5 Things That Happened In SC Politics This Week: Elections, Education, And Erroneous Tweets

South Carolina Radio Network's irreverent look at the week that was in SC politics. Primary Week Edition!

1. Tea embargo

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It was a fairly low-key primary election week in South Carolina. Only one race really had people's attention and that was Sen. Lindsey Graham's reelection effort.

Graham was challenged by six fellow Republicans, all of whom jockeyed for the Tea Party vote. But political analysts noted the jockeying ended up dividing what was still a sizable ant-Graham minority. And with all those candidates lacking any real statewide name recognition, no one presented a serious challenge.

Graham coasted to victory, winning by more than 40 percentage points. And, in a night where Tea Party voters flexed their muscles in Virginia, the SC groups effectively shot themselves in the foot...

2. How not to challenge an incumbent

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Sen. Tim Scott may have officially had a challenger in his reelection effort. But, in reality, he didn't.

Greenville native Randall Young filed to run against Scott. But he had no signs, no website, and no evidence he was even running other than his name on the ballot. According to WYFF-TV, Young had been using a table at McDonald's as his "campaign office."

Not surprisingly, the popular Sen. Scott crushed his opponent, picking up 90 percent of the vote. In sports metaphors, this is roughly what the race looked like...

3. This is why people hate politics

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The most negative race in South Carolina was easily the Republican nomination for a Statehouse seat representing Mount Pleasant and the Charleston peninsula.

20-year political veteran Harry "Chip " Limehouse found himself in an extremely tough race against real estate broker Russell Guerard. Guerard spent months hammering the incumbent's record.

Finally, about a week before the election, residents received a mailer accusing Guerard of the worst crime possible for a would-be GOP legislator: voting in a Democratic primary. The mailer also claimed Guerard has never voted in a presidential primary at all.

Limehouse narrowly won by 42 votes.

Guerard was furious and filed a defamation lawsuit against Limehouse, claiming the campaign had smeared him. Limehouse insisted the mailings came from a third-party group, not his campaign.

But, for Guerard, his week probably felt something like this...

4. We don't need no education

Gov. Nikki Haley was very happy on Monday that legislators passed an education funding measure she wanted. She had just wrapped up a press event hailing the changes and took to social media to share the news.

She posted to Instagram, "South Carolina made history this year by passing education reform. We will no longer educate children based on where they are born. Through reading coaches, technology investments, and expanding charter schools we just confirmed that we want our children to be the future workforce for our growing high tech jobs! #ItIsAGreatDayInSC."

But her Instagram was set to automatically post on Twitter as well, which only allows 140 characters in a tweet. That meant her message cut off in the absolute worst place possible...

Several Democratic politicos quickly noticed the mistake and mocked the governor. Haley soon retweeted a corrected version, but the damage was done.

5. Here a Pat, there a Pat

But lest we in the press have too much fun at the governor's expense, the social media gods reminded us that we too can easily fall victims to the quirks of Twitter.

On Tuesday night, The State newspaper's online producer Chris Winston tweeted an update in the lieutenant governor's race. He noted that candidates Mike Campbell and Pat McKinney appeared to be in contention for a runoff.

The problem? @_patmckinney is not the Twitter handle for candidate Pat McKinney (it's really @PatWMcKinney).

That prompted this response from some poor guy in New York who clearly had no idea why he was suddenly mentioned in a South Carolina newspaper's Twitter feed.

But the wrong McKinney took it all in stride...