Charlie James discusses the SC Senate race, campaign tactics, and debates.

What this episode covers

Full Transcript Charlie James: All right, I—I—I don't agree with anything that Dr. Annie Andrews stands for. She's trying to uh, in some of her ads that I'm seeing, she's trying to uh pose herself to be some sort of a moderate by claiming she's going to work with Republicans to lower our taxes. Yeah, right, whatever. Um, well, listen to this, this is from Fox Carolina: "Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate Dr. Annie Andrews is challenging Republican interim Senator Darlene Graham to a debate ahead of the general election." Andrews announced that her campaign has accepted Fox Carolina's invitation to a live televised debate, but claims her opponent is unwilling to debate. To track the challenge, Andrews launched a campaign initiative called "Debate Me Darlene." "I believe it's a sign of a really unhealthy democracy that there's even a question of whether or not there would be a series of live televised debates in this race for essentially an open U.S. Senate seat," Andrews said. "We haven't heard a peep from her." Today, uh, Darlene Graham's campaign issued the following statement: "Annie Andrews once led the charge for harmful gender transition transition uh procedures on kids. She also backed letting boys compete in girl—competing girls' sports, and called anyone who opposed it shameful. Now she said those things never happened. Annie Andrews has been debating herself and losing. Why would be—why would we be in any hurry to get in the way?" Ah. I—I'm telling you, folks: this would be a debate that would be viewed across all of South Carolina, on all of the major media stations. How is it looking right now? I mean, I—and I—I reached out to Abby Zilch. This is, you know, several times to Abby. And I was like, "Hey, let's get her on the program." The last email that I sent, probably an hour ago, said, "I promise I will afford her the utmost respect." I haven't heard anything back from them. Not a word. But let me tell you something: if you go to that website, Debate Me Darlene, ah, let me tell you something—this is a good campaign. This is a very good campaign. It's got a count-up timer that says it's been 28 days, 6 hours, 4 minutes, and 13 seconds since Annie Andrews requested a debate. I'm—I don't know. We haven't heard anything from Darlene Graham. Where is she? Seriously? I think this—this whole rope-a-dope thing that she's pulling, the whole, you know, the—the—good gracious. I mean, is this—is this—is this the Joe Biden hiding in the closet, hiding in the basement strategy? I'm not sure it's going to work. Annie Andrews is out there hitting the pavement. She's got the ads on television, she's got the ads on radio, she's got this website, she's doing all kinds of videos online, and I got nothing from Darlene Graham. Nothing! And I—here's what I said, I said, and I believe this: she needs to earn our vote. She needs to earn it. Has she done that? She posted something about Charleston's Emma Navarro with her performance at the US Open. Um, September the 8th, "I'm honored to receive the endorsement of the National Rifle Association." Emma Navarro—Emma Navarro... posted a thing about Annie Andrews... back on September 1st, she visited the port... If she loses this race, she's got nobody, nobody to blame but Abby Zilch and herself. That's it. You cannot blame the Ralph Norman voters, because this is where you need to be: you need to be in those 12 counties. If I were a campaign advisor—which I'll be honest with you, if I could go back in time, that's probably what I would—that would be the career path I took—you need to be in those 12 counties that voted for Ralph Norman. You need to make amends with Ralph Norman and do what you can. I mean, even try to get him on the trail with you! Get him out there trying to—trying to speak—make him a surrogate if you have to. Get all of these people, I mean, some of them maybe wouldn't be the best choice, but try to win some of these people over. Right now, I—do you feel won over ...

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