Phil Cheney: An Unconventional Candidate for Governor

Phil Cheney is a man that you have probably never heard of until you read this sentence. He is running as an independent candidate for governor by petition and is the definition of a political outsider. Cheney is a man dissatisfied with partisan politics and presents ideas that are relatively unheard of in the mainstream. I have followed Mr. Cheney�s campaign for months and I got the chance to sit down with him last Saturday to discuss his candidacy.

            Before I could even sit down on the bench in the Charleston County Public Library to introduce myself, he handed me a book titled Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horowitz which investigates how American citizens of the present discuss and perceive the Civil War and the two sides who fought in it. I had a feeling that I knew where this was going. Cheney launched into a passionate defense of Confederate monuments and how he is against any monument being taken down. He defended his position by arguing the historical value in monuments and what they meant to the people who put them up. He got emotional as we began to discuss the people who put the statues up and their intentions behind it.

          

Cheney's Campaign Van

  Following that discussion, we jumped into another discussion about the Personhood bill, a bill that I have discussed on this platform before and an issue that Cheney is passionate about. He stated, �I�m against it for many, many reasons.� He even went to the State House to lobby female members of the General Assembly, even sending Senator Mia McCleod a book on the issue (he did not specify what book he sent).

            He also stated, �If passed, the Personhood bill will make the state of South Carolina a �no woman�s land� for a woman of childbearing age.�

            He continued, �Under this bill, any woman who fails to carry the unborn child to term is committing a homicide. It makes women murderers if they have a miscarriage� This bill says that the child�s life is more important than the mother�s life.�

            Following that conversation, I asked him about his campaign, specifically why he decided to run as an independent.

            �I am a Democrat named Cheney. Nobody trusts a Democrat named Cheney� (according to him, �Cheney� is a Republican name. When you consider Dick Cheney, a notorious enemy of the Democrats, this assertion makes more sense).

Cheney's campaign hat.

            Then he became more serious. �I cannot beat James Smith because he is the golden boy of the South Carolina Democratic Party.� When entering a primary, every candidate must pledge that they will accept the results of the primary and not run in the general election. Cheney acknowledged that running as a Democrat would be a waste of time because he would inevitably lose and not have a shot at the governor�s seat. He also stated, �I think most people are disgusted with the two-party system. They don�t work together very well and they don�t get anything done.�

            When discussing his qualifications and why voters should consider him he laid out his sales pitch which was based on unique, uncommon ideas to solve complex issues. When handling prisoner executions, he suggested using opioids instead of the electric chair explaining, �I don�t believe in capital punishment, but this is one of the more humane ways to do it. This is a very readily-available chemical substance that we know is extremely effective because everyday somebody kills themselves with them.�

            When talking about his solution for school shootings he presented a series of unconventional ideas including soapy water guns, lasers, and a pack of hound dogs at every school. �Soapy water,� he said, �When it gets in the eyes of a person, it blinds them. You are using things that are not deadly, if the kids get hosed with soapy water they�ll be okay.�

            He continued, �I have all of these different ideas. I think every school should have and raise, this will be good for the kids, hound dogs. If they are fixed and they are female, they will adopt the kids as their puppies. And if someone comes in the school and they are dangerous, can you imagine five or six hound dogs going after the bad guy?

            I then asked, �A pack of hound dogs versus an AR-15, who is going to win that fight?�

            He replied, �If they are coming from six different directions� we have to pass the right kind of laws.�

            The interview that I had with Mr. Cheney lasted well over an hour. It was the most down-to-earth interview that I have had with a politician thus far in my relatively short blogging career. Cheney speaks without mincing words and he says what he is thinking, not in the controversial manner that President Trump does, but in an honest and thoughtful way. He is an unconventional candidate running in an unconventional era of politics. If he ever had a shot at the governor�s seat, the time to shoot is now.

            Will he be on the ballot? If he can get ten thousand signatures, then yes. I asked him how many he had garnered so far and he was unable to give me an answer citing that the laws had recently changed so he had been unable to begin asking for signatures until a few days prior to our interview. However, I was unable to even get a rough estimate. If you would like to sign his petition, send him an email at pmcheney@gmail.com.

            That�s all for this week.