Graham's Dem. foe has recent GOP tiesBy JIM DAVENPORT
Associated Press
Saturday, June 21, 2008
The Post and Courier Bob Conley COLUMBIA — The man running a longshot Democratic campaign against South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham was on his county Republican Party's roster until just before he won his primary election this month. Bob Conley, 42, an engineer from North Myrtle Beach, had acknowledged some past involvement in the Republican Party, including an ill-fated run for the Indiana Legislature in 2000. In May, during his primary campaign, Conley told The Associated Press that he had voted for Republican Ron Paul in the January presidential primary but had walked away from the GOP in 2000 or 2001. "And it was because of trade, it was because of immigration, it was because of the sellout of the American worker and the sellout of American sovereignty for the benefit of the multinational corporations," he said. "I walked away and said that party can go to the devil." But Conley didn't leave the GOP when he said he did. Republican Party officials in Horry County said Friday that Conley won a spot on the county Republican Party's executive committee, representing a North Myrtle Beach precinct, in February 2007. Conley campaign vice chairman Lee Griggs said Conley left the GOP about eight years ago to become involved with the Reform Party. He came back to the GOP to advocate for Paul's campaign and resigned his local GOP position in February of this year. "To my understanding, he was not a member of the Republican Party," Griggs said. County Republicans where Conley lives said they found out that he planned to take on Graham, one of the Republican Party's most well-known national standard-bearers, shortly before the June 10 primary. North Myrtle Beach GOP Club president Cleo Steele said Conley was removed from his executive committee post within the past month. Conley's name remained on the Horry County GOP's Web site as an executive committee member Friday morning. Robert Rabon, the county party's chairman, said Conley technically left the GOP when he paid filing fees to campaign as a Democrat. Those papers include a pledge that the person running is indeed a Democrat. "That's a way of resignation," said Rabon, who accused Conley of "grandstanding to get some media attention." Conley's candidacy and party affiliations are now an issue for Democrats. Waring Howe, a Democratic National Committee member and superdelegate, said Conley's recent GOP ties should have been fully disclosed. He needs "to be very forthright and open with the voters whose trust he sought," Howe said. Conley "is not really regarded as a very serious candidate," Howe said. "He's going to have to show a greater effort to appeal to the Democratic base and raise funds and show general seriousness for Democrats to line up behind him in any serious way." Conley beat Mount Pleasant lawyer Michael Cone by 1,058 votes out of more than 147,000 ballots cast on June 10. After he lost, Cone said he knew of Conley's Republican ties and should have raised them as an issue. State Democratic and Republican party officials said Conley hasn't voted in a Democratic primary since 2002. State GOP spokesman Rob Godfrey said Conley voted in the 2004 Republican primary. South Carolina does not use political party registrations, so voters are free to choose which party's primary gets their votes. |
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Comments
This article has 7 comment(s)
Posted by zoomru on June 21, 2008 at 8:45 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Well....Well...Well, FLAT TOP BOB !!
Does it really matter which PARTY your in??? Are you not a SOUTH CAROLINIAN??? Well? .....Are YOU? We need teamwork and LEADERSHIP !!!! Come out swinging on this!! Don't take this CRAP from Senatoro Lindse' Suave' Graham-nista!!! We have landfills in this NATION that needs to be CLOSED!! And ENERGY ..PRODUCED ! We need coastal WINDFARMS using the turbines found at www.superturbine.net installed around the ENTIRE United States!
Has Graham done THIS???? No !!!
We need the PEE DEE power station to be NUCLEAR not a COAL FIRED PLANT !! Did Graham protect the people of the PEE DEE?? NO !
Do You Need for me to be your campaign manager??? Get a LOUD VOICE ! (Fist POUNDS LOUDLY!) We are on the cusp of energy...POWER transmission,....and transportation in this NATION if a leader will STEP FORWARD. Google SKYTRAN.....BOB !!! What is your VISION??? WHAT???
