This has not been a very good week for Matt Moore. First, the SCGOPer gets the collective stink-eye from the nation’s legal community — including at least one high-profile South Carolina lawyer, former state attorney general Charlie Condon — for defending the Republican Governor’s Associations’s shameless — but ultimately successful — “Vincent Sheheen loves child molesters and wife beaters” ad, then Moore threw a hissy fit when petition candidate Tom Ervin began running a TV ad in which he calls himself an “independent Republican” candidate for governor. Or as Moore told The State:
“While the First Amendment protects your right to promote and advertise the issues that concern you, it does not give you the right to lead the public to believe you are a Republican, when you are not one,” the letter said.
Actually, Ervin can call himself whatever the hell he wants. And according to Chris Whitmire, public information officer for the S.C. Election Commission, there doesn’t appear to be anything the SCGOP can do to stop Ervin from referring to himself as a Republican, independent or otherwise. However, Whitmire notes that if Ervin’s name appears on the ballot on Election Day it will be with “Petition” after his name, not “Republican.”
Well played, Mr. Ervin. Well played.
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