Vinnie gets his grits from NYC. Vinnie is down in the polls and needs a new social issue to run on. SC does have an international presence.
Via WISTV
Democratic candidate for governor Vincent Sheheen said Wednesday that he wants South Carolina to remove the Confederate flag that flies on State House grounds. Governor Haley’s campaign calls the move “desperate and irresponsible.”
Sheheen was joined by the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor Bakari Sellers and several mayors Wednesday in calling for the removal of the flag. Sheheen becomes the most prominent political voice to call for the flag’s removal since it was moved from atop the capitol dome to a pole just south of the Confederate soldier’s monument in front of the State House in a 2000 compromise.
Sheheen said the flag needs to be removed for South Carolina to compete effectively in a global economy.
He proposed replacing the flag with an American flag in front of the State House. The American and South Carolina flags still fly over the State House dome.[…]
South Carolina started flying the Confederate flag on top of its capital in the early 1960s, both as a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Civil War and a protest of the civil rights movement. It remained for more than three decades, until Republican Gov. David Beasley called for it to come down, leading to protests from civil rights groups that marched from Charleston to Columbia in support of Beasley and counter protests from groups that felt the flag was a part of the state’s history and should be honored.
Beasley served one term and was beaten by Democrat Jim Hodges in an election where supporters of the Confederate flag protested almost every campaign stop.
The compromise that moved the flag to its prominent place in front of the Statehouse was widely supported. Two of its main authors, white state Sen. Glenn McConnell and black state Sen. Robert Ford, both out of Charleston, are no longer in the Legislature.
The Associated Press asked Sheheen when he ran for governor in 2010 whether he wanted to remove the flag. “I think it would be in the state’s best interest to try to work together to resolve that issue in a way that helps us move past this fight that has continued forever,” he said then.