A Closer Look at Giuliani's Neo-Confederate SC Campaign Chair

[RedEarth]

Last week, Rudy Giuliani's campaign was hit with a flurry of bad press over the GOP presidential aspirant's alliance with South Carolina's Ravenel family. Arthur Ravenel Jr., the family patriarch, is a former Republican US Representative and current regional chairman of Giuliani's campaign in the early voting primary state. Ravenel's son, former SC state treasurer, Thomas, was forced to resign from his post as Giuliani's state chairman last month after being indicted for cocaine trafficking.

Yet instead of pushing white powder like his son allegedly has, Arthur Ravenel has trafficked in white power. During a speech at a 2000 rally for the display of the Confederate flag on public property, Ravenel called the NAACP, "The National Association of Retarded People," and has made several other racially charged remarks throughout his career.

After I wrote about the Ravenels on Campaign Matters and on my blog, I received a note from my friend Ed Sebesta, a leading researcher of the neo-Confederate movement and author of the essential (and perhaps only) anti-Neo-Confederate blog. Sebesta told me he opened his files on Arthur Ravenel and discovered that the old Palmetto state pol has embedded himself with neo-Confederate radicals even more deeply than anyone has reported.

The extent of Ravenel's radicalism was exemplified by a startling proclamation of "support for secessionists" he delivered on the House floor on June 25, 1991.

This is the Congressional Record entry of Ravenel's speech (scroll down to the Giuliani section of Sebesta's presidential candidates page for more):

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?pid=210015