Brett Banter

Remember Alvin Greene? Sure you do. He was the guy you never heard from the place you've never been who somehow won the U.S. Senate nomination from the Democratic Party. There were cries of voter fraud and he being a Republican decoy, but those soon fell aside after it was proven Greene used his own money to file for his candidacy and there was no vote tampering. There also is those pesky criminal charges out there, but that hasn't stopped anyone else's campaign in the past decade.

Greene soon became a human soundbite with his somewhat non-sensical ramblings punctuated with "ums" all the time. He was often shown wearing a T-shirt and jeans and not in the way that Republican candidates like to wear T-shirts and jeans to events to show they are the common man. Greene really is the common man. Or was the common man.

The new Greene was unveiled this weekend at his first political rally. Speaking at the Manning chapter of the NAACP, Greene wore a crisp blue suit, shook hands, signed autographs and refused to speak to the press. He was ushered away with a police escort after the event. It seems like someone has gotten serious about Alvin Greene's candidacy. He is now acting like a regular candidate with an entourage. It appears South Carolina's opportunity to support the common man has been corrupted.

The big question about this Senate race is would anyone being paying attention in there was no Greene? This is a great lesson in the fundamentals of media and public relations.

One of the tricker parts of media relations is meeting the expectations of clients. A lot of firms struggle with this concept because they don't get their clients to say exactly what they want and instead try to forcefeed them the demands of other clients. A friend of mine snipped in an e-mail the other day about a group that recently put a notice in the paper stating to give them a call and they will listen. It should have said "call us, you'll listen," she quipped. That is not what we do at Brett. Our goal is to listen to you, and then work with you to make your business grow. It is a simple solution that brings great results.

So give us a call. We will listen.

The latest round of political sex scandals and campaign shenanigans (That's Jim Clyburn's words, not mine) has again raised the ire level of South Carolina. And it has raised the laughing stock level as well. There is a general pattern to these scandals. There is the announcement, followed by the denial, followed by the proof, followed by the criticism, followed by the anger, followed by Jon Stewart making a couple of jokes.

After that comes the retort of "Oh, jeez, South Carolina again is the laughing stock." I'm not going to chronicle the long list of missteps and gaffes that have befallen South Carolina in the past few years, but they have been many.

But have they been worse than anywhere else? Not really. California is a punchline. So is Illinois. New York is. Pretty much every state gets its own round of stupid jokes and pratfalls. South Carolinians don't notice them and guess what, the people in other states don't notice all of ours.

It really isn't that bad.

Had a big day with the announcement that Charter is now the naming rights partner of the Amphitheater at Heritage Park. We had a great turnout for the announcement from the media and local leaders. The weather was perfect in Simpsonville.

Of course, we did a lot of behind the scenes work to make this naming rights a reality, but that is a story for another day. Give us a call or shoot us an e-mail and we can do the same thing for your business.

What did Alvin Greene's "surprise" victory in the race to be South Carolina's Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate really tell us? It's not anything can happen. Nor is it politics as usual. Or even that politics is changing. The real story is this is why people campaign hard. This is why their are yard signs, mass mailing and television ads. I often hear from people who complain about politicians who spend all their time campaigning and "wasting" money on ads. The lament is that the voter is smart enough to find the right person on their own.

Greene shows that doesn't happen. Greene, for those of you who haven't heard, is the unemployed Army vet facing a felony charge for showing pornography on a computer to a college freshman. He didn't campaign. Never filed reports with the state. Held no rallies. He paid his fee to the Democratic Party, vanished and ended up winning Tuesday night.

Conspiracy theorists are fishing the idea that Greene was a Republican plant to beat Democrat Vic Rawl. It's possible and not unheard of in South Carolina, but it does seem a little far fetched. Why would anyone pay Greene to essentially not run a campaign is highly circumspect. It could happen in a general election, but in a primary seems odd. Was Vic Rawl that much of a threat to U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint? No. Could this be a way to draw attention away from the malfunctioning GOP in the state? Maybe.

