The race for State Treasurer is a mud fight

Last week VUI commented about how the race for State Treasurer was becoming a nasty affair on the internet.  Though we are leaning towards Converse Chellis for the job,because Chellis stood tall in the saddle when it counted in the wake of the Thomas Ravenel disaster,  we are still disappointed at how Chellis and his opponent Curtis Loftis have got into a mud fight.  Both men have their qualifications and they could have had a race between two well meaning candidates discussing issues.  


That, apparently, is not to be.  Instead, we are getting the nastiest race for Treasurer in the history of South Carolina.  As this year has shaped up to be one in which down ballot statewide races have a hard time to get attention, the gloves have come off in the Treasurer's race.  Never before has South Carolina seen such a race for that office.  It is nasty, it is brutal and it bare knuckle politics.   Somewhere, the late Grady Patterson has to be shaking his head. Such a race would have been beneath his dignity.


Loftis is running ads about Chellis driving a state owned SUV.  Chellis is running ads talking about how Loftis wasted hundred of thousands of dollars in his previous government positions and how Loftis was arrested back in 1990. There is a battle about who is really a C.P.A. 

Never before has such a campaign been waged for the officer of Treasurer. It is a train wreck.  People are sick of both candidates by and large and that makes the race fluid.  Who knows who will win this mud fight.  But, the mud fight is a loss for the people of South Carolina and one of the best arguments that the position should be appointed.  Mark Sanford owes a big thank you to both Chellis and Loftis for showing why South Carolina politicians can not be trusted to run for such an office.