Old-timey political “whisper campaigns” quietly impaled an opponent with general nastiness, rumors and fear-mongering to change outcomes of elections. The overall strategy was to find a pressure point about something that scared someone, such as spreading vitriol that someone who doesn’t look like you might take away your job or livelihood.
The modern-day equivalent of this kind of sliminess is found in the dozens of unwanted, undesired political texts that are blowing up phones. That’s because unscrupulous consultants have figured out that just about everybody opens texts, compared to spam emails or old-fashioned letters. So they figure if people are using texts, they might as well take advantage of human behavior to spread home-grown muck to instill as much fear and confusion as they can.
You can see these tactics in local races in surreptitious messages from people who purportedly support the right-wing extremists in the local Moms For Liberty group. Rather than publicly backing candidates, they use texts that say “we are only allowed to endorse school board candidates. But I can tell you who the conservative candidates are.” And then they proceed to share names of candidates, all under the veil of texts.
Or there are the anonymous text campaigns in North Charleston that seek to vilify one candidate’s record without a hint of sources or facts.
But naughty, hate-filled texts are just the tip of the iceberg. Local elections also are spiraling down with gaslighting and weaponizing of information. Mayoral challenger William Cogswell in Charleston, for instance, runs Facebook ads that make it sound like another newspaper endorsed him, when in fact, it endorsed incumbent John Tecklenburg like we did. Or there’s the Facebook ad that implies broad neighborhood support, but lacks a single Black or Brown face in several snapshots that zip by in split seconds.
Charleston candidates also have used a one-night downtown rampage on King Street as evidence of terrible mayoral leadership. In truth, Tecklenburg rightly left management of the streets to the professionals — police, who unfortunately got their act together one day too late. But no one died here like in other cities that were blowing up after the George Floyd murder in Minnesota.
Imagine if Tecklenburg had micromanaged. Critics would be screaming about the mayor wanting to be a law enforcement officer. Candidate Mika Gadsden rightly observed, “I really do not want to hear that night be politicized or weaponized against another candidate. It’s gone on too long, and we’re not talking about the root causes of the issue.”
So in the coming Nov. 7 elections, we hope you will consider our endorsed candidates who, as best as we can tell, don’t stoop to race- and fear-based nods and winks to attract voters. We encourage you to vote in contested races for:
Charleston mayor: John Tecklenburg
Charleston city council: Stephanie Hodges (District 3); Karl L. Brady Jr. (5); Owen Vogel (7) and Kenneth Marolda (9).
North Charleston mayor: Reggie Burgess
North Charleston city council: Kenneth Ray (District 2); Monica J. Mumme (3); Richard Hayes (4); Belinda Thomas Swindler (5); Nerfertiti Brown (6); Dan Gregory (7); Greg Perry (8); and Aaron Hicks (10).
Regardless of which candidates you support, do your duty and get to the polls and vote.
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