Rick Beltram
I have to admit though, I have a bit of a fetish for all that is GOP and crazy, and right now it’s prime time for loony Republican nonsense. Two of the all-time most entertaining Spartanburg Republican heavyweights, Rick Beltram and Karen Floyd, are running for South Carolina Republican Party Chairman seat. There was a debate last Monday here in Spartanburg between the chairman candidates, Beltram, Floyd, and Columbia-based attorney Kevin Hall. The event was hosted by the Spartanburg County and the Palmetto House Republican Women and moderated by talk radio personality Bob McLain and Spartanburg Herald-Journal reporter Jason Spencer, and it proved to be a great source for popcorn-munching moments for Spartanburg politicos of all stripes.
Our first entertainer/chair candidate is Spartanburg businesswoman and wholly owned subsidiary of Howard Rich, Karen Floyd. Floyd is a former one-term Spartanburg County Council chairwoman who later went on to run for State Superintendent of Education in 2006, narrowly losing to Democrat Jim Rex. She is perhaps best remembered for the $52,500 she received from arch-libertarian anti-public school activist Howard Rich and his associates. Floyd was by far the largest recipient of Rich’s money in 2006, but even with that boost many voters were apparently turned off by the idea of voting for someone running for State Superintendent of Education who’s only real idea was destroying state public education. Go figure.
Karen Floyd
Oh, I see: He’s a philanthropist. He’s not some millionaire with a grudge against public schools who sees an opportunity to turn a small conservative-leaning state into his own personal laboratory for school privatization experiments; he’s just a great guy looking to help people out. That money isn’t meant to peddle undue influence. It’s charity; kind of like Oxfam, except not for poor people.
As nutty as Karen Floyd is though, she can’t hope to hold a candle to the undisputed king of Spartanburg political lunacy, Rick Beltram.
Beltram, chairman of the Spartanburg County Republican Party, has had so many scandals in the last couple of years it’s a wonder he’s still around. Whether it’s calling former presidential candidate Fred Thompson’s wife a “trophy wifeâ€, or allegedly harassing African American voters in last year’s election, Beltram’s been a constant source of sometimes humorous, sometimes serious derision. His brand of buffonish actions come across as mix of Richard Nixon and Mayor Adam West from Family Guy.
It was classic Beltram on display Monday. Beltram’s latest scandal was caused by a posting on The Conservatist blog of an audio recording where Beltram says he won’t do anything to support Jim DeMint’s reelection campaign in 2010 because of DeMint’s endorsement of Kevin Hall for state Republican chair. When asked about the controversy, Beltram said, “This is a 15-minute clip that somebody took, apparently on an iPhone, sitting in my office in a confidential meeting. If you listen to it carefully, it was clearly doctored and moved around and so forth.â€
There’s a conspiracy afoot. Someone wants to deprive the people of South Carolina the privilege of having Rick Beltram for their state chair, and they’ll stoop to any level to do it. Remember, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you. Beltram’s always accusing someone of trying to bring him down: Ron Paul supporters, bloggers, journalists, elderly black ladies — his enemies are always looking for a new angle on him apparently.
Of course, Beltram is as pure as the driven snow in this race right? Well, almost. Last month he was apparently forwarding an e-mail around to some South Carolina bloggers called “Eight Reasons Kevin Hall Should Not Be State GOP Chairman.” At least one source has said that it was Beltram himself who wrote the e-mail, calling it “vintage Beltram … right down to its bad grammar.†Beltram has denied writing the e-mail, but not forwarding it. For South Carolina political bloggers, Rick Beltram is like a slot machine that pays out every single time you put a quarter in. He’s a priceless resource, and I will truly be sad when he finally packs it in one day.
Are these candidates the best the SCGOP can do? I don’t know much about Kevin Hall, but if he can’t beat these two clowns he doesn’t deserve to be chairman of a dog kennel. Still though, I’d really like to see one of Spartanburg’s finest sitting in the Republican Party’s big chair down in Columbia. I’m hopping crazy is the new black in the SCGOP, and keeping my fingers crossed for our hometown candidates. In the absence of that though, I’ve got a proposal for the Republican Party here in S.C.
