By Andy Pierrotti
Reprinted from Count on 2 News

Eugene Platt takes his poetry seriously, “At night, I am your angel.” Very seriously.
He wants to take his passion for hard work to the state house as the District 115 House Representative.
Others disagree, not based on his qualifications, but on his writings.
South Carolinians for Responsible Government sent out 10,000 flyers, saying Platt “promotes deviant sexual behavior,” In a book titled: Summer Days with Daughter.
Platt is accusing incumbent Wallace Scarborough of sending out the flyers. To give you some perspective of what the flyers consider deviant, it sites his poem: Passion and Ice, “…prize of your thighs, the comfort of pillow-soft breasts, and for blissful rest, the support of firm buttocks.”
Platt says it’s not about his daughter. Both met on WTMA’s Morning Buzz with Richard Todd Friday morning about the flyer.
Scarborough: “He wrote the book of poetry. I didn’t write the book of poetry. I didn’t have anything to do with it. If Mr. Platt wants to write poetry. I think that’s his choice. It has nothing to do with me. If he wants to put sexual explicit poems in a book about his daughter, that’s his choice.
Platt: That is outrageous! I hope you’re not going to let that go.”
“I don’t think I said anything that Mr. Platt seems to think that I said in that interview and I’ve listened to it several times, and I haven’t,” Scarborough said.
Platt wants an apology, for what he believes were indirect sexual remarks Scarborough made about Platt and his daughter.
Both hope the radio outburst doesn’t over-shadow the real issues about their campaign.
“I want to talk about roads, I want to talk about bridges,” said Scarborough.
South Carolinians for Responsible Government takes full responsibility for the flyers. They say Scarborough did not have any input into the contents. Both plan to debate again Wednesday, October 11th on WTMA 1250.

The following letter is reprinted in its entirety from the Post and Courier:

On a recent evening, my wife and I received at our home a publication from South Carolinians for Responsible Government.

The flier is an attack on our district’s House candidate, Eugene Platt. I know Mr. Platt well as a fellow member of St. James Episcopal Church. I know him to be an extremely honorable and noble man of fine character and values.

The flier attacks Mr. Platt’s character and values based on artful yet benign verses of poetry. I have read much of Mr. Platt’s poetry and have heard him read it to my Rotary Club.

His most recent publication shares his love for his wife who recently died of cancer.

Anyone who understands creative literature cannot be offended in the least by his lines of poetry. In a word, this propaganda from South Carolinians for Responsible Government is despicable, even for politics.

Mr. Platt exemplifies moral behavior as a widower and previously as a devoted husband. Mr. Platt is a brother Christian and friend to me as well as many.

I urge all elected officials and supporters of the organization to denounce South Carolinians for Responsible Government and refuse future contributions to it.

I also urge all politicians in the area to denounce this material and message. It is an embarrassment to anyone affiliated with a conservative agenda.

I cannot imagine any of my Republican acquaintances approving of this strategy and behavior.

Craig M. Stephans

BY GREG HAMBRICK
Reprinted from Charleston City Paper

Serving as either an ugly indicator of voter apathy or a ringing endorsement of the status quo, only three of the 13 races for the state House of Representatives will be contested in this November’s election. The winners will have a few months to rest, but work in January no doubt will center on weeding through the financial mire left in the last-minute approval of the 1-cent sales tax hike to pull school district operations off local property tax bills in 2007.

The one good thing about the confusing tax “solutions” is that we can actually move on to something else. Other themes candidates are highlighting include recent upswings in violence in the area and the ever-present question of controlling growth. Eminent domain, healthcare funding and the money for roads, including the lion’s share of the bill for the extension of U.S. 526 from Savannah Highway to the James Island Connector, will continue to be issues for the legislature. Regardless of who’s in the governor’s mansion, there likely will be legislative efforts to get more public school kids in private schools and a restructuring of the governor’s cabinet.

Platt vs. Scarborough – District 115

A self-professed environmental radical, Democrat Eugene Platt supports tourism and the revenues it brings with it, but says transplants are cramping his Lowcountry style. As everyone starts huddling around the coast, the challenger for the House District 115 seat says he sees a bleak future.

