THE SUMTER ITEM N.G. Osteen 1843-1936 The Watchman and Southron
THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2016 H.G. Osteen 1870-1955 Founder, The Item
H.D. Osteen 1904-1987 The Item
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Margaret W. Osteen 1908-1996 The Item Hubert D. Osteen Jr. Chairman & Editor-in-Chief Graham Osteen Co-President Kyle Osteen Co-President Jack Osteen Editor and Publisher Larry Miller CEO Rick Carpenter Managing Editor
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Republican Party sorely needs unity T he inevitability of the Donald Trump presidential campaign took a big hit on Tuesday with Ted Cruz’s victory in Wisconsin’s Republican primary. A record turnout of voters, the highest since 1972, propelled Cruz to his win. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Cruz supporter, predicted the GOP nomination fight would likely head to an open convention in July and also predicted Cruz would “will win on the second ballot if not on the way in and he will unite the party.” Unity is what the Republican
EDITORIAL
Party sorely needs if its eventual candidate is to defeat Hillary Clinton, whose campaign is also struggling against super-socialist Bernie Sanders. Sanders won Wisconsin on Tuesday night in the Democratic Primary. The Democrats are beginning to struggle as they waken up to the fact that Clinton is a lousy candidate with plenty of baggage given growing allegations of corruption and her email scandal that won’t go away. She entered the
race as the political opportunist she has always been, first hanging on the coattails of hubby Bill, then tacking waaaaaaay left to curry favor with the party’s far left base. As for Cruz, he has emerged as a savvy, aggressive campaigner whose victory speech Tuesday night was eloquent, forceful, thoughtful and above all, presidential. Trump, meanwhile, is becoming damaged goods with a series of missteps and gaffes that have raised troubling questions about his qualifications to serve as president. He bungled ques-
tions about his position on abortion, there was an altercation with a female reporter and a host of childish episodes riddled with personal attacks on challengers. Unlike Trump, Cruz has come to the primary table well-prepared, having done his homework on key issues. There is no question the Trump bandwagon has struck a bump in the road. Time is running out for him to right the ship. The light at the end of the tunnel may be the Cruz locomotive barreling toward the GOP’s presidential nomination.
EDITORIAL ROUNDUP Recent editorials from South Carolina newspapers:
The Herald-Journal of Spartanburg April 3
S.C. STEPS UP DRUG EPIDEMIC EFFORTS What was once a growing problem has become a national epidemic: prescription drug abuse. Addiction to painkillers has reached such a crisis stage that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released new physician guidelines for prescribing opioids. Even the president has weighed in, speaking last Tuesday at the National RX Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit in Atlanta. South Carolina certainly hasn’t been spared. According to a 2014 CDC report, the Palmetto State ranked 11th in the nation with its prescribing rate of opioid painkillers. Fortunately, the state is stepping up to address the problem. On April 1, it began requiring most South Carolina prescribers (physicians, dentists, etc.) to consult the state’s prescription drug database before writing a Schedule II, III or IV controlled substance prescription for patients who are on Medicaid or enrolled in the state health insurance plan for employees and their dependents. Controlled substances of this nature include drugs such as OxyContin, Percocet, Vicodin, Xanax and Valium. The mandate does not apply to physicians when treating patients who are in longterm care or hospice. Consulting the database enables prescribers to see patients’ controlled substance prescription history before issuing such prescriptions. Failure to consult the database can result in withheld Medicaid or state health plan payments as well as being reported to the appropriate medical licensing boards. To say this was a necessary step is a major understatement. Before April 1, when consulting the database was voluntary, only 21 percent of the state’s physicians enrolled to access it, according to a 2014 report from the Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention Council, established by Gov. Nikki Haley. So South Carolina is now pressing the issue, and rightfully so considering such lax participation. The prescription database, known as the S.C. Reporting & Identification Prescription Tracking System, or SCRIPTS, went into service in 2008, with pharmacies required by state law to report the dispensing of controlled substances. The database — and prescribers’ consistent participation — is vital to curbing addiction to painkillers as it can monitor two key problems that fuel the epidemic: overprescribing by physicians and “doctor shopping” by patients. Doctor shopping is a casual term for patients who abuse their medication and then seek out prescriptions from other physicians in order to obtain more drugs. Threatening to hit the state’s
prescribers in the pocketbook is an effective way of getting their attention. A CDC report on similar database prevention efforts noted the success rates of two states in particular. In 2012, Tennessee and New York began requiring prescribers to check their respective state databases before prescribing opioids. One year later, Tennessee reported a 36 percent decline in successful “doctor shopping,” while New York reported a whopping 75 percent drop. Hopefully, the Palmetto State will be able to brag of similar results down the road. An ideal next step would be action from the General Assembly that would apply to prescribers for patients with private insurance as well.
