Today marks the final day of 2007 and, all in all, it was a pretty good year for The Palmetto Scoop. We got a lot accomplished (going from a mere thought to a Newsweek-syndicated blog in less than eight months), we made a few friends, we broke some big stories, we covered some significant events and we didn’t forget to piss some people off along the way. And with a much bigger year ahead, we felt it only fitting that we send off ‘07 with the obligatory “year in posts” post.

So here are our Top 10 most viewed posts from the year that was 2007:

#10. TPS Video of the Day 7/25 (July 25)

Our “Video of the Day” series began as an attempt to bring a little fun to the end of a long day. Our readers always enjoy the clips and we enjoy finding them. But they rarely meet the criteria to be in the “well-read” category that the next nine posts fall into. That is, with one surprising exception.

On July 25 we came across a great YouTube clip of the famous scene from the movie Patton in which Gen. George S. Patton rallies his troops in front of an enormous American flag, only he was ranting about “Iraq and the modern world situation” in this one. The video has now earned it’s creator more than 1.5 million YouTube views and it put this post in a very shocking tenth position on our countdown.

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#9. Still think it was a mistake? (Sept. 23)

There were few stories as enjoyable to write about as the soap opera of Lauren Caitlin Upton, or Miss Teen South Carolina as she will be forever known. She was beautiful, charming, stereotypically local, and downright stupid. Or at least that’s what everyone thought.

But less than a day after the video of her painful response to an easy question about maps at a national beauty pageant went viral, we predicted that Ms. Upton would cash in off the mistake. Cash in big.

We even went a step further and said that she was in fact the one fooling us with this whole charade, and that her “everywhere like such as the Iraq” meltdown could very well have been a premeditated attempt to earn fame and possibly a small fortune.

And less than a month later we got to say “we told you so” in this post when she inked a modeling deal with billionaire Donald Trump worth a reported $25,000 per day.

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#8. Help find Kyle (Nov. 13)

A friend passed along the story of 24-year-old Kyle Fleischmann and asked if we could do our best to help. Moments later the story was up on TPS and in the inboxes of TPS Report subscribers, friends, family and any e-mail address we could find.

It’s been more than a month now since Kyle disappeared from a Charlotte bar, and extensive search efforts have yielded few results. His family created a tribute video for Kyle in a renewed effort to discover what happened to him.

Visit www.helpfindkyle.com for more information.

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#7. Mitt’s Mastercard commercial (May 29)

This was simply a story of mistaken identity and it was too good to pass up. At a fundraiser in Atlanta, Mitt Romney confused former Georgia Lt. Gov. candidate Ralph Reed with our own Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer — although he was originally reported as confusing him with the religious right’s Gary Bauer.

And Romney had experienced similar identity problems in the past.

Apparently, one of the few things Romney is consistent with is confusing his allies. As we noted at the time:

Flight to Atlanta: $638.
Mitt Romney Fundraiser: $750.
Handshake with Ralph Reed: Your Soul.
Mr. Romney? Mr. Bauer. Mr. Reed? Mr. Bauer. Mr. Bauer? Mr. Romney. Mr. Romney? Mr. Reed. Mr. Bauer? Mr. Reed. Mr. Bauer? Mr. Bauer.
Confusing Ralph Reed AND Gary Bauer with Andre Bauer: PRICELESS.

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#6. Former Gamecock football star named in federal investigation (June 8 )

By far the biggest story to hit the University of South Carolina’s football program this year was the fall of legendary fullback Rob DeBoer. We received a tip that he had been implicated in a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit for his involvement in the virtual music store BurnLounge, and we ran with it.

Our coverage beat every other blog and newspaper in the state, including The State, and as a result the post earned a huge number of hits and had more than 50 comments. DeBoer was inevitably asked to step down as a sideline reporter for Gamecock football and is still named in the FEC lawsuit.

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#5. Mike Huckabee has just won the White House (Oct. 22)

Celebrity endorsements are few and far between for Republicans, and Chuck Norris is more than just a mere celeb. After all, Norris is the reason Waldo is hiding.