“It’s almost as if many elected officials and business leaders are doing their best to emulate Atlanta,” he says of continued development in the region. “By doing so, they’re destroying the qualities that have made the Lowcountry such a wonderful place to live.”

Companies granted incentives should be forced to hire more than 75 percent of their crew locally and not transplant workers here, Platt says, and individuals hankering for the benefits of coastal living should consider a change of heart about landlocked America.

“There are places inland that are nice places to live, too,” he says. “Nashville. Omaha. Des Moines. Nice places. People should be encouraged to stay there.”

He supports plans to fund school operating costs from Columbia as opposed to using local property taxes, but he takes issue with state plans to hike the sales tax a penny to pay for it, preferring an increase in the income tax instead.

“There seems to be a misconception by the legislature that the sales tax can be a panacea for all of the state’s needs,” he says. “It’s regressive, impacted heaviest upon those that can least afford to pay it to begin with.”

A supporter of charter schools, Platt opposes the voucher and tax credit programs that have been proposed by Republicans that would benefit private schools.

“Until all public schools are brought up to a minimum level, it would be inappropriate to syphon off public money,” he says.

On the proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot in November to ban gay marriage and the benefits of marriage to same-sex couples, Platt takes the conservative point of view that marriage is threatened. Considering himself a progressive kind of guy with friends that have a different sexual “preference,” Platt says that his religious beliefs and those of his district support limiting marriage to heterosexuals.

Republican incumbent Wallace Scarborough refused to comment for this article. The three-term incumbent has faced accusations recently by his wife in divorce filings that he had an affair with a fellow legislator.

Platt refuses to comment on the allegations, but questions a reference to Scarborough denying the affair in The State newspaper in early September. The accusations by Scarborough’s wife come with photos, phone records, and testimony from a private investigator.

“My opponent has a problem with honesty,” Platt says. “I challenge him to either admit that he lied about the affair or, alternatively, to give his constituents some convincing evidence that the allegations are untrue.”

Eugene Platt (D, working families)

Age: 67 Residence: James Island Family: Two children, a grandchild Education: Bachelor’s from the University of South Carolina, graduate study at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Job: Retired from U.S. government Political Experience: James Island Public Service District Commission since 1993 Website: www.voteplatt.com

Wallace Scarborough (R-Incumbent)

Age: 47 Residence: James Island Family: Two children Education: Bachelor’s from The Citadel Job: Atlantic Coast Life Insurance Co. Political Experience: State House member since 2001

Article continues at Charleston City Paper

BY WILL MOREDOCK
Reprinted from Charleston City Paper

“O that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth!…

I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its branches. O, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine and the scent of your breath like apples and your kisses like the best wine that goes down smoothly, gliding over lips and teeth.”

—”Song of Solomon”

Whether King Solomon was committing art or indulging adolescent fantasies is a matter of opinion. But he was the king, after all, and nobody was going to tell him that his character was lacking or that he was out of touch with community values. And so, thousands of years later, we can still read his libidinous musings in the Old Testament. And I have yet to hear any Christian — no matter how pompous, pious, or blue-nosed — complain that there is something wrong with that.

Eugene Platt is not so lucky. First, he is not the king. And second, he lives in House District 115, which has never been known for its love of literature. Platt is a poet with six volumes of verse, four anthologies, and a book of fiction to his credit. More importantly, he is also a candidate for the District 115 House seat, challenging incumbent Republican Wallace Scarborough.

Last week thousands of District 115 residents went to their mailboxes and found a glossy, four-color flyer with headlines screaming of a threat to their civilization and way of life:

WARNING:

Contains References and Explicit Language

Published by a Candidate for State House.

Eugene Platt Scandal

Rocks Race for State House

Local Author, Candidate

PROMOTES DEVIANT SEXUAL BEHAVIOR

In Erotic Poetry Collection

Citizens Ponder:

Is this the Kind of Character

We Want in Columbia?

