a republican governor and the democrat who took his job in 1998 just made a buddy ad for annie andrews. i would watch the sitcom.

David Beasley, then head of the World Food Programme, on a courtesy call in Barbados. Photo: PMO Barbados, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

via WIS, the Post and Courier and the ad itself

"You might recognize this guy sitting beside me," says David Beasley, Republican, pointing a finger at the man sitting next to him. The guy is Jim Hodges, Democrat. In 1998 the two of them shared a ballot, against each other.

The minute-long ad went up on Annie Andrews' accounts on Monday, and it is exactly what it looks like: two former governors of South Carolina, one from each party, asking voters to send a Democrat to the U.S. Senate a week before Election Day.

what the ad actually says

Not much, which is the point. "This country is too divided and the political rhetoric has gotten way, way out of hand," Beasley says. "Annie understands that leadership isn't about making people angrier," he adds, and, as WIS transcribed it, "it's about making things better." Hodges says she is "willing to put people ahead of politics." Then Beasley again: "We may have served as your governor from different political parties, but we agree South Carolina deserves better than more of the same political fighting."

The ad never says the name of the woman Andrews is running against, Sen. Darline Graham, who was appointed to the seat after her brother Lindsey Graham died in July, as LGBTQ Nation noted. It does not mention Trump either. It does not have to. Earlier this month Trump endorsed Graham in a post that called Andrews an anti-trans slur, and LGBTQ Nation reports Graham's campaign has leaned on anti-trans attacks against Andrews. "The political rhetoric has gotten way, way out of hand" is about as pointed as a South Carolina Republican of a certain age gets on camera.

the 1998 of it all

Beasley was governor from 1995 to 1999, and Hodges, the state's last Democratic governor, followed him from 1999 to 2003, per WIS. The handover was not friendly. The South Carolina Encyclopedia describes Hodges in 1998 as "a political unknown, given little chance of unseating Republican David Beasley," and one of the things that sank Beasley was saying, halfway through his term, that his reading of the Bible had persuaded him the Confederate flag should come down from the State House. Flag supporters were enraged, and his attempt to walk it back only made it worse.

So Beasley has some experience paying for saying the decent thing out loud in a South Carolina election. Twenty-eight years later he is doing it again, sitting next to the man who beat him, for the candidate the president called a slur.

Andrews posted the ad saying she was "honored to have the support of two former governors," and that "we may not agree on everything." The Post and Courier reported the endorsement alongside millions in new outside spending flowing to both candidates. Graham's campaign had not responded to the ad in any coverage we found. We have been following this race since a documentary about Lindsey Graham landed in the middle of it, and two old governors on a couch agreeing that politics should be less mean is, somehow, the most radical thing anyone has said in it.