Just when you think SC politics couldn't get any dirtier...

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South Carolina politics reminds us of the scene in the 1969 cult movie "The Magic Christian," where the characters played by Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr stage their most outrageous of a long series of stunts intended to demonstrate that everyone has their price. The two fill a huge vat with a mixture of blood and animal excrement and sprinkle thousands of bank notes on the top. People wade into the filthy mess to recover the cash, and some of them even submerge themselves to grab at the money that had sunk beneath the surface.

Substitute political power for money in the film's script, and you have a fitting metaphor for SC politics. In this year's GOP primary for governor of South Carolina, candidate Nikki Haley was mostly ignored by her opponents while she was back in the pack. But Sarah Palin endorsed her, Haley sprinted into the lead, and now her competition sinks ever deeper into the vat of filth as they try to destory her.

It is a story best told by the bloggers who have been following it. Just follow the links...

Eric Erickson:

Andre Bauer’s campaign to paint Nikki Haley as a two-timing wh*re — and you’ll have to forgive me if you object to the word, but that is exactly what the dribbling out of “I slept with Nikki Haley” stories was designed to do — blew up in his face.

Now he’s moved on to her being a raghead.

[...]

Jake Knotts is the guy. You know him. He’s allegedly the guy who hired a private investigator to look into Will Folks. He is the guy whose private investigator allegedly took a picture proving the affair.

It’s all too convenient. Let me break it down for you: Andre Bauer failed in his bid to paint Nikki Haley as a wh*re, so now he’s trying to paint her as a raghead. David Brody is serving as the useful idiot, most likely willingly. The story got out there [Thursday] morning and Jake Knotts let loose [Thursday] afternoon. It’s all designed to move the conversation from “is she a wh*re?” to “is she an American?”

Allahpundit:

This latest bit started with David Brody of CBN, wondering why Haley’s campaign website in 2004 emphasized her Sikh faith and why her current one emphasizes her Christian faith. Just a case of a reporter doing a little digging on his own initiative? Not quite.

[...]

The good news, I guess, is that there’s not much further to go until rock bottom.

Brian O'Connor:

It seems that after Knotts’ comments aired, the State Senator attempted the old “apologize” by reinforcing your comments trick...

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So, Knotts not only called Nikki Haley a “raghead”, he called President Obama a “raghead” as well.

I do not know what Haley should be more upset about, the racial slur, or the comparison to [Barack] Obama. Either way, Knotts clearly believes that Haley is lying about her Christianity. The problem for Knotts, career politicians only make hate filled, racist comments when their heart is hate filled and racist.

Stacy McCain;

I’m having a hard time imagining a contextual defense of Knotts’ remark. The South Carolina GOP chairwoman [Karen Floyd] has denounced Knotts’ comment...

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It would have been nice if Floyd also condemned the sexual smear campaign against Haley. It’s clear Haley’s opponents have so dehumanized her in their own minds that they no longer recognize any boundaries between fair tactics and foul.

Dan Riehl:

Does every political race in South Carolina look like a screening of Deliverance?

I realize many conservatives love DeMint, but isn't he mostly a wash by the time you take Lindsey Graham into account?

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And where are Graham and DeMint in all this? Both fashion themselves as national GOP leaders of a sort. Maybe their time would be better invested cleaning up the cesspool of antiquated racial politics in which they cut their political teeth?

One good lesson to be learned from this sorry mess is this: For those on the conservative side who argue that the best way to beat the leftists is to adopt their "the ends justify the means" political philosophy and the tactics which it leads to, just look at the result when those tactics are employed by Republicans against other Republicans. It's not only a sight that is not pretty, it stinks as badly as that vat of filth in "The Magic Christian."

The better way is to learn about Alinsky's methods, but only to recognize them, not to try to use them ourselves. If we do, we end up like Nikki Haley's opponents in South Carolina, whose attacks are only making her stronger and themselves more despised. Instead, we should counter Alinsky's tactics with those of Sun Tzu, the Chinese general whose book on military strategy, The Art of War, was written in the 6th century BC. The general's tactics have been applied to a number of situations in modern life, and the book has helped many leaders and business people succeed in their chosen fields. The wisdom of Sun Tzu is valuable knowledge for those who fight the battles of modern politics and want to win the war.

- JP

Sarah Palin's Sun Tzu Trumps Obama's Saul Alinsky

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In a Report today, Fox News White House correspondent Major Garrett observed, "Sarah Palin remains... somewhat of an obsession to the Obama White House." And over at CNN, producer Peter Hamby tweeted, "Gibbs probably revealed that the White House thinks about Palin a little more than they like to let on." (h/t: Tommy Report)

Another way of evaluating this obsession the Obama administration has with Sarah Palin is in the strategic sense of a fighter pilot, who would say that Gov. Palin is "inside Obama's OODA Loop." The term, from the acronym for Observe, Orient, Decide and Act, is a concept from the mind of the late USAF Col. John Boyd, a former fighter pilot who wrote the first manual on jet aerial combat. Although the OODA model was originally developed for military purposes, elements of the same theory can also be applied to business strategy, law enforcement and -- yes -- to politics.

In political wars, execution of the OODA cycle can allow one to get inside the mind and decision cycle of the adversary. Boyd was influenced bythe writings of Sun Tzu, who wrote The Art of War 2,500 years ago:

"If you know yourself and know your enemy in a hundred battles you will not be in peril, If you know yourself and not your enemy for every battle won you will suffer a defeat, If you know neither yourself nor your enemy in every battle you will be in peril."

Boyd's strategy holds that an enemy can be defeated strategically by psychological paralysis. He emphasized that strategy should always revolve around changing the enemy’s behavior, not annihilating his forces. Both Boyd and Sun Tzu advocated the ideas of harmony, deception, swiftness and fluidity of action, surprise, shock, and attacking the enemy’s strategy. If the enemy perceives the wrong threats or misunderstands what is happening in the environment around him, then he will orient his thinking (and assets) in the wrong directions and ultimately make incorrect decisions.

In the August of 2008, there was some speculation by Michael Barone and others that McCain, the old Navy fighter pilot, was pursuing an OODA strategy against Obama. But other than the selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, McCain never showed that he grasped the concept, at least as how it is applied to politics. Gov. Palin, on the other hand, seems to at least instinctively understand both the Boyd and the Sun Tzu way of taking the battle to one's opponents. She certainly knows her enemy.

So what we are seeing here is Sarah Palin's Sun Tzu and John Boyd versus Obama's Saul Alinsky. Sarah's strategic mentors are winning. Everything the White House does is a reaction to a Sarah Palin action. She is right inside their minds and inside their loop. She acts in ways they don't understand, and by the time they react, she has already confounded them again.

When Sarah Palin wrote some topics on her hand, she did nothing less than millions of ordinary Americans have done at one time or another. The reaction of the White House was to follow Alinsky and ridicule her. But they don't understand that when they ridicule Sarah Palin, they are ridiculing those millions of ordinary Americans at the same time. From inside the administration's OODA loop, Gov. Palin is making not just the White House, but all of Obama's other support troops behave in a predictable manner -- one which is perceived as elitist and frowned upon by the great majority of real folks. It only serves to widen the gap between those who occupy the seat of power and those who disapprove of the way they wield it.

- JP