What a great time to be a Democrat in South Carolina. Saturday January 26^th was a day of renewal for our party, with more than 532,000 fine folks voting in the South Carolina Democratic Presidential Primary. Turn out in the Democratic primary surpassed the Republican turn out this year by more than 86,000! The headlines in The Greenville News on Sunday were almost too good to be true, “Massive Democratic Vote Reverses GOP’s Dominance,” “Primary May Give New Life to Palmetto Democrats.” I had to read those twice to make sure I could believe my eyes. Democrats kicked ass on Saturday and the Republicans better take notice. The GOP is beat down and their field of potential Presidential nominees hasn’t even begun to duke it out yet! Primary day apparently went smoothly despite the massive turnout and best of all the turn out truly represented all of South Carolina. By all accounts the voters who turned out were a diverse crowd, all races, both genders and lots and lots of young people and disaffected voters. How refreshing to see in our state.

There are a slew of reasons why the Democratic Party is energized and enthusiastic these days. One of the major reasons is the state of our country and the man in the White House. Americans United for Change recently put together a statistical summary of the Bush years, here are a few of the highlights:

• U.S. Fatalities in the Iraq War- 3,923
• Amount Spent on the Iraq War- $485 billion
• Average Gas Price in 2001-$1.37 vs. 2008-$3.09
• Crude Oil Prices Per Barrel 2001-29.59- 2008-94.77
• Unemployment in 2001- 4.2% 2008-5%
• Uninsured under age 65- 2001-39 million 2008-47 million
• Workers Covered by Employer Based Insurance- 2001-64.2% 2008-59.7%
• Budget Surplus 2001-$236 billion- Budget Deficit 2008-$167 billion
• National Debt 2001-$5.7 trillion 2008-$9.2 trillion
• Median Household Income 2001-$49,163 2008-$48,023
• Consumer Credit Debt 2001-$7.65 trillion 2008-$12.8 trillion
• Americans in Poverty 2001-31.6 million 2008-36.5 million

Wow…what a difference seven years can make, kind of takes your breath away when you read those numbers.

Whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, there is a widening gap between the rich and the working people of this country. The Wall Street Journal reports, “The wealthiest 1% of Americans earned 21.2% of all income in 2005, according to new data from the Internal Revenue Service. That is up sharply from 19% in 2004 and surpasses the previous high of 20.8% set in 2000, at the peak of the previous bull market in stocks. The bottom 50% earned 12.8% of all income, down from 13.4% in 2004 and a bit less than their 13% share in 2000.”

There is a cumulative impact from all of this and I believe that conditions are dire enough now that people are willing to turn away from the Republican Party and turn back to the party that is speaking to these economic and social issues that have such a huge impact on working families. It’s tragic that it took two terms of this administration for voters to get the message that the Republican Party doesn’t care about workers rights, the environment, or health care. They are focused on smaller government, tax cuts and intrusion on your privacy and your personal choice. We are at a turning point in America and it’s about damn time.