Following long tradition, our elected Senators and Representatives from South Carolina do not endorse candidates in their parties’ primary races or run-offs. DeMint has observed this traditional since elected to Congress in 1998, as have almost every other Senator or Representative of both parties. I can’t remember the last time this was broken, if ever.

Barrett is known to be close to DeMint as an ally in the state’s delegation, but even a DeMint endorsement wouldn’t be enough at this point to get him the win.

He needs to be careful, too, advertising himself as a “Christian family man who won’t embarrass us” – a slap at both Sanford and Haley. He overlooks that while people are horrified by Sanford’s personal conduct, they still approve of his policies, which are the center also of Haley’s reform agenda, and they don’t believe the crap about Haley put out by low-life bottom-feeding weasels.

I’m afraid that Barrett going all out to win will force him to do things which will ruin his career as a statewide candidate in SC, and he is a good man whose loss to public service would be mourned – but not revisited, if he gets down and dirty.

Haley would continue the “embarrassing oversight,” of course, not the “corrupt spending” – my wording was unclear, sorry.