Tuesday November 7th, we, South Carolina Democrats, were cautiously excited about our chances of winning state-wide elections. Unfortunately, Election Night did not quite go our way. Eight out of nine state-wide offices were won by Republicans and Democrats are hopeful they will be able to hold on to one state-wide office, Superintendent of Education.

New Democrats - New Ideas

Tuesday November 7th we, South Carolina Democrats were cautiously excited about our chances of winning state-wide elections. Unfortunately, Election Night did not quite go our way. Eight out of nine state-wide offices were won by Republicans and Democrats are hopeful they will be able to hold on to one state-wide office, Superintendent of Education.

South Carolina Democrats nominated very good candidates. They are good and decent people who tried their very best. Most of the races were very close, and had there been more resources, more than one Democrat may have won.

SC Republicans will continue their overwhelming control over the State House which they won in 1994 and they continue to control the State Senate. They hold both US Senate seats, four of six of the Congressional seats and have won every presidential election since 1960 except Jimmy Carter’s.

When Sanford finishes his term, we will have had Republican governors for 20 of the last 24 years.

We have one party rule in South Carolina by Republicans just as firmly as we had by Democrats from the 1800’s until the 1970’s. One party rule hurt our state then and it’s hurting us now.

In the last 20 years of Republican domination, we have slowly but surely lost pace with our fellow Southern states and the nation as a whole. In the mid-1980’s we were roughly on a par with other Southern states in measures of education, job creation, economic growth, and income. Since then we have gradually fallen further and further behind while the others progressed.

We all know the results – the nation’s highest school drop out rate, lowest test scores, half of our young workforce not prepared for today’s high tech jobs, much less tomorrow’s – and the list goes on and on.

As a recent Standards and Poor’s study said, we are making ‘progress but still lagging’.

With this elections’ near total defeat, even the most yellow of yellow dog Democrats must agree that at the statewide level the Democratic Party of today is simply not a viable alternative for a majority of South Carolina voters.

The Democratic Party now has a unique and rare opportunity to start over – to look ourselves in the mirror and honestly say, ‘We need real and fundamental change and reform.

How do we do this? First look to the successes nationally on Election Day. Democrats ran many non-traditional, moderate candidates, with a clear, aggressive message of ending the corruption of politics as usual in Washington and charting a new course in foreign policy…and they won in historic proportions.

The combination of a clear vision and new ideas is the foundation of the Democratic Leadership Council – the New Democrats. The South Carolina DLC was founded by Gov. Richard Riley. Nationally the DLC values and vision guided the Clinton Administration’s policies that gave us unprecedented economic growth and expanded economic opportunity – while demanding that everyone take responsibility for their own lives, work hard and play by the rules.

Where do we find New Democrats in South Carolina? We have a lot of them in business and in local and county level offices. We have good progressive Democratic mayors in most of our major cities - in Beaufort, Charleston, Orangeburg, Columbia, Greenwood, Anderson, Rock Hill, York, Bennettsville, Sumter, Florence and many others. There are countless good New Democrats on city and county councils, school boards and other local offices all across the state.

And most of all, we need new, bold ideas – the kind of ideas that have a real impact in improving peoples’ lives and preparing them for the future. Ideas like universal four-year old kindergarten, a laptop computer for every student, guaranteed access for all to full college funding through community service and scholarships and minimum health insurance for everyone.

New Democrats believe to improve South Carolina’s lagging economy we have to invest in the new economy. New technologies, like reducing our dependence on foreign oil with alternative fuels and hydrogen fuel cells. We need to raise South Carolina’s minimum wage. South Carolina needs to find a way to save our environment by not hurting our business climate. Cool Cities is an approach many cities across South Carolina have adopted. We need to do this state-wide.

All of these ideas are now in place in other states – we should have them here. New Democrats can make it happen.

Over 20 years SC Republicans had proven that they won’t or can’t do what is necessary to build a new South Carolina ready for the 21st century. If Democrats have the honesty and courage to reform and renew our party, then and only then, will we be able to again win statewide elections and bring the changes that are so desperately needed.

New Democrats for a new South Carolina.