After four years of cheap demagoguery and adolescent hijinks, voters in the 1st Congressional District should reject incumbent U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace. Instead, they should vote to send Charleston businessman Michael B. Moore to Congress in Washington.
Moore is everything Mace is not: prudent, measured, responsible, caring. Put simply, he’s a grown-up. And he knows how to behave like one in public.
Moreover, his business-friendly brand of Democratic centrism combined with his generational family ties to the Lowcountry make him a fine fit for the district’s moderate, shrimp-and-grits sensibilities.
Contrast that with the incumbent, whose antics have made her a face of the GOP freak show in the U.S. House of Representatives, along with the likes of Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert.
What’s worse, on the most difficult and divisive issues, we’ve seen the worst of Mace time and again, from her cruel scapegoating of illegal immigrants to her “pro-life, pro-woman” position on abortion, which appears to mean consistently voting for the former while blathering on a bit about the latter.
Moore, on the other hand, has handled the tough issues, and himself, with real thoughtfulness throughout the race, refusing to demonize easy targets and holding the incumbent to account for her record.
“Look, it’s fine to talk one way, but you’ve got to look at how someone votes,” Moore said at a recent candidates’ forum. “When you vote against [codifying] Roe v. Wade, when you vote against laws that would allow IVF, when you vote against women in the military having access to reproductive care, it doesn’t matter what you say. Your votes stand on their own.”
And while it would have been all too easy for him to run a feel-good race on his the strength of his family history – he’s the great great grandson of Reconstruction-era icon Robert Smalls, whose statue is set to be raised at the Statehouse next year – Moore has insisted on running a serious, substantive campaign on the issues.
The question is whether any of that matters in a district that was drawn by the state legislature to have a 15-point Republican advantage. But Moore says that doesn’t square with what he’s hearing on the campaign trail.
“We’re pulling together a broad coalition of Democrats, of course, but also of independents and moderate Republicans,” he told the City Paper in September. “What I’m hearing is that Nancy has worn out her welcome with all the antics and media attention, and that voters are looking for someone who really wants the job.”
Remember Jim Clyburn, too
Also on the congressional ballot for many City Paper readers is long-time Congressman Jim Clyburn, a powerful Democrat. Through the years, time and again, he’s been good to the Lowcountry on an array of issues, from transportation and education to building greater opportunities for everyone. Clyburn has served the 6th Congressional District with distinction since 1993. As South Carolina’s most consequential member of Congress, Clyburn deserves to be reelected and we again endorse his candidacy.
If Moore is elected too, his fighting spirit plus Clyburn’s canny experience would give our congressional delegation a strong one-two punch that would serve the state and nation well.
We urge readers to vote accordingly on Nov. 5.
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