So, who voted for him? The theory is that Democrats focused on the gubernatorial race came out, hadn't been following the Senate race, and voted for the first name on the ballot. The other is that somehow black voters found out Greene was black and voted for him. The third is that Republicans somehow stuffed the ballot box. Yes, Republicans abandonded their own strong races to play a joke on the Democrats. Does that make sense?

Another possibility is machine error. Maybe the electronic voting tallies were wrong? Stranger things have happened.

The reality is voters elected a man they had never heard of in a race they didn't care about. Rawl apparently overlooked Greene in the race and was focused on November. He nor anyone gave Greene a second thought, and he waltzed right in.

That is why we campaign.

Forget Nikki Haley. Forget the Gowdy upset of Inglis. Forget the rash of incumbent upsets. The real story is Alvin Greene. For those who haven't heard, and it really has been hush-hush, an unemployed Army veteran who did zero campaigning is the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate. While the state election commission has not posted the results from Greene's upset of Victor Rawl, Greene is apparently carrying the banner now in a battle with Republican incumbent Jim DeMint.

While DeMint celebrated this week, Greene is dealing with criminal charges for showing pornography to a woman. Based on how the state loves it sex scandaled politicians, DeMint might be in for a fight with a man who barely campaigned to win the Democratic nomination.

Well, South Carolina is again embroiled in a political scandal involving sex. Part of me didn't want to examine this yesterday because it is really just the art of noise. No, not the early 1980s experimental rock band, but the new modicum of how the media tells stories in the modern age. Ten years ago, this story would never have unfolded this way. There is no way that a political hack would/or could have admitted to an affair with a gubernatorial candidate in this way. The media back then would likely have let it roll under the carpet like all the messier rumors that come up over time.

But this announcement was made on a website known and read by political insiders. The announcement was made by one of the people involved. And that is where the art of noise came in. Everyone dissected the statement by the accuser, dissected the comments by the accused and then dissected them again. Everyone wants to know why this unfolded the way it did. The theory on the street that this is not over by a long shot and something bigger will unfold soon.

Stay tuned.

What makes a business succeed? It is a quality product? A new idea? A good solid team of workers? Most business owners will immediately say that some combination of those three are the keys to growth. However, when asked about creating brand awareness, they draw somewhat of a blank look.

And that is where Brett comes in. We create full-fledged media campaigns to help businesses become part of the fabric of their communities. It is more than just a press release. We handle media contacts, interviews, events, working with the community, finding the right projects to partner with and so much more.

So is your business struggling despite have a quality product, a new idea and a solid team? It may be time to give us a call.

The big announcement that we have been working on for weeks is finally here. Woodlands is now a Life Care retirement community. This puts the Woodlands essentially in an entirely new world when it comes to providing services for its residents.

Get more here. You will be amazed.

The Connector 2000 Association made its case to the Greenville County Legislative Delegation Monday night about restructuring the Southern Connector's bonds.

While the legislators didn't take any action, a case to allow the board, the Department of Transportation and bond holders, appeared to have made some headway. The state Senate needs to pass an amendment that will allow for this to happen, if not the status quo will be maintained.

Richard Few, the Association's chairman, made some great points about why the bonds needs to be restructured including it essentially will allow the state to get paid for maintenance work, it will pay back the bonds that the business community rallied behind more than a decade ago and this is a public road that has help facilitate more than $400 million worth of new roads in the Upstate.

"This will be a credit to the state," Few said.

As part of the push, the entire Connector 2000 board attended the meeting to show the legislators the severity of the situation. Basically, the 16-mile toll road has never met the traffic projections submitted when the highway was passed by the state in the 1990s. The Association had nothing to do with that traffic study, but has been the group tasked with finding a solution.

It has been a busy week as the Greenville News also opined on the situation.

The restructuring will not add any taxes to the state nor will taxpayers have to pay anything. This is simply to give more time for the bonds to be repaid, which in the end helps the state.

