Ignore negative outside ads; Stephen Goldfinch the right man

I know and respect Stephen Goldfinch and Reese Boyd professionally and personally. I wish I could say I could vote for both. I do not know the other candidates involved in the race.

Elections, however, require decisions, and the issues in this election transcend personalities and deal with the direction for our politics.

With that in mind, I would like to offer three considerations for my fellow voters on June 14:

1) Stephen has strong legislative experience and has served his House district effectively during his time in the legislature. As one with prior legislative experience, I am acutely sensitive to the need local constituencies require for independence in a legislator. This sometimes requires a legislator to come at things from a different perspective from those in the executive office.

There are many pressures the legislator must resist from other geographic areas and from special interests outside his or her district. Stephen votes for and works to fulfill the needs of his constituency. I was pleased to say this when Stephen asked me to introduce him when he first announced his Senate candidacy. I re-iterate it now.

2) Stephen is responsive to this area's concerns, as well as constituent needs, in dealing with governmental bureaucracies. He has a no-nonsense, tough work ethic. No doubt, Reese has a no-nonsense work ethic, also. But it will take time to be as effective as Stephen is now.

Reese's time will certainly come, and I hope to be able to support him in the future.

3) The senator's job belongs to the people of the 34th senatorial district, not to outside groups who are running offensive negative TV adds in an effort to defeat effective Pee Dee and coastal legislators (all Republicans) who are advocating our regional interests.

Among those targeted, along with Stephen, all are stalwart supporters of our port, our farmers, our tourism industry, and our economic development interests.

These out-of-area negative ads are designed to invade our prerogatives as voters in our respective senatorial districts.

The influence of negative ads and big money is increasing at a geometric rate in our body politic today. It is already at the heart of the disastrous and growing dysfunction in national politics on all sides.

Allowing outside big money negativity to invade our local elections serves no one's interests. These are often anonymous outside contributors whose names are not disclosed. This practice leads to more division and destructive attitudes for governance. It leads to a breakdown in comity.

We should aspire for better than this in our politics and in our policy-making.

I hope all the candidates in the 34th district senatorial race will disavow these outside, big money negative ads and their intrusiveness into our local decision-making.

On June 14, my vote will not be against anyone, but for Stephen to be our next state senator.

The writer lives in Pawleys Island.

This story was originally published June 5, 2016 at 4:37 PM with the headline "Ignore negative outside ads; Stephen Goldfinch the right man."