The Times and Democrat of Orangeburg April 4
FEWER DEATHS, LOWER COSTS: GOOD COMBO With distracted driving on the rise and contributing to the increase in motor vehicle crashes and fatalities, the search is on for causes and how to reverse the trend. The Property Casualty Insurers Association of America is supporting the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s “One Text or Call Could Wreck It All” campaign to stop distracted driving. Historically, NHTSA research has pointed to human factors contributing to 94 percent of auto accidents. Recent PCI analysis finds that distracted driving, in all its forms, is a leading factor in a rise in the number of accidents and fatalities over the last two years. “Although there is no single answer to addressing the problem of distracted driving, there are a number of ways that motorists, policymakers, insurers and carmakers can work together to make roads safer,” said Robert Passmore, PCI’s assistant vice president, personal lines policy. “The implementation and enforcement of distracted-driving laws, which discourage texting while driving and ban handheld cellphone use are an important start.” Today, 46 states, including South Carolina, ban text messaging for all drivers. Of the four states without an all-driver texting ban, two prohibit text messaging by novice drivers and one restricts school bus drivers from texting. “In addition to the public safety concerns regarding the increase in the frequency of auto accidents, data also highlights that the insurance claims costs associated with auto accidents are becoming more expensive, and this trend could impact insurance costs,” Passmore said. “The current trend lines make it even more (important) to work together in order to avoid unsafe driving behaviors, enact or strengthen laws banning texting and hand-held cell phone use while driving, and expand crash avoidance technology in new cars.
Cruz is surging by design
“I
t’s not the will to win that matters. ... It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” — Paul “Bear” Bryant HOUSTON — People here at Ted Cruz’s campaign headquarters are meticulously preparing to win a contested convention, if there is one. Because Donald Trump is a low-energy fellow, Cruz will be positioned to trounce him in Cleveland, where Trump’s slide toward earned oblivion would accelerate during a second ballot. Wisconsin has propelled Trump, a virtuoso of contempt, toward joining those he most despises: “losers.” In the 1992 general election, Ross Perot, a Trump precursor, won 21.5 percent of Wisconsin’s vote, above his 18.9 national average. Wisconsin’s populist tradition is persistent and indiscriminate enough to encompass Robert La Follette and Joseph McCarthy. And evangelical Christians are less important in Wisconsin than in contiguous Iowa. Nevertheless, temperate Wisconsin rejected Trump, partly for the reason that one of his weakest performances so far was in the reddest state, Utah, where conservative Mormons flinched from his luridness. His act — ignorance slathered with a congealed gravy of arrogance — has become stale. If, as seemed probable a month ago, Trump had won Wisconsin, he would have been well-positioned to win a first-ballot convention victory. Now he is up against things to which he is averse: facts. For months Cruz’s national operation has been courting all convention delegates, including Trump’s. Cruz aims to make a third ballot decisive or unnecessary. On the eve of Wisconsin’s primary, the analytics people here knew how many undecided voters were choosing between Cruz and Trump
COMMENTARY (32,000) and how many between Cruz and John Kasich (72,000), and where they lived. Walls here are covered with notes outlining every step of each state’s multistage delegate selecGeorge tion proWill cess. (Cruz’s campaign was active in Michigan when the process of selecting persons eligible to be delegates began in August 2014. Cruz’s campaign is nurturing relationships with delegates now committed to Trump and others. In Louisiana’s primary, 58.6 percent of voters favored someone other than Trump; Cruz’s campaign knows which issues are particularly important to which Trump delegates, and Cruz people with similar values are talking to them. Trump, whose scant regard for (other people’s) property rights is writ large in his adoration of eminent domain abuses, mutters darkly about people “stealing” delegates that are his property. But most are only contingently his, until one or more ballots are completed. Usually, more than 40 percent of delegates to Republican conventions are seasoned activists who have attended prior conventions. A large majority of all delegates are officeholders — county commissioners, city council members, sheriffs, etc. — and state party officials. They tend to favor presidential aspirants who have been Republicans for longer than since last Friday. Trump is a world-class complainer (he is never being treated “fairly”) but a bush league preparer. A nomination contest poses policy and process tests, and he is flunking both. Regarding policy, he is
flummoxed by predictable abortion questions because he has been pro-life for only 15 minutes and because he has lived almost seven decades without giving a scintilla of thought to any serious policy question. Regarding process, Trump, who recently took a week-long vacation from campaigning, has surfed a wave of free media to the mistaken conclusion that winning a nomination involves no more forethought than he gives to policy. He thinks he can fly in, stroke a crowd’s ideological erogenous zones, then fly away. He knows nothing about the art of the political deal. The nomination process, says Jeff Roe, Cruz’s campaign manager, “is a multilevel Rubik’s Cube. Trump thought it was a golf ball — you just had to whack it.” Roe says the Cruz campaign’s engagement with the granular details of delegate maintenance is producing a situation where “the guy who is trying to hijack the party runs into a guy with a machine gun.” Trump, the perpetually whining “winner,” last won something on March 22 in Arizona. Trump, says Roe, is now “bound by his brand rather than propelled by his brand.” If Trump comes to Cleveland, say, 38 delegates short of 1,237, he will lose. Cruz probably will be proportionally closer to Trump than Lincoln (102 delegates) was to William Seward (173.5) who was 60 delegates short of victory on the first of three ballots at the 1860 convention. Cruz’s detractors say he has been lucky in this campaign’s unpredictable political caroms that thinned the competition. But as Branch Rickey — like Coach Bryant, a sportsman-aphorist — said: “Luck is the residue of design.” George Will’s email address is georgewill@washpost.com. © 2016, Washington Post Writers Group