Spartanburg County GOP Chairman Rick Beltram, who is an avid reader of The Palmetto Scoop, has responded to our questions about his group’s super-duper-top-secret polling by releasing the information to S.C. Hotline. And as we figured, he used the party funds to poll himself.

They polled Name ID and Unfavorables for Beltram and Sen. Lindsey Graham from Sept. 26-27, 2007. Here’s what they reported:

We’re not sure how “scientific” these numbers are or who exactly they polled, but the only place Rick Beltram has 75 percent name ID is at the Pizza Hut in Spartanburg. If you ask someone from, say, Charleston to identify Rick Beltram, they’ll either start talking about the Mets center fielder or just make something up.

Which makes this all the more irrational. Polling the Chair of the Spartanburg County Republican Party makes about as much sense as polling your local mechanic. In fact, even though we’ve written about him a number of times, we’re not even certain Beltram actually exists.

But if he is a real person, he’s either trying to challenge Graham, or this is how he finds satisfaction in life. If it’s the former, then even these bogus numbers don’t look good for him. If it’s the latter, and it probably is, then Spartanburg County Republicans should just take the money they pay for dues and go ahead and set it on fire.