The Palmetto Scoop

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) announced yesterday that he would not seek the White House, citing campaign finance laws as the reason.
“We were informed yesterday morning that if I had any communication with American Solutions after I became a candidate, it was a criminal offense.” [MARY BRUCE - ABC News]
This may be for [...]

A letter to the editor from the secretary of the Spartanburg County Republican Party appeared in Friday’s Spartanburg Herald-Journal. The letter detailed the “people power” that goes into the party’s work, and one aspect in particular piqued our interest:
I work with a group of 15 other core volunteers to complete as many as 12 [...]

Yesterday, Earl Capps announced that the Blogland (his blog) would be celebrating “ROCKtober” beginning Monday. Capps said, “readers can look forward to a wild October, including a reader/listener appreciation prize contest with CDs and books, concert and album reviews galore and all the loud, obnoxious opinionating that you’ve come to expect and more.”
And [...]

David Stanton reports that White House hopeful Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) has chosen an office once used by Congressman Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) as the base for his South Carolina campaign.
The former Tennessee senator’s campaign signed a lease on the office a few blocks from the Statehouse and should be moving into the 2-thousand square-foot space on [...]

It’s been more than a month since neighboring GOP groups went to war in the Upstate, and a lot has happened since. John Boyanoski wrote Thursday that the e-mail battle has been heating up of late, with perennial bad boy Rick Beltram — the leader of the Spartanburg County “Socs” — targeting the Greenville [...]

SOUTH CAROLINIANS RALLY AT STATEHOUSE, SAT., OCT. 6, 2.P.M.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (TPS) – It’s difficult to discuss the ongoing genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan because the atrocities that have laid waste to its people over the last four years are almost unspeakable. But for far too long, the world has remained silent [...]

The Associated Press reports that an increasing number of South Carolinians — and Southerners for that matter — are attending Boston College in Massachusetts rather than a school in or near the Palmetto State.
Boston College’s decision to shift its sports teams to the ACC two years ago has led to a spike in applications from [...]

Sic Willie — a.k.a. Will Folks — the man behind the popular South Carolina blog FITSNews and a friend to The Palmetto Scoop, turned 33 today. We wish him a very Happy Birthday and continued success with FITS and its fantasy sports dynasties.

CONGRESSIONAL MEMBERS GET APPROVAL FOR SOUTH CAROLINA DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham and Representative Gresham Barrett have secured final Congressional approval for a long-delayed development project at Lake Russell.
Last night, the Senate passed the Water Resources Development Act of 2007(WRDA). The legislation instructs the federal government to sell approximately 600 acres [...]

The campaign of White House contender Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) said late Tuesday that it was canceling this weekend’s much-hyped campaign schedule — including a rumored stop at the “Okra Strut” parade in Irmo — after aides said the former governor caught a cold.
There are two possible causes for this sickness:

Romney became ill after seeing his [...]