Rare News Desk
With only 72 days remaining until the election, Independent U.S. senate candidate Thomas Ravenel faces the daunting task of trying to unseat incumbent Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
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Ravenel is not a fan of Graham, to say the least.
“He’s been there too long, he isn’t advancing freedom… He follows [Sen John] McCain around like a puppy dog, maybe he has an inferiority complex. He likes having nice things written about him in the New York Times, he likes being invited to the cocktail parties in Georgetown,” Ravenel told Rare on Friday.
Ravenel is not new to South Carolina politics. His father, former Rep. Arthur Ravenel Jr.(R-S.C) served with then Congressman Graham in the early 1990’s.
Ravenel is aware of his own weaknesses as a candidate. The former South Carolina State Treasurer resigned his position after only six months after being charged with purchasing cocaine via a third party. Ravenel plead guilty.
Since that dark moment, Ravenel has completed a rehabilitation program and currently stars on Bravo’s “Southern Charm”, a reality program that follows the happenings of six friends and their lives in Charleston, South Carolina.
“I’m sure that they are going to come after me, and carpet bomb me. All my skeletons are out there, everybody already knows them. I may do an ad that says, ‘I did this, I did that’, then what are they going to say about me? Why don’t they debate me on the issues. What are they afraid of?” Ravenel asked.
Sen. Graham has already begun taking jabs at Ravenel’s reality TV role, telling The Greenville News that “we’re not auditioning for a reality show.”
Someone in South Carolina has already tried to conjure up bad press for Ravenel. Just 24 hours before our interview, a fake Associated Press wire reported Ravenel had dropped out of the race, and his candidacy was only meant to promote his reality show.
“I expect a lot of dirty tricks, I read that the Associated Press admitted doing it and said that it was the mistake of some junior reporter. I know that the media is going to be in his camp but that one seemed a little odd to me,” Ravenel said when asked about the fake report.
In conversation, Ravenel comes off as well-read with a very deep understanding of history. He peppers our chat with references to the Founding Fathers, John Locke and the Constitution.
“[The Founding Fathers] were very hostile to concentrations of coercive power. They came out with documents that protect the individual,” Ravenel says, noting that he has spent extensive time studying how the the Founding Fathers envisioned the United States. They too were men who appreciated and discussed history, he notes. Ravenel does not believe that a politician like Graham embodies the type of leader the Founders intended and questions the senator’s transparency.
“He is a part of the problem, he has been bought and paid for… he say’s that nobody has the back of the military like he does, I think he has a bayonet to their back.”
Though Ravenel lines up with many conservatives on issues such as the NSA, Obamacare and the Federal Reserve Duel Mandaet, he diverges on issues like gay rights.
“That’s one of the reasons I’ve freed myself from these two parties, from the partisan politics. Lindsay Graham is intimidated and silenced by the strident, hateful, anti-gay voices from the religious right leaders,” Ravenel said.
Several months ago, Ravenel became a father for the first time, opening up the doors to a new chapter in his life and heightening his awareness of leaving the world a better place for the next generation.
“Where is our sense of responsibility to the next generation?” Ravenel asks.
“We are engaging in inter-generational theft. We need to live within our means, we need to get rid of politicians who just want to travel around the world and act like big shots.”
By running as an Independent candidate, Ravenel gives the voters of South Carolina a chance to make a statement in the November election–vote for ideas, not for a party, he stresses.
“I’m giving the people of South Carolina a real choice. You have a Democrat and a Republican who have a duopoly on power. They are afraid of someone like me who is going to call them out what for they are, thieves of our livelihoods and our liberties. This two party system is running the country into the ground.”
