GOP candidates address county Republicans

Nearly 200 people gathered at the Pavilion at Hartsville’s Lawton Park Thursday night to hear from three Republican candidates for statewide offices, one for Congress and enjoy some barbecue. The event was sponsored by the Darlington County Republican Party.

“We are making tremendous strides in the Darlington County Republican Party,” Party Chairman Rep. Jay Lucas said.

None of the announced Republican candidates for governor attended the meeting. They were participating in a debate in the Upstate.

Florence County Councilman Ken Ard, who is seeking the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor, was among the candidates who spoke at the gathering.
Lucas said Ard offers the best chance for the Pee Dee to elect someone to statewide office.

Ard, a small business owner, said he ran for county council “because I hated government.”

“Now, I just want government to do what it was intended to do,” he said.

“When I ran a business, I had to get up every morning and find a way to do it better,” Ard said.

Ard said it is not government’s role to create jobs but to create an environment that enhances job growth by allowing private business to grow.

“I don’t want my kids or my grandchildren to have to go to Dallas, Texas, or Tampa, Florida or any place else unless they want to,” he said.

Ard said South Carolina has to be able to compete economically not just with other states but with countries around the world.

“We’ve got to convince people that South Carolina is not an agrarian economy 100 years behind the rest of the country,” he said.

Ard said he will focus on the needs of the state’s elderly if elected.

Two candidates for state superintendent of education also addressed the crowd, Furman University professor Dr. Brent Nelsen and Dutch Fork High School teacher Kelly Payne.

“We live in a very fast moving, globalized world,” Nelsen said. South Carolina must improve its education system if it hopes to compete in that world, he said.

“How can we compete if we don’t have a workforce that companies want to hire?” he asked.

He said he wants to see South Carolina providing a world class education in its public school system.

Nelsen said far too many children fail to get the preparation they need before starting school in order to succeed and too many don’t perform at grade level academically when they get to school.

Improving education will improve the state’s economy, raise per capita incomes and improve the overall quality of life in the state.

He also said he wants to provide more choices in education for parents by encouraging the growth of charter schools.

“We need to put better teachers in the classroom and we need to pay the best teachers more,” he said.

“We’ve got to accept the fact that in South Carolina education is all of our responsibility,” Nelsen said.

Payne said she sees the shortcomings in the state’s education system regularly.

“I’m in the classroom every day,” she said.

She said South Carolina schools need to “get back to basics” in reading and math.

More money, she said, is not the answer. Prioritizing how the state uses the money and other resources it has is a big part of the solution, she said.

Payne said only 46 percent of every dollar spent on public education in South Carolina makes it into the classroom. She said she wants to give more local control to local school districts over how they spend their money.

Payne called for the elimination of most standardized testing except for the SAT and the ACT, and she said more emphasis is needed on improving student performance on those two tests. The SAT and the ACT are used as college entrance exams.

Payne said that as a mother she also understands the role of parents in the education of their children and would work to encourage greater parental involvement.

State Sen. John Michael “Mick” Mulvaney of Indian Land, who is running for the Republican nomination for South Carolina’s 5th Congressional District seat, said he is running against U.S. Rep. John Spratt because of Spratt’s position on federal health care legislation and the federal bailouts big banks and automakers.

“Our government stole General Motors from private bondholders,” Mulvaney said.

He said federal cap and trade measures Spratt supports will send energy costs soaring.

“I’m going to simply lay these issues on the table and let people decide for themselves,” he said.

Mulvaney, who previously served in the state House of Representatives, is in his first term in the Senate.

“Spending has got to stop,” Mulvaney said. “What would the Founding Fathers think about where we are today?”