Not having seen the clip, his point may've been to insert a wedge between President Obama, half-black, and the black population of his state, although race has nothing to do with the issue, and probably the partisan makeup of their state legislature does.

A racist in South Carolina.

I would like to know, however, what the statistics are on racial distribution of poverty in SC.

Here's a stat abstract from 1999. Hope to find updates.

South Carolina

White Residents 224,339
% Below Poverty 8.6

Black Residents 298,418
% Below Poverty 26.4

Residents - Other Races 25,112
% Below Poverty 19.6

Hispanic Residents 22,440
% Below Poverty 25.4

http://www.ors2.state.sc.us/abstract/chapter1...

Now, it would be interesting to note the educational achievement of the aforementioned categories. I'll see what I can find.

This is a favorite meme of conservatives on both sides of the aisle. It justifies standing back and watching a man drown because he was "too lazy" to learn to swim. It justifies eliminating any social programs beyond those that save conservatives money.

The problem is, while preaching personal responsibility, these same conservatives howl victimization whenever anyone points out the free rides on government aircraft or the use of office staff to do personal errands. Prime example - princess Sarah.

The answer: Personal responsibility is for poor people.

Merry Christmas, all.

Could Lindsey have given us a better gift than to slam 31% of all the voters in his state? :)

Graham and other Conservatives know slamming blacks is a free shot at this point. They've got nothing to lose and they can rile up the many Klansman in the Party.

2000 Census

White

HS Grads - 83.6%
Bachelor Degree - 26.1%
Advanced Degree - 9.5%

Black

HS Grads - 72.3%
Bachelor Degree - 14.3%
Advanced Degree - 4.8%

Poverty Rates - 2007 Census Bureau

White - 8.2%
Black - 24.7%

Graham is not acknowledging that although he is a two-term governor, Sanford hasn't done as much to create jobs or attract business to S.C. Sanford has been an obstructionist in his own political party, bringing two piglets onto the floor of the state legislature to show his opposition to pork. The piglets shat on the floor while he was holding them. This is the guy who wanted to turn down all of the stimulus money and had to be sued by two students to get the education funds for his own state. S.C. did not complete the paperwork so that it's unemployed citizens could get the unemployment funds. It only recently applied for the funds, and officials were pointing fingers at each other to lay blame. The same thing happened with the funds that would provide consumer counseling to citizens so that they could avoid foreclosure. The counseling agencies were negotiating with mortgage companies to modify loans. State officials were trying to apply for this money a little more than a week ago, while other states have had their money for months. The state is seriously messed up, IMO, because the citizens keep voting incompetent officials into office. S.C. is a classic example of what happens when people vote on the basis of religion, abortion, homophobia, etc, instead of on politicians' records.

nice caption on teh clip:
"Sen. Lindsey Graham ... Ms.Information"

Because the 31% of the states population is black and black's are poor (by definition don't ya know)...don't you understand? There are no poor white people in South Carolina it is just blacks that are poor! And they make up 31% of the population! That is alot of poor people.

I have never been to South Carolina and quite frankly, I don't care if I ever go but how long are these racists in the south going to keep getting away with this nonsense about blacks only being poor and on welfare etc? They have been playing this game with poor whites to make them feel like somehow they are better than poor blacks simply because they have white skin and so you are one of us.

So yeah, I am calling Lindsey Graham a racist and sending his not so subtle coded message to those poor white people back home.

When Reagan started his myth of the "Welfare Queen" with a black mom with lots of kids as their poster child, this is when the truth came OUT and has been going strong ever since. When Clinton tried to get health care they used the same arguments. When Rethugs took charge and Gingrich and the rest started work on their "Contract ON America" it was the same argument. The Rethugs ALL either believe OR pretend to believe that the VAST MAJORITY of those on welfare, on food stamps, on Medicaid OR are just POOR, are black.
AND they believe NOW, or PRETEND TO believe, that the VAST MAJORITY of uninsured are black OR Hispanic.
AND, even though they had NO PROBLEM with millions crossing the border illegally to WORK FOR SLAVE WAGES and refused to do anything about it for all the 12 years they COULD HAVE, because it was a boon to their corporate donors AND a way to "BREAK SOME UNIONS" and lower American Workers Pay, the possibility that some of those slave wage workers just MIGHT be treated in the same hospitals and doctor's offices THEY have to use, that's a problem.
It's not just Graham. Listen very closely to what ALL of them have to say and you will get this IGNORANT, RACIST BS from every single ONE OF THEM. AND the Blue Dog Rethugs as well.
No matter what comes up on the agenda to help ordinary citizens, whether it be unemployment benefits, food stamps, Medicaid, jobs, Republithugs and blue dog fakes will fight tooth and nail to stop it because of this belief that "THOSE PEOPLE" are not worthy of assistance. I KNOW THAT IS THE TRUTH because NOW their "charities" are going SO FAR as to refuse to give a toy to a POOR child because of their prejudices. When they target CHILDREN, with all their BIG TALK about PRO-LIFE and INSISTING every FETUS be carried full term, they have NO QUALMS about sentencing that BORN CHILD to hunger, misery, suffering, homelessness, and even death and, along the way, even taking SANTA CLAUSE away from them.
BUT, they don't "consider" themselves "RACIST"? I think their words AND actions tell a different story.

Senator Linsie Graham calling the Dems "sleazy" is disingenuous in the extreme: Is it really "sleazy" that we increase medical care to low income African-Americans at additional cost to everyone else? What is sleazy is that the pouty prissy thing disses health care reform because it would aid African-Americans in addition to everyone else. Excuse me, Miss Linsie, dear, but your white supremacist slip is showing.

If you want to see (or at least remember) true sleaziness think back to when Miss Linsie was points girl for the GOP in the impeachment of Bill Clinton on trumped up grounds pertaining to matters of utterly no consequence to running the government. Yes, that was Sleazy Miss Linsie pushing for impeachment in the House -- for things his own party hacks do serially: Ever checked the roster of adulterers at The Family in D.C.?

(The only reason Linsie-pie has not been caught up in whoring scandals is that, being a closet homosexual, he isn't married so it wouldn't be worth the exposure.)

Where is Acorn now that we need them. They should do the state of South Carolina in grids, criss-crossing it to sign up all those 31% African-Americans and drive them to the polls the next time Linsie Miss Sleazy runs for reelection.

The stats perplex me...how did all those poor minority folks decide folks like Graham, Sanford, DeMint should represent them?

By now, the Confederate States of America would have had a South African revolution, or worse. People like Lindsey would be begging, hat in hand, for asylum in the Northern Free States of America. Which we could choose to deny.

I was told when I worked for Johns Hopkins that you never really hit the South until you crossed into South Carolina and saw your first Klan billboard. Which puts South Carolina in the same basket with Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Kazakhstan as places I never want to vacation. As part of the United States -- dead to me.

Lindsey Lohan Graham and Addie Wilson are ignorant birds of a feather. Didn't know us colored folk were an inconvenience to ya, sir. Gotta love SC, where it's still the 1800's.

Demographics matter. Groups differ due to evolutionary separation over the past 50,000 years. Read 'The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution' or 'Before the Dawn' by NY Times Science writer Nicholas Wade.