Thirty million drivers can't be wrong.

That is how many people have driven the Southern Connector since it opened in March 2001. That is a lot of drivers. That is almost seven times the number of people who live in South Carolina. That is almost double the amount who went to NFL games last year.

The problem is it is not nearly as many as the developers predicted. It's roughly half actually, which is a major reason the Southern Connector is struggling financially. The projections given by InterWest Carolinas, LLC, via Wilbur Smith and Associates to the South Carolina Department of Transportation more than a decade ago were the basis for the bond mechanism created by Lehman Brothers to pay for the road. The goal was for toll fees to pay back the bonds, pay for road maintenance and maintain a reserve fund.

That has not happened, which means the bond payments and the money for road maintenance are past due. That is why Connector 2000 Association, a group of private, volunteer citizens, who manage the road for the state, is asking the Legislature to allow it to restructure the debt. The Connector 2000 Association members are not the developers of the roadway, have never been paid for their work and were not the group that did the traffic study. The Connector 2000 Association is the group looking for a solution.

The restructuring would be for the time frame of the bonds to be repaid. Instead of the agreement between the Association and the bondholders ending in 2051, it would end in 2086. South Carolina citizens would not pay anything under the proposal. In reality, South Carolina citizens benefit from the change because the Association will be able to pay the state for continued road maintenance. The benefit for the investors is they could eventually recoup more of their losses. Many organizations have to restructure bond payments and the Connector 2000 Association is not immune.

The Southern Connector did not happen overnight. County and state planners first envisioned a highway crossing the Southern portion of Greenville in the 1960s. It was discussed for decades and considered vital for the economic growth of the county, but funding was never available.

The state DOT decided to address the issue in the 1990s while also looking at how to fund other long-term road projects including the Cooper River Bridge in Charleston, the Conway Bypass near Myrtle Beach and the Bobby Jones Expressway in North Augusta. The DOT asked bidders to respond with creative ideas to build and pay for the road. InterWest Carolinas, which was a group formed specifically for this project, offered the idea of the toll road and the data to support it when responding to the DOT.

The Southern Connector is an important asset for Upstate South Carolina. On its heaviest days, 18,000 vehicles traverse it. On average, there are about 10,000. Restructuring makes sense because it creates a way for the DOT to get its money back and the bondholders to regain some of their funds. Lawmakers should take immediate action.

We wrote a post not too long ago about how the issue that just won't go away in our state -- the Confederate flag -- continues to command attention from both sides ten years after the flag was removed from the dome of the South Carolina Statehouse. Though the flag was taken down from the Capitol and placed on a 30-foot pole on the Statehouse lawn, the NAACP and others continue to protest the flag's presence on state property. The issue that just won't die in South Carolina has positioned our state on a perilous ledge until it is fully resolved. The ongoing ferocity potentially jeopardizes not only our own internal political and social relations, but has the opportunity to also directly impact the state's economy by causing businesses to shy away from bringing industry to such a cutthroat political climate.

In terms of personal strife, our own Governor Mark Sanford has certainly seen his share. Over the past six months the married governor has endured ongoing criticism and public relations fiascos stemming from his actions related to his relationship with an Argentinian woman.

When it comes to the most unpopular governors currently in office across the nation, one might think Sanford would be a star in the topmost tier. But according to a poll released today by Public Policy Polling, Sanford doesn't even make the top 8 in terms of unpopularity. If the poll is correct, Sanford has a better approval rating than California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Budget and financial issues appear to be the root reason of the unpopularity of the eight most unpopular governors, says PPP. They include:

John Baldacci (D) of Maine
Jan Brewer (R) of Arizona
Jim Doyle (D) of Wisconsin
Jim Gibbons (R) of Nevada
David Paterson (R) of New York
Bev Perdue (D) of North Carolina
Ed Rendell (D) of Pennsylvania
Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) of California

Takeaway from this poll? Even in an age when scandals like the Mark Sanford affair rock the country, more obscure, less flashy issues may ultimately have a truer impact on a governor's overall perceived image.

