GOPers: DeMint Like A Jew "Watching Our Nation's Pennies"

The two South Carolina Republican chairmen who compared Sen. Jim DeMint to a penny-watching Jew have apologized for the remark. DeMint himself called it thoughtless and hurtful.

Ulmer, the Orangeburg County chairman, said the remark was "truly in admiration for a method of bettering one's lot in life" and he meant nothing derogatory.

Added Merwin, the Bamberg County chair: "I have always abhorred in the past, and shall continue to do so in the future, anti-Semitism in any form whatsoever. I ... beg that any and all who were offended will accept my deep felt apology."

* * * * *

Two South Carolina County Republican Party chairmen stepped up to rebut criticism of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) in a newspaper editorial Sunday. But their defense of the senator might be overshadowed by their use of an anti-Semitic stereotype to praise him.

After a Democratic state senator wrote in The State that DeMint didn't bring enough money back home, Bamberg County GOP Chairman Edwin Merwin and Orangeburg County GOP Chairman James Ulmer responded that he was just looking after the nation's pennies -- like a Jew would.

"There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves," Ulmer and Merwin wrote in a joint letter published by The Times and Democrat. "By not using earmarks to fund projects for South Carolina and instead using actual bills, DeMint is watching our nation's pennies and trying to preserve our country's wealth and our economy's viability to give all an opportunity to succeed."

"It's people like Ulmer and Merwin that make many folks fear for the future of the once Grand Ole Party," wrote the conservative Palmetto Scoop.

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Comments

[WSUShocker]

08:58 PM on 10/21/2009

I'm as outraged at this as I was about the Seinfeld "Soup Nazi" episode. When will the repuglicans learn that they need unitity instead of division.

[danielet]

08:31 PM on 10/21/2009

What means this "apologized"? I would say, thank you. For nothing is as hidden as the danger of an American Krystalnacht. Americans like scapegoats and it could soon be that the very Israel so many "Christian Zionists" hold high and holy gets blamed for the rising price of oil and the War on Terror. Why? Because it makes an easy deflection from the fact that our "shop until you drop" definition of "American" is the sole source of our economic demise. Why point the finger at all of Wall Street (so much harder to get your hands around) than just at Madoff and "his type." A recent trip way down South and into the Southwest made it clear that for a lot of folks there it was the Jews who shoved the "ni--ers" down our throats with civil rights. Indeed, I heard, Rohm Emmanuel controls Obama, our "Muslim un-American" President. DON'T LOOK FOR LOGIC, the only issue is: people scapegoat because they can. As things get worse, angry uneducated people's whose paleocortex comes to dominate their neocortex, all the progress we made as a nation will swept away by racial- ethnic violent surges showing that the scourge of Europe has been here waiting for its time. As American education gets dummer, the hate gets stronger and scapegoats are made to face evasion of self-responsibility. It's the American Way, alas.

[balancedsolution]

07:51 PM on 10/21/2009

True Colors are shining through!

[reynoljh]

04:36 PM on 10/21/2009

If the Republican Party wishes to remain a viable entity, it needs to face the fact that it's time to cull the herd. I would start with South Carolina Republicans. Hang on to Lindsay Graham, though. He has more integrity than the rest of them combined.

[Scarborian]

08:22 PM on 10/21/2009

The American democracy has descended to the point where the parties don't really care anymore about being viable. The Republicans know that sooner or later the voters will be want to get rid of the Democrats and the only way to do that is to elect Republicans. There's no need for them to put any effort into it, all they have to do is wait.

[thatgirlinnewyork]

04:36 PM on 10/21/2009

these are the same ilk that label new york "depraved" and not part of "real america". if SC is "real america", god help us all.

[Seattlelite]

12:18 PM on 10/21/2009

Let's see....the GOP has lost all minority groups now they're alienating the Jews? I guess the can't turn that party into the "all white southerner's club" fast enough. LOL.

[Waferthinmint]

12:05 PM on 10/21/2009

Isn't it time for South Carolina to secede again?

[a270]

03:27 PM on 10/21/2009

I would not stop them. What with the feds running the deficit the way they are, states should be allowed to opt out of the union. At least until the central government starts to run a balanced budget.

[Alfredo Zapata]

07:30 PM on 03/04/2010

Hope you are planning to relocate then! SC is such a bassackward state! Good luck!

[CommunistUtopia]

11:59 AM on 10/21/2009

Demint / Bachmann 2012

I have switched from being a Communist to a Blue Dog Democrat to a Republican to a Conservative in a manner of a few months. I am watching an economy in free fall, the White House's enemy list (how Nixonion!), an administration that kisses terrorists and demonizes citizens, a government that is ruining our currency, trying to regulate carbon dioxide (aka plant food), and the list goes on and on.

I cannot support policies that will ruin my financial future and that of my children. So long democrat party.

[IsyFleur]

12:51 PM on 10/21/2009

I beg to differ... Nothing less than Palin/Bachmann 2012

[ibsteve2u]

01:36 PM on 10/21/2009

Do you suppose anybody REALLY believes your miraculous transformation?

lollll...I mean, it isn't like it is rare for righties to have names that obscure their agendas.

Take Bush, for instance...whoever heard of a plant - shrubbery - going out of its way to kill people, even if that required going someplace with a distinct shortage of water?

[str8fwd]

11:46 AM on 10/21/2009

Actually, lemme correct that... the GOP has been Obama's worst enemy since THE DAY AFTER he won the Dem primaries.

[str8fwd]

11:45 AM on 10/21/2009

Actually, lemme correct that... the GOP has been Obama's worst enemy since the AFTER he won the Dem primaries.

[Littledog]

11:38 AM on 10/21/2009

Is it any wonder why only 19% of Americans identify as Republicans and decent people don't want to admit they live in SC?

[Noxiousbob]

11:50 PM on 10/21/2009

Clyburn, one of the highest ranking democrats is from South Carolina. Actually, Obama would've won the state if he had come back just once after the primaries. He came much closer here than in most other southern states, including Georgia. Trust me, you apply some political pressure in the right places, you could turn the state deep blue in a relatively short period of time. This is why Ingles has tried to distance himself from the crazies (I'm not gonna like, SC is positively filled with crazy right wingers) by telling his constituents to stop watching Glenn Beck. Graham of course, has been more successful in trying to play grown up.

In any case, I am about ready to personally campaign for Rob Miller, because I've been tired of Joe Wilson for years. The only reason he was elected was because people thought they could count on him to just sit in the back and keep from doing something stupid and embarrassing, and well look what happened.

On the other hand, one of the democratic gubernational candidates openly boasts about the number of times he's been arrested (we're talking well into the double digits) and hes raised less than a hundred dollars in funds. So....yeah.

[Dolmance]

10:19 AM on 10/21/2009

Those Republicans sure do spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about race. You might say they're obsessed with the subject, as I learned through watching the Sotomayor hearings.

I think they all need a psychiatrist.

[Alfredo Zapata]

07:34 PM on 03/04/2010

Not only race, but what same sex couples do in the privacy of their own home.

[HopeGrenade]

09:35 AM on 10/21/2009

Haha. Fail. These two probably have never even seen a Jew.

[Scarborian]

08:03 PM on 10/21/2009

Joe Leiberman perhaps?

[topdocjim]

08:16 AM on 10/21/2009

As a lifelong West Virginian, I can only say, "Thank god for South Carolina."

[1differentdrummer]

06:14 AM on 10/21/2009

And Baptists who got wealthy went into politics or religion.