As a committed progressive Democratic-leaning voter and blogger, I’d like to make a formal request that the SCGOP amend its rules to allow two statewide party chairs. Having amended their rules, I ask the party faithful to please choose both Karen Floyd and Rick Beltram for the positions. You see, I write a political opinion column every week here on the Spark, and I could really use the material. I mean seriously, all press is good press right? From my point of view this is a win for both sides, you get to double up on the party message, and I’ll provide you with all the free press you can stand. What do you say?
Christopher George is a local blogger, you can read more of his stuff at Flying Oskar.
Christopher George
In regards to Beltram’s claim about the DeMint audio being doctored, I have to register my doubt. Having worked with audio in a variety of settings for interviews for many, many years, I didn’t hear anything in the audio that made it sound edited. Obviously, you’d need to look at the audio profile of the recording to know for sure, but I don’t hear anything that raises a red flag. In fact, the background noise levels seem fairly consistent, and if it had been edited, you’d be able to tell from that alone.
As always a purely entertaining read. I literally laughed out loud at the Adam West reference. He is certainly my favorite tv mayor.
I don’t know how the process of choosing a GOP lead is undertaken. It would be nice to see someone competent in the lead chair, but if not I kind of like the idea of the dynamic duo you suggested. At least it will keep state politics interesting, especially if you are writing about it Chris.
Dang, I’m still chuckling at the whole Adam West thing..funny stuff.
Thanks Sylvie. The Adam West thing was probably my favorite line out of the whole piece.
Don’t forget about Beltram’s conflicts last year when he operated and sold his personal consulting services out of GOP HQ to candidates in local GOP primaries. Some of the services he was selling were supposed to be provided free to all candidates who paid a filing fee.
http://www.goupstate.com/article/20080418/NEWS/804180335
http://www.goupstate.com/article/20080419/NEWS/804190320
Jason Spencer has more on his blog.
You’re absolutely right west_sburg. I would’ve put it in, but if I’d gone through the whole list of Beltram’s corrupt dealings and boneheaded statements, I wouldn’t have had room in the piece for anything else.
I have always found Beltram’s “tell-us-how-you-really-feel†style a nice break from the teleprompter-worshiping phonies who have invaded our government and the world of politics as a whole. I have worked diligently for many political campaigns and causes in my life but have always doubled the time spent on such endeavors when working with Beltram. I have found working beside Beltram not only encouraging but actually fun in lieu of the root canal-comparable political events I’ve attended without him. His decision to run has actually given me renewed interest in political activism.
All this trumped-up, “something-out-of-nothing” drama makes for great fodder for those sitting around sipping their Obama-approved Kool-aid. Drink it up kiddies!
Holly: Any particular reason you’re leaving the same cut-and-paste comment all over the Spark in every post where Beltram’s name is mentioned? It’s fine to defend your friend, but I do ask that you actually participate in the discussion rather than just re-post the same content over and over. It’s really bad form.
Also, please don’t bring up unrelated national politics on a thread strictly about local Republican politics. When Obama runs for S.C. GOP chair, post about him all you want. Until then, stick to the topic.
The lefties get all lathered up over the Sptbg GOP. The spark worships bars and “the scene” but rarely gives any respectable information.
What “scene”? There isn’t a “scene” in Spartanburg that I’m aware of, except for maybe at Ground Zero. Unless by “scene” you mean local blogs or something.
And what would you consider respectable? Tell me, and I’ll make an effort to increase that kind of coverage.
I don’t think anyone is lathered up. But surely you can see how this is fascinating stuff, regardless of your politics. You’ve got one candidate who can’t keep himself out of trouble and another who is openly in the pocket of a New York-based political puppet-master. It’d be just as interesting if they were Democrats, and we’d cover it just the same.
Reid: You don’t like liberal types writing disparaging things about the local GOP? well get used to it, because I’m going to be here a while.
Trust me, if it were Democrats I’d write about it with way more interest, so I don’t get the “all lathered up” comment. I was pretty unenthusiastic about writing this piece to begin with because when you get right down to it, I don’t care about the SCGOP chair seat. As a devoted “lefty” though (and as one of the only vocal “lefties” here in Sparanburg), I did feel like I should at least give my 2 cents.
I probably won’t be writing much about the local Democratic Party because they’re barely even a presence in Spartanburg, so other than write a column about how irrelevant they are, I’m not sure where I can go with that. Incidentally if you search through my columns you’ll find one where I was quite critical of Rep. Harold Mitchell who is one of the only elected Democrats in Spartanburg.