our economy, to remove a serious barrier to long-term growth, to increase incentives by routing out inequities and complexities and to prevent the even greater budget deficit that a lagging economy would otherwise surely produce.”
Know the answers? You probably guessed that the gun quote was by that liberal President Ronald Reagan outlining why he supported the Brady Bill. The second was by liberal Gov. Nikki Haley in her 2014 State of the State address on spending more on education. The third quote on cutting taxes was by none other than Sheheen in his 2013 book, “The Right Way.” And the final one on cutting taxes from a conservative bastion, President John F. Kennedy, in a 1962 address on the economy.
Regardless of what you may see on slick TV ads in the days ahead, Sheheen is no flaming liberal. He is a moderate. And while Haley does resist change more often than not, she certainly actively uses government to recruit new jobs and boost the economy.
As you make your election selections for South Carolina’s leaders, don’t fall for ad traps set by cynical political professionals. Do your homework by reading analytical news stories, visiting Web sites and watching any debates that are out there so you will make informed choices on the first Tuesday in November..
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report. He can be reached at brack@statehousereport.com.