Candidates get up close and personal at Galivants Ferry Stump (with video)

The campaign rhetoric and tough political talk had a fire the oppressive humidity nor the threat of rain could dampen at the 134th Galivants Ferry Stump on Monday night.

The biennial event - held in the parking lot at the tiny community's century-old, lone general store - featured local, state and national Democrats speaking from the stage and one-on-one with people in the crowd, trying to build support.

Gubernatorial candidates Jim Rex and Vincent Sheheen promised that if elected, they would not embarrass South Carolina as current and former Republican leaders have.

Vic Rawl, candidate for Sen. Jim DeMint's seat, came right out swinging, calling DeMint a radical and a demagogue with a good haircut "whose success is measured by how many people he can distract from voting in their own best interests."

And special guest speaker Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., got the crowd on its feet when he urged Democrats to "rise up and let us go forward together to lead this great nation that we all love so much."

The stump is a chance for politicians to be seen and heard, and for area Democrats to show their support and socialize with each other as they adhere to a tradition of campaigning that has been around at least since the mid-1800s. The families of John and Joseph Holliday have sponsored the stump for four generations and were there Monday to welcome everyone and make sure everyone had a good time.

Billy Holliday, whom emcee Tommy Brittain called "Horry County's Kennedy," introduced special guests Rep. Jim Clyburn, the House Majority Whip, and Larson, who came "a fur piece, as the folks in Galivants Ferry used to say."

Russell Holliday introduced Clyburn as a man who "represents District 6, but he really represents all of us, and he represents us well."

"Whenever I hear the campaign season is starting, I look around for the date of the Galivants Ferry Stump," Clyburn said. "Thank you for all you have done to get this country moving in the right direction again."

In his fiery speech, Larson praised Clyburn and his accomplishments and regaled the mostly Democratic crowd with accounts of Republican resistance to change.

"We all took an oath of office, and people wonder, out loud and across their kitchen tables, how did we get here?" Larson, the fourth-ranking House Democrat said. "Between March 2007 and February 2009, this nation and its people lost $17 trillion in wealth."

And when President Obama reached across the aisle to work with Republicans for changes he promised and people voted for, Larson said, he received a resounding "no" from Republicans.

He talked about Congress passing the health care reform bill and how proud the Democrats are to have achieved what many presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Bill Clinton tried to accomplish.

"Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, even Eisenhower tried," he said.

After his speech, he said he resents elected officials who don't vote on behalf of their constituents, and he expressed particular frustration with the GOP for not being able to look past partisan politics to work on health care.

"Not one of them could vote in favor of it for children with pre-existing conditions? Or to close the doughnut hole for the elderly? Or to help small business people?" he said.

Now, he predicts, the health care reform laws have "broken the dam," and the next flood of change will be regulatory reform.

Other candidates for a variety of state, regional and local offices spoke, offering brief glimpses of their platforms. The stump isn't meant to spotlight any one candidate, but rather to let people see a little of everyone and talk to them up close and personal as they mingle and eat chicken bog and funnel cakes.

Tom Elliott, candidate for agriculture commissioner; Frank Holleman and Tom Thompson, running for education superintendent; Matthew Richardson, candidate for attorney general; Robert Burton, running for U.S. House District 1; Johnny Evans, candidate for Horry County Council; and many others were on hand to speak. Other politicians showed up to support them, including Horry County Councilman Marion Foxworth, Sen. Dick Elliott and more. Some GOP candidates came as well, like Tom Rice, who's running for Horry County Council chairman.

Many say they come because it's tradition, and others said they came to learn more about the candidates or to show their support.

Larson said he came all the way from Connecticut because his friend Jim Clyburn asked him to.

"If Norman Rockwell were here," he told the crowd, "he would paint this scene as a portrait of how American politics should work."