The Politico has a column today on South Carolina's "history of stridency in national politics," and traces the tradition to legendary figures like John C. Calhoun and Strom Thurmond.
From Politico
By Alexander BurnsWith two shouted words during the president's speech to Congress Wednesday night, Congressman Joe Wilson cemented South Carolina’s status as the geographic center of opposition to the Obama White House.
Just under nine months into the president's term, the state has emerged as a beachhead for the president's most aggressive conservative critics, a secure launching point for some of the harshest attacks on the administration’s policy initiatives.
Its governor, Mark Sanford, led the charge of Republican governors against the Obama economic stimulus plan and made national headlines by arguing that the administration’s excessive spending could lead to an economic collapse on the scale of Weimar Germany. Sanford, in fact, persisted in rejecting Recovery Act funding until a court ordered him to back down.
When Obama turned his attention to health care, South Carolina’s junior senator, Jim DeMint, touched off a firestorm of criticism by urging conservatives to "break " the new president by defeating reform legislation.
"If we're able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo," DeMint predicted, drawing an acid response from the White House.
Wilson’s notorious “You lie!” outburst in front of a joint session of Congress, was just the latest in the series of salvos, this one coming as Obama claimed his health care reform plan wouldn't offer free care to illegal immigrants.
And there may be more to come: Some South Carolina Republicans say Wilson's remark isn’t exactly out of step with public sentiment in the conservative state.
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