VIEW THE FULL POLL RESULTS

If you've lived in South Carolina for any significant period of time, you undoubtedly know that the Confederate flag flies in front of the Capitol in Columbia next to a monument honoring fallen Confederate soldiers. Our state has a storied and tense history with the flag, which perched atop the Capitol building from 1962 until the state senate passed a bill in 2000 to have it moved to its current location. And there it has flown ever since...albeit a more traditional square-shaped version of the flag.

According to an article by The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, recent elections in our neighboring states have proven that the power wielded by incumbents running for re-election, well, just... isn't there anymore.

Cillizza says "Voters don't like incumbents these days", pointing to recent defeat of NJ Governor Jon Corzine and the fact that NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg barely managed to eke out a win even after far outspending his challenger.

Notably, Cillizza also remarks, "While it's likely that any sustained sentiment of this sort will hurt Democrats more than Republicans, this sort of political environment is decidedly unpredictable and could lead to surprising defeats for presumed safe incumbents -- of both parties -- next November." He says constitutents are quite simply just not intrigued by the politicians they currently have in office.

This comment is particularly interesting because in South Carolina, while Democratic incumbents are certainly susceptible to failure, our state is traditionally dominated by Republicans. So, for example, how will Cillizza's prediction play out when it comes to powerhouse incumbents Jim DeMint and Joe Wilson?

On top of that, we have side spin of the Mark Sanford affair, and how that issue affects the South Carolina Republican Party's candidates should prove quite interesting. Don't forget to read the full article from WaPo.

As you probably know, we like to harp on how substantial a role public relations plays when it comes to politics, campaigns and the political climate. Positive public relations and perceptions equate to gold, particularly in a state like South Carolina where the partisan divide remains profoundly distinct and scars from political scandal still bleed profusely.

Get out of that box, Midlands.

We witnessed an interesting conversation on Twitter yesterday, as a well-known local television anchor pondered whether or not he should follow politicians on Twitter. He said, "Have resisted following politicians thinking I have to follow all or none, but I have several following me now and feel rude. Opinions?"

Piggybacking on our most recent blog post about hiring professionals to handle your Web 2.0, we'd be remiss if we didn't take the opportunity to remark on Congressman Joe Wilson's recent decision to hire a professional Tweeter.

That's right, Representative Wilson, following his now-infamous "You Lie!" heckler's shout during President Obama's healthcare speech last week, has suddenly been thrust into the national spotlight. Pre "You Lie!", Wilson was a somewhat under the radar Congressman; a lesser-known Republican who was for the most part seen as congenial and easy-going. But with those two words uttered amongst the sanctity of a televised Presidential address, he suddenly catapulted himself to a whole new level of notoriety.

The chosen Wilson pro Tweeter is David All, a new media strategist whose Web 2.0 firm caters to conservative clientele. All's role ala Joe Wilson is to maintain a constant stream of Twitter updates on behalf of Congressman Wilson as well as to promote him across the political and news blogosphere. Before All stepped in to tidy up Wilson's reputation, the Congressman's Twitter account hadn't been updated since early August. Wilson is now on a roll, spewing out upwards of ten or more tweets a day.

Our point comes down to the mere fact that as amusing as Wilson's professional Tweeter hire may be, it is part of a broader strategy for the Congressman. By hiring All, Wilson is attempting to deflect some of the controversy through professionally-managed social media outreach. Meanwhile, many grassroots supporters and even many fellow Republicans have come out to back Wilson and his anti-Obamacare platform. Wilson seems to be even now using the whole episode as part of a larger tidal wave to keep his name in the media, and on the Web, and to promote his upcoming Congressional race (and raise money at the same time!).

Joe Wilson has certainly made a name for himself in South Carolina and across the country, and with his constant social media presence seems to be launching a PR campaign of his own. Check out his most recent in a string of YouTube videos, "I Will Not be Muzzled".