Senator LINDSEY GRAHAM....what is YOUR VISION????? We want specifics, ....SPECIFICS!! With time tables, POA&M, a MAP out, and incentive OPTIONS!!!!
No ONE ....ON ONE ...FOOLS ME on THIS!!!! www.startech.net + www.superturbine.net + 34 tons of NUCLEAR in AIKEN + SKYTRAN
EQUALS WHAT????? WHAT?? A VISION....VISION (FIST POUNDS!)
FLAT TOP BOB ....do you WANT to be a SENATOR??? DO YOU??
GET SOME GUTS !!!! A Vision !!!! And a LOUD VOICE !!!!!!
SOUTH CAROLINA WILL NOT BEND OVER ANY .....MORE !!!! No MORE !!!!
Posted by southerner on June 21, 2008 at 9:35 a.m. (Suggest removal)
ANYONE is better than Graham. Remember, voting a stright ticket has gotten us where we are at, with a bunch of do nothing money grubbing A. Holes that do not care about AMERICA.
Posted by carolinadude on June 21, 2008 at 11:02 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Both of you are absolutely correct. I predict a substantial GOP crossover in November could take out "light in the loafers" Lindsey! Frankly Conley sounds like a "breath of fresh air". We'll have to wait and see.
Posted by jeff61 on June 21, 2008 at 3:43 p.m. (Suggest removal)
He looks like striaght out of going my way..
Posted by hillbilly on June 22, 2008 at 4:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)
How did Lindsey win such a decisive victory in the primary?
If all you so called Republicans had voted for the "other guy" on June 10th..we wouldn't be talking about Graham now.
Posted by moonpie on June 22, 2008 at 8:25 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Hillbilly I know I can speak for me, I voted against LG and will again in November.
Posted by NumbersSCcom on September 11, 2008 at 8:47 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Bob Conley has the chance to bring together a coalition of true conservatives and true liberals based on both groups' support of the U.S. Constitution's protections.
We are in the unending occupation phase of yet another unconstitutional, undeclared war that continues its primary mission of doling out corporate welfare. We've been made the policemen of the world overseeing a welfare state for one of the richest oil countries in the world??? Does this make any sense???
WE WON THE WAR! Leave them there to ROT! It's a lot cheaper to go back in and beat them again than to continue pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into occupying a country soaking in oil.
All we're doing now is providing a steady stream of convenient targets to kill and maim. Lindsey Graham and the other corporate whores in D.C. would rather let them kill our soldiers than actually secure our borders and ports here at home.
It's easier for Lindsey Graham to turn our country into a police state in order to prevent terrorism than to get serious about securing our borders and ports. We should pull ALL our troops back home and put them on our own borders where they're REALLY needed, if for no other reason than we can't afford policing and "rebuilding" other countries.
European and other countries will never pay their own way until they have to, yet here we go again with Lindsey Graham and Leiberman running off to the Republic of Georgia as fast as they can in order to promise billions of our taxpayer dollars so that we can start another cold war.
Is anyone in our government SANE???
Our jobs are shipped overseas and we import slave labor--both actions at the expense of American workers' wages and jobs.
Even after 9/11, politicians leave our borders open to terrorists in addition to the desperate third world citizens that bring their criminals, diseases, drugs, and other social ills to burden us even further than our home-grown problems.
We have a government that has lost its sanity and Lindsey Graham is the most delusional politician of them all. He's a pathetic hanger-on to a presidential candidate and he has used his office to promote himself and no one else.
He has sold his political soul to the multinationals and served the selfish interests of the traders in illegal alien labor. He has stabbed the citizens of SC and the US in the back at every chance. He is a traitor in the truest sense of the word and then he calls us "bigots" when we object to his treason.
Bob Conley is a return to sanity in our government and if we elect him we've taken an important first step in acknowledging the sins of the current government as it has devolved from the Founding Fathers' Constitutional principles.
Take back your country, South Carolina! VOTE BOB CONLEY NOVEMBER 4th!