SPEAKING FREELY ON DISTRICT 98 REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE GREG FORD

The first thing to know about Republican Greg Ford, who is facing Dr. Sonja Ogletree Satani (Dr. SOS) for the open District 98 House seat, is that he twice mounted primary challenges against incumbent Republican Chris Murphy. Ford positioned himself to Murphy's right, where there isn't a lot of political space.

Ford must have thought District 98 is located in the ruby red reaches of Greenville and Spartanburg, where his brand of chest-thumping, America First Trumpism plays well. But Dorchester County is not in the Upstate. As a result, Ford twice lost badly to Murphy. In the 2022 primary the vote against him was 1819 to 845. In 2024 it was 1397 to 739.

The only reason the twice-defeated Ford finally secured the Republican nomination last month is that Murphy resigned the seat. Ford then squeaked through in a three-way Republican primary that required a runoff. This time Ford attracted a paltry 789 votes, but it was enough.

Ford's candidacy is a gift to Democrats and to Dr. SOS because he is a total mismatch for Dorchester County voters.

He served twenty years in the Air Force (1997-2017) and retired to Summerville, where he has no history of civic participation. He has never held a public office. He belongs to veterans organizations, but not to the sorts of civic organizations where one learns about local issues and solutions.

He is not part of the well-oiled Republican assembly-line that pumps out white male candidates for office with business or legal backgrounds. He didn't work his way up through the county party. His record of volunteerism is limited to little league baseball.

In short, he is a career military veteran feeding on stale right-wing grievances, regardless of any facts that contradict his flawed vision of American life.

Start with taxes. He claims in previous campaign materials that South Carolina "has the highest tax burden in the Southeast based on tax ratios," whatever that means. In fact, according to the CPA Practice Advisor, South Carolina ranks 39th nationally in its tax burden, with rates lower than exist in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and North Carolina.

Nevertheless, Ford says he has "a bold plan to eliminate the State Income Tax IMMEDIATELY." (The capitalization is his, not mine.) How will he do this? He doesn't say.

Nor, if he actually eliminated the state income tax, does he say how he would pay to improve our weak public and charter schools, fix our overwhelmed roads, expand our health care system, protect our wetlands, deal with the threat of flooding, or make housing more affordable to the average Dorchester County resident.

On K-12 education, he has absorbed all the Moms for Liberty nonsense about schools offering (according to Ford) a "new divisive curriculum [that] embodies hatred, based on one's race, gender or sex with attempts to displace our religious beliefs and freedom as a whole."

He fails to provide any evidence of such hatred of America being taught in South Carolina schools. Nor does he acknowledge that the state has made significant gains in reading and math scores since the end of Covid. Good news about South Carolina schools doesn't fit Ford's typical MAGA agenda, even though his fellow Republicans oversee the state education system. State Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver must view her fellow Republican Ford with a jaundiced eye.

There is much else to report about Ford's distressing views--on election security, guns, vaccines, and constitutional freedoms. I will share those views in the next "Speaking Freely" post.

Suffice to say that candidate Greg Ford is bringing the full arsenal of Trump prejudices to the District 98 race.