South Carolina
Total Number of Delegates: 54 Pledged: 45 Unpledged: 9
How to Recognize a South Carolina Delegate: The tourism slogan of "Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places" is just a poetic figure of speech for this state's ability to "grin and bear it." South Carolinians have not had it easy. The uplands were populated by poor Scots driven out of Virginia, and the low country was peopled with slaves from the west coast of Africa. At first the aristocracy, and later the government, managed the suspicious masses through intimidation and indoctrination. The culture of power is still prevalent today, from the Old Testament dating rules imposed upon students at Bob Jones University in Greenville to the new-world ordering of jarheads at the Marine Corps Boot Camp on Parris Island. The recent population boom of relocating Florida retirees and the tightening job market has only preserved the practices of forming cliques and fitting in. South Carolinians in Denver will be the delegates who like to hang out in small packs at convenience stores and ask status-conscious questions like "Where do your kids go to school?' and "What kind of Volvo do you drive?" Females will wear lightweight long-sleeved cotton blouses over tight-fitting tank tops and cotton slacks. Males will proudly wear pastel shades of Charleston Khakis made by Berle Manufacturing, topped with Vineyard Vines Thin Striped Murray shirts. Fair Warning: South Carolinians love period dress. They are the delegation most likely to be seen at convention parties in pirate, American Revolution and/or Civil War costumes.
Famous South Carolinians: 2008 presidential candidates Stephen Colbert and John Edwards; civil rights activist Jesse Jackson; Children's Defense Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman; actresses Kristin Davis, Andie MacDowell, Mary-Louise Parker and Monique Coleman; funnymen Chris Rock and Andy Dick; letter turner Vanna White; musicians Dizzy Gillespie, Chubby Checker, James Brown and Eartha Kitt; "Hootie" Darius Rucker, Mamas & the Papas leader John Phillips; Iron & Wine folkie Samuel Beam; athletes Shoeless Joe Jackson, Althea Gibson, Jim Rice and Kevin Garnett.
Famous South Carolina Democrats: Democratic party founder and 7th United States president Andrew Jackson; 7th United States vice-president John C. Calhoun; former governor, senator and Supreme Court justice James F. Byrnes; former governor and senator Fritz Hollings; former member of the United States House of Representatives Liz J. Patterson; 26th Majority Whip of the United States House of Representatives Jim Clyburn; organic hog farmer and failed Agriculture secretary Emile DeFelice.
Famous South Carolinians With Denver Connections: Former Denver Nuggets forward Alex English; space artist and binary star Dr. Dirk Terrell.
State Nickname: The Palmetto State, the Swamp State, the Iodine State (official); the Sand-Lapper State, the Sand-Trapper State, South of the Border (unofficial).
Population: 4,321,249 Racial Distribution: 66% white, 29% black, 1% Asian, 4% Hispanic Per Capita Personal Income: $26,132 Unemployment: 7.2%
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE SOUTH CAROLINA DELEGATION
Most South Carolinian Denver Neighborhood: Green Valley Ranch
Most South Carolinian Bar: The Soiled Dove Underground 7401 East First Avenue Just like South Carolina-based Muzak Holdings LLC, this Denver nightclub presents all styles of music in a manner that can chill out the masses.
Most South Carolinian Restaurant: Cabin Creek Smokehouse BBQ 25997 Conifer Road Conifer, Colorado The perfect reward for a delegate at the nation's most green political convention is to spend his carbon offsets on a drive up to Conifer for a plate of ribs, smoked all the way to the bone and shellacked with Carolina BBQ sauce.
View Larger ImageBest Day Trip: Fossil Trace Golf Club, Golden
Sandlappers are either dirt-eaters or cowards. The definition for the nickname of South Carolinians was either invented by Virginians as an insult to describe the dining habits of the predominantly poor residents, or it was coined by the British to describe the South Carolinians’ cowardly military maneuver of kissing the sand whenever gunshots rang out. Both are wrong. Sandlappers want y'all to know that it is a golf thang. It's a term of respect for state golfers who've made par on each of the state's public golf courses (designed by Arnold Palmer and Davis Love III) that stretch from Myrtle Beach to Hilton Head and Hickory Knob. Since America's first golf course opened in Chucktown (Charleston) in 1786, golfing has become the state's leading pastime. More important, half of the state’s jobs are now dependent on the state's golf-based economy. That alone makes Palmetto Staters the best-prepared delegates to play the Jim Engh-designed championship golf course at Fossil Trace in Golden, Colorado. From the delegate hotel, get onto Interstate 70 and drive west for twenty miles. Take the West Colfax Avenue exit and turn right onto West Sixth Avenue. Travel one mile and turn right onto Jefferson County Parkway, then take the first left onto Illinois Street. Drive five blocks north to the entrance and kiss your state's 312-year-old golfing history goodbye. Fossil Trace took a full 64 million years to build. The treacherous ten-foot-deep fairways and undulating greens are a challenge to even the most accomplished players, but Sandlappers will also have to contend with the twenty-foot-tall pillars of sandstone embedded with 64-million-year-old trace fossils of triceratops foot prints and palmetto fronds. Concentrate! Players who spend too much time in the rough are jokingly accused of being fossil hunters — or perhaps sandstone-lappers. -- Kenny Be
