Radio host Charlie James discusses the South Carolina Senate race & callers

What this episode covers

Charlie James: Welcome back to the program, Monday afternoon. Let's go to Gerald in Cowpens. How you doing, Gerald? Gerald: Oh man, Charlie, now didn't Darlene Graham say she was not going to run for Senator? Charlie James: Ah... What we heard was the reason that she was appointed as the Senator is because she was not—they wanted someone who was not going to run for the office beyond the interim period. That's what we heard. Gerald: So she didn't tell the whole truth then, correct? Charlie James: I don't know. I don't know what she said. The only thing that I—the information that I got came from the DNC and the South Carolina GOP. Gerald: 'Cause I can tell you man, if somebody—if somebody will lie to you, it's no way you can trust them. And one other thing, lying and stealing goes hand in hand, brother. Charlie James: Yeah, you're exactly right. I appreciate it, Gerald. You're exactly right. Now, somebody brought—somebody said to I—I, boy, I would love to be able to take credit for this, but I'm an honest man. That's why I'd never make it in politics. I'm an honest man. This is not—I did not make this up, but I thought it was brilliant. Somebody said South Carolina does not need birthright senatorship. I thought that was so good! That's so good. That was, I mean, just absolutely spot on. However, we've got 10 people running for the Senate office here in South Carolina. We got Duke Buckner, we got Russell Fry, we got Darlene Graham, we got Mark Lynch, we've got Mark McBride, we've got Darius Mitchell, uh Clark Nelsen, Ralph Norman, Mark Sanford, and Samuel Sam Shepard. 10 people running. Now, let me—let me just kind of point this out to you for a second. I have had three people—three people over the last week come up to me and say, in one—in one form or another, they've said, "Hey Charlie, who's this Fry guy?" And I was like, "What?" "Yeah, who's this—who's this Frey, who's this Fry guy that's—that's running for Senate?" And I—and I was like, "Wait a minute. You mean the 7th Congressional District Congressman of South Carolina? The guy that goes to Washington and votes on your—you don't know who that guy is?" They're like, "No, never heard of him." Oh. Well, let me tell you something. That's pretty telling. And I got to put all that on Russell Fry. If—if—if the people of South Carolina don't even know who you are or what you do, you're automatically behind the eight ball. Automatically. I've reached out to Russell Fry two times, sent him a text message, no response whatsoever to get him on the program. No response. Absolutely nothing. Here—we're in Greenville, South Carolina. Now, I know he's all up there in, you know, kind of on the eastern side of the state going down into the Lowcountry, but still, you should know—I mean, people should know your name. Everybody knows Nancy Mace. Everybody knows Jim Clyburn. Everybody knows all of our congressmen except for Russell Fry. So for that, I—I got to put the—the blame squarely on—in the lap of Russell Fry for that one. So, name recognition is a huge thing. We will find that out very soon. So, this new poll out, um, [laughter] this is from, uh, uh, Resonance Media Services. Ah. Darlene Graham, or Don, um, is at 20% of likely voters in next month's special primary election, according to the Renaissance poll—Resonance poll. That puts her just ahead of outgoing 5th District Congressman Ralph Norman, who is at 16.9%. No other candidate received more than 10% of the vote, um, which was conducted earlier this week by uh South Carolina political strategist Rick Quinn. Um, others polled by Quinn include Governor Pamela Evette, Mark Lynch, Russell Fry, Mark Sanford, Nancy Mace, Duke Buckner, and of course we know that Pamela Evette and Nancy Mace, um, at least Pamela Evette has not announced that she was going to run, but uh there you go. So, going to be interesting to see what happens with this. But this is going to—this is going to be a—I'm... It's going to be inter ...

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