"I can remember voting for only two Republicans." And here's why.

As a lifelong Democrat, I can remember voting for only two Republicans.

The first was Barry Goldwater in 1964. I don't like to talk about that too much. I'll only say I was young and recently mustered out from the Marine Corps.

So let's move on.

The second was David Beasley, a one-time Democrat who changed parties so he could have a political future in red-state South Carolina. He was elected governor in 1994 and I voted for his unsuccessful re-election bid in 1998.

Two reasons for my vote: First was his unilateral effort to lower the flag outside the Statehouse after what he described as a late-night "epiphany."

Second was his opposition to video poker — and Democrat Jim Hodges' nominal support for it.

I met Beasley a few times, once at a Media Day golf tournament in Hartsville prior to a Darlington 500 NASCAR race.

Two state patrolmen accompanied him on the golf course because of the threats his flag stand had produced, and I asked him about playing with threats hanging over him. He shrugged, saying something like, "It goes with the job."

I like to think the rightness of my vote was confirmed few years later when Beasley received the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for his efforts to remove the flag, which came down two years after he left office.

In 2005, Beasley co-founded the Center for Global Strategies, a humanitarian organization that took him on peace-keeping missions to such war-stricken regions as Kosovo, Serbia, Darfur and Sri Lanka.

Last year, on the nomination of U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Beasley was named executive director of the U.N. World Food Programme. Headquartered in Rome, the agency's staff of 14,000 distributes food to nearly 100 million people in 80 countries around the world.

His travel to North Korea this week may be Beasley's most important mission.

A Reuters report said some 70 percent of North Korea's 25 million people are "food insecure," meaning they struggle to avoid hunger; a drought in 2015 exasperated an already severe problem. And just this past January, UNICEF said 60,000 North Korean children face potential starvation.

Beasley has been in North Korea to get a first-hand, on-the-ground look at the country's food and hunger issues and needs. He's there for the U.N., of course, but his up-to-date assessment could be helpful during the summit between President Trump and Kim Jung-un.

My GOP friends will be happy to know that Beasley, the one-time Democrat, remains a staunch Republican. He was an early supporter of Henry McMaster and Donald Trump.

But he's doing such good work these days that I can't really hold that against him.

By the way, did I mention that I once voted for Barry Goldwater?

Contact Bob Bestler at bestler6@tds.net.

This story was originally published May 11, 2018 at 11:03 AM with the headline ""I can remember voting for only two Republicans." And here's why.."