The fiery text of this broadside describes the “disgust” in learning that “during the usual course of candidate research we uncovered something disturbing lying just beneath the surface of a seemingly gentle mannered man.”

Of course, what the unidentified authors of this tract “uncovered” was in plain view in every bookstore in Charleston. “Platt is the author of at least two collections of poetry, interestingly enough entitled Summer Days with Daughter and Original Sin, which contain entries of a sexually explicit nature …. Platt describes sex acts and details thoughts and emotions surrounding erotic encounters.”

The authors then offer samples of Platt’s wicked words. So sit down, gentle reader, take a deep breath and read from “The Last Tryst”:

Our weekly passion spent, we fall apart on sheets

Illicitly stained before us by legions of lovers like us,

and savor mirrored forms lying side by side overhead.

Beside the bed a digital clock signals, then,

the end of another hour of stolen bliss — and I plea;

Not sufficiently outraged? Then read these lines from “Blue Robe.”

lying awake, i await

your entry.

my position is that of rest,

but my attitude is anticipation.

the shower has washed away foreign odor.

the brisk toweling has you tingling.

There is also some talk about “prize your thighs, the comfort of pillow-soft breasts and for blissful rest, the support of firm buttocks.”

Now do you understand why Eugene Platt is unfit for public office? The broadside seethes, “Mr. Platt has demonstrated a leaning toward highly questionable behavior and, at best he has clearly shown the citizens of District 115 just how out of touch he is with their traditional values.”

The kicker in all of this is that it was done in the name of a candidate who has been demonstrably carrying on a highly public and adulterous affair with another married member of the House of Representatives. (See City Paper, August 9, 2006.) Of course, Wallace Scarborough will claim nothing to do with this silly and scurrilous little flyer. His name is not on it, even if his fingerprints are all over it. It was printed and distributed by South Carolinians for Responsible Government, a far-right political action committee, which draws most of its funding from the New York-based Fund for Democracy, targets Democrats and moderate Republicans with secret smear campaigns, and has sued the State Ethics Commission for trying to regulate its behavior.

These are the people who are trying to decide the District 115 race. Don’t be fooled. They know as much about integrity as they know about poetry.

Click to view as pdf

Reprinted from the Nov 01 issue of The City Paper
(back-dated as Oct 01 to avoid duplicate posting on the homepage)
★S.C. HOUSE DISTRICT 115 • PLATT WINS OUT IN PERSONAL RACE

TEACHER COMMENTS

DEVELOPMENT: Platt’s got
a problem with new people.
He says that he’s had about all
the transplanters he can stand.
“Nashville. Omaha. Des Moines.
Nice places. People should be
encouraged to stay there.” To say
he would closely restrict develop-
ment would likely be an under-
statement.
TAXES: Scarborough has said
he supports further income tax
cuts and opposes increasing the
cigarette tax. Platt says income
taxes are part of a balanced,
three-legged tax system with sales
and property taxes. He supports
increasing the cigarette tax, one
of the lowest in the country.
TUITION TAX CREDITS: Yep,
that one again. Scarborough told
the P&C that he supports some
sort of voucher program for stu-
dents attending private schools.
Platt says he questions the value
in subsidizing private schools.
CHARACTER: Scarborough has
been upset that recent personal
events have provided much of
the press on this campaign. Those
events include Scarborough firing
a weapon during an altercation
with two South Carolina Electric
and Gas employees and accusa-
tions in divorce filings that he
had an affair with Rep. Catherine
Ceips (R-Beaufort). Platt has
claimed that Scarborough’s initial
denial of the affair in The State
newspaper puts Scarborough’s
character into question.
Scarborough has since refused to
confirm or deny the affair.
FINAL EXAM: Platt is “passed
on.” Scarborough fails. We grudg-
ingly send Platt on to the next
grade, though noting his vocifer-
ous, though moot, support for
the gay marriage amendment as a
particular sticking point. That said,
one can hope that when he goes
to Columbia, he’ll be there to
work for James Island, and not for
Ceips’ district.

Click to view as pdf