SC GOP chairman takes shots in Myrtle Beach at Republicans ‘dividing’ the party
Not long after former U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham won his Lowcountry seat in Congress in 2018, South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Drew McKissick took a trip to Dorchester County.
There, the county GOP wanted McKissick to visit to explain how and why the Republicans had lost one of the state’s seven congressional seats.
On Friday at the party’s inaugural conference in Myrtle Beach, McKissick said the meeting delivered a key lesson for him.
Division in the party could be its downfall, he said.
“The only thing that I learned, though, by the time I left that room, was half of the people in that room blamed that half, and that half blamed the other half on the other side,” McKissick said. “They were divided. We can’t have a divided party.”
It was the same message McKissick repeated in his opening remarks at the party’s inaugural training and education conference meant to unite South Carolina Republicans and emphasize the state’s role in conservative politics.
That message, though, comes at a time when Republicans across the state — and especially in traditionally red Horry County, where the party is hosting the conference — have fought over leadership positions. And it comes at a time when Republicans also are divided over whether to continue closely supporting former president Donald Trump.
On Thursday U.S. Rep. Tom Rice, R-Myrtle Beach, said he wasn’t included on the party’s invite list. Rice said he suspects his vote to impeach Trump in January over his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots is the reason why.
“I think that it’s retribution for my vote to impeach the president after the riot on Jan. 6 where we watched the Capitol Police get beat up for four hours and he did nothing to stop it,” Rice said.
Still, McKissick on Friday warned those against against further dividing the party.
“We can’t have people coming into the party who don’t agree with what we exist to do, who want to try to make us do things that are not part of our mission,” he said. “Because if we did, we’re not going to accomplish our mission.”
McKissick takes aim at Horry County GOP
Recently, in Horry County, a slate of conservative activists won leadership positions in the local party and have since sparred with the state party at various turns. After McKissick criticized conservative activists in Greenville County over a messy leadership transition earlier this year, the Horry County GOP censured McKissick, one of the strongest rebukes of officials included in party rules.
Frustration over its lack of inclusion, the Horry County GOP instead threw its support behind a competing conservative conference in Myrtle Beach Friday.
More recently, Tracy “Beanz” Diaz, the Horry County GOP’s liaison to the state party, made waves at a conservative event in Florida. On stage, Diaz claimed she and other conservative activists had “taken over” the GOP in South Carolina.
“We took over the Republican Party in South Carolina. I don’t know if you guys know that,” she said. “We kicked out the RINO (Republican in name only) b------.”
The comments rankled party leaders, locally and statewide.
“We’ve seen public displays of annoyance from them. … They’ve made it clear that they don’t want to work with us,” Claire Brady, state Republican Party spokeswoman, said earlier this month. “They say sometimes, ‘We want to come together for unity, we’re getting stonewalled.’ And then in the same breath they call people, ‘b------.’”
Taking a veiled shot at the Horry County GOP, McKissick criticized how choatic local party meetings have become.
For months now, local party meetings have been marked by members arguing with one another, and occasionally shouting at, one another. McKissick said that type of meeting environment doesn’t encourage newcomers to join and get involved.
”You know, people who care about things don’t want to come in and sit and listen to somebody argue about Robert’s Rules of Order for an hour,” McKissick said. “What happens? They leave.”
Using an analogy of a school bus, McKissick said some in GOP politics want to dismantle the bus while its moving, rather than work with others to help drive it forward.
“We got folks who get on the bus and want to tear the bus out from the inside while we’re driving,” he said. “That’s a recipe for disaster.”
This story was originally published October 29, 2021 at 12:42 PM with the headline "SC GOP chairman takes shots in Myrtle Beach at Republicans ‘dividing’ the party."
