Mullins McLeod’s arrest just the latest disappointment for SC Democrats | Opinion
The South Carolina Republican Party’s best ally is the South Carolina Democratic Party because Democrats repeatedly fumble the ball. The latest evidence comes courtesy of Mullins McLeod of Charleston, the first declared Democratic candidate in the state’s open governor’s race.
On paper, he’s the ideal candidate to face whomever the GOP chooses. McLeod is a highly successful, 53-year-old attorney. Among his high-profile clients, McLeod helped the families victimized by Dylann Roof in 2015 at the AME Emanuel Church in Charleston secure an $88 million settlement. He twice led the Charleston County Democratic Party. And he has deep-pocketed friends to help him raise money.
But these races aren’t run on paper, though. They often aren’t even decided by qualifications or detailed, wonky policy positions on important issues such as how to properly educate our children. Perception matters as much as substance in politics.
And that’s where South Carolina Democrats fail, and fail again.
In 2010, a day after a dude named Alvin Greene was chosen as the Democrat to challenge GOP Sen. Jim DeMint for one of the state’s two Senate seats, the no-name who ran no campaign and still won the nomination was found to be facing a felony charge for showing porn to a co-ed. He lost by a wide margin to DeMint. Even suitable Democratic candidates, such as Jamie Harrison, get trounced. Harrison couldn’t beat incumbent GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham in 2020.
It’s not supposed to be that easy for Republicans. The state isn’t as red as you might think. The state’s electorate is 49% Republican, 41% Democrat and 9% unaffiliated so there are more non-Republicans than Republicans.
Statewide races, which aren’t subject to gerrymandering, should be closer than they have been. Democrats hold only one statewide office, comptroller general, and that was by appointment. They haven’t won a statewide race in a couple of decades. Because Democrats far too often look inept or weak. Or both.
This time, it is a disturbing video of McLeod being arrested in May by Charleston police for alleged disorderly conduct. The Post and Courier published dash cam video of his arrest last week. In it, McLeod looks stark raving mad in the back of a patrol car. He is shirtless. His hair goes this away and that away. It looks like he is in his underwear as he screams and thrashes for 30 minutes, unleashing a series of threats and expletives, and throws in a version of the n-word to boot.
He seemingly refers to U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace and former Gov. Nikki Haley as the expletive often used to slur women, and he talks of kicking Attorney General Alan Wilson in the teeth. Mace, Wilson, U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and state Sen. Josh Kimbrell are the five current GOP candidates for governor. The official filing period opens and closes in March.
No amount of words would do the McLeod video justice. Had you told me he was a man police had just picked up from a homeless encampment who had a long history of either substance abuse or mental health struggles and not a man involved in some of the state’s most recent high-profile civil cases, I would not have doubted you.
The state’s Democratic Party is now in the unenviable position of hoping McLeod’s performance was the result of a mental health crisis, rather than a revealing glimpse into his character. Even if he can prove his lapse was momentary, there’s just no wiping that image from voters’ minds.
I’m no political strategist, but I can say with certainty that if McLeod still becomes the Democratic nominee, the Republican nominee will ensure voters never forget about what McLeod looked like in that video. GOP candidates are already criticizing it.
What’s sad, and frustrating, is that this is unfolding during a time in which Republicans are stripping needy people of health care, GOP candidates are getting into arguments with constituents in beauty stores and failing to charge men who chased down another and got into a shootout on the side of the road, and the current GOP governor, who can’t seek another term in office because of term limits, is sending 200 National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., to help President Donald Trump pull off a stupid political stunt.
Because McLeod was the first Democrat to declare his intentions to run for governor, every Democratic candidate will have to deal with the inglorious mark he’s stamped on the race.
That’s bad for the Democratic Party — and South Carolina.
Issac J. Bailey is a McClatchy opinion writer in North Carolina and South Carolina.