So when he lent his support to Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign, we were one of the first blogs to run the story. It inevitably blew up all over the MSM and blogosphere and was arguably the first wave in Huckabee’s impending surge.

Of course, this announcement came at the height of Stephen Colbert’s short-lived presidential campaign, so were quite disappointed it didn’t go to him.

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#4. Thomas Ravenel indicted on federal drug charges (June 18)

The biggest story to rock the South Carolina political scene in 2007 was the indictment of State Treasurer and Chairman of Rudy Giuliani’s state campaign Thomas Ravenel on federal drug charges. Of course, both of those titles now carry a “former” in front of them as Ravenel would go on to plead guilty, but this was quite surprising to those of us who didn’t know him well. In fact, when were tipped off by a friendly reporter, we were hesitant to run the story because we thought it was a joke.

It was, however, all very real and made for a major mess in choosing his replacement. Overnight, Ravenel went from being an up-and-coming future gubernatorial/Senate candidate to a federal criminal.

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#3. Brownback creates a new word (July 13)

One of the most humorous moves made by the now-defunct Sam Brownback campaign was the creation of the word “Mittamorphosis” during the height of an ugly series of battles with rival Mitt Romney. From the Webster’s dictionary:

MITT-AMORPHASIS (Also: MITT-AMORPHOSIS)

Phonetic:
Mitt-a-mor-pha-sis

Definition:
1. (v) A self-directed and self-contradictory cyclical process, occurring in even-numbered years, by which a Massachusetts politician transforms at will.
2. (v) The evolutionary process by which a member of the species homosapiens becomes a dolphin.
3. (v) The synchronized revolution at any given point in time consistent with the changing political winds

Usage:
1. Franz Kafka clearly understood the dangers of mitt-amorphasis.
2. John Kerry personified mitt-amorphasis, and others have taken it to new levels
3. The mitt-amorphasizing agent caused the politician to grow gills and flippers.

Synonyms:
flip-flopper, opportunist, chameleon, unelectable, John Kerry

Antonyms:
consistent, principled

Although Brownback’s White House hopes went belly-up a few months later, the word’s value continues to grow as Romney continues to flip-flop. And we were proud to be one of the first to cover the origins of Mittamorphosis.

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#2. Does DeMint have a little secret? (July 11)

We have to hand it to Silence Dogood because he picked up on a quote from the Washington Post in which Sen. Jim DeMint said something a little wierd in defense of his fellow Sen. David Vitter’s appearance in the D.C. Madam’s black book.

DeMint (R-S.C.), approached by a group of reporters outside the lunch, offered an unexpected defense. “All of us have to look at it and say that we could be next,” he said in answer to a Vitter question. “We all think that we’re not vulnerable to something like that happening, but the fact is this can be a very lonely and isolating place.”

Yikes. Might other senators be on the Madam’s list? [DANA MILBANK - Washington Post]

Our coverage caught the eye of some national blogs and the rest is history.

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#1. Scarborough has an Imus moment (June 4)

Of the many stories we broke during 2007, this was the one that got the most outside coverage and truly put us on the map. And ironically, it had very little to do with South Carolina.

With a few hundred thousand page views and a healthy 95 comments, the video we posted of MSNBC host Joe Scarborough pondering whether or not Fred Thompson’s wife Jeri “works the pole” gained so much attention (more than 36,000 YouTube views and counting) that he was forced to address the issue numerous times on his morning talk show before reluctantly apologizing. Our follow-up coverage of other people’s coverage alone was so comprehensive and so widely read that it would have ranked fourth on this list and two subsequent videos on the event would have made a top-20 list.

Even though he called us a bunch of Cheeto-eating losers, we forgive him. And because of this story, we are now proud fans of “Morning Joe.” Seriously, we watch it every morning. How could we not?

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Honorable mention: All of our Stephen Colbert and Ron Paul coverage

This one is pretty self-explanatory and we have champagne to put on ice. So to everyone out there, we wish you a very Happy New Year!

This entry was posted on Monday, December 31st, 2007 at 7:53 pm and is filed under Primary Season, TPS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.