NORFOLK, Va. -- I do hope our dear friends in South Carolina have FEMA on speed dial. The 2012 presidential campaign, now roughly 1,175 days old, is upon them. No less a personage than former Gov. Mark Sanford, who has returned from not walking on the Appalachian Trail, is worried about the wreckage that will be left behind by Saturday's Republican primary.
"We have a rough-cut side to politics that really doesn't fit with the gentle nature of the people who live here," he recently told The Washington Post.
Rough? Alas, old Mark is strolling through the euphemisms again. Some folks in the Palmetto State don't like to see this pointed out, but it is the place where candidates - after months of overeating at diners in Iowa and New Hampshire - traditionally go to be gut-punched by members of their own political party. Repeatedly.
The most notorious recipient of this welcome was John McCain in his 2000 campaign for the nomination eventually won by George W. Bush. Robocalls asked would-be voters, in semi-polite terms, if their opinion of McCain would be changed if they knew he had fathered a black child out of wedlock.
It was just close enough to the truth - which is to say not at all - that some voters took the racist bait.
The McCains had adopted a daughter from Bangladesh. It was, of course, South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond -- enshrined in the segregationist hall of infamy -- who'd fathered a child with a black woman out of wedlock.
Easy enough to confuse people, if you're a political hack paid handsomely to confuse people.
There are many other examples of similar tactics, and this year there's debate in South Carolina over whether things are really as dirty as portrayed. Or as ugly as they used to be. After reviewing the parade of punches thrown in recent years, I'd have to say my personal favorite of late - recalled by a political operative in a recent story in The State newspaper in Columbia - was one delivered to Mitt Romney in 2008.
Someone sent out fake Christmas cards, ostensibly from the Romneys, to state GOP muckety-mucks. The card contained quotes from the Book of Mormon that were deemed most likely to cause non-Mormons to fret.
Sweet, huh? Joy to the world.
Apparently there is a limit to such stuff. This year, there were reports of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire who grew so sick of robocalls, sleazy pseudo-polls and other nastiness that they stayed home or voted for the candidate who contacted them the least.
Defining "the least" might be difficult. One fellow in New Hampshire posted a video on YouTube of 13 robocalls he'd received in one 24-hour period.
Sad, really, that democracy is reduced to this. The rise of superPACs, which can spend unlimited amounts of cash as long as they pretend to keep candidates at arm's length, is expected to set the mud a-bubbling even more.
Some defenders of these PACs, made possible by a generous sponsorship of the U.S. Supreme Court, contend that they help get the facts out to voters. Well, sure. Facts. Like Bangladeshi babies and all that.
All of this is oozing our way, of course, in the primaries and the general election.
"Would you be more or less likely to vote for Candidate X if you knew that he routinely kicks the family dog, Trotsky, in the ribs if he finds the poor mutt sleeping on the prayer rug when it's time for him to bow to Mecca for his morning prayer?"
If, like me, you have yet to disconnect your landline, now might be a good time to do so. For South Carolinians, it's apparently too late. The only neighborly advice I can offer is a walk - a real one - on the Appalachian Trial. It might help to clear the mind.
At least until they get hold of our cellphone numbers.
Daryl Lease is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk.
