First, assume that the opponents we are facing are at least as smart as we are. If you do, then you find it is no accident that Nikki Haley selected Tim Scott for the Senate Seat left vacant when Jim DeMint retired/resigned.
Haley managed to do several things with that pick, and if you're silly enough to pretend that it was accidental, you're deluding yourself. First, she appointed one of only two African American to the current Senate, and he's a Republican. Second, she opened up a seat for the special election that leaned so far Republican that a Poly Sci student's dream campaign opponent managed to win because the district distrusts Democrats. Third, she caused a lot of DNC money to go up in smoke chasing the dream of picking up a seat in the House that would have been meaningless even if we had won. The Rethugs would still have a 16 seat majority, and they're probably going to pick up a few in the midterm, the party out of power traditionally does.
Those were the results of a single appointment to the Senate. When I first heard that DeMint was resigning/retiring to take over the RW Heritage Foundation. I assumed that Haley would appoint herself, and was surprised when she didn't. Apparently she feels her political future is strong enough to get a second term as Governor. But appointing Scott has won the Rethugs big so far, and obviously, unless he is primaries by a serious Republican challenger, he's got the job as long as he wants.
So why do the people from that district vote Republican? The problem for them is not what the candidate says, but what the faces of that candidates party say. Representatives from po dunk districts where they have to pipe in sunshine never get to speak on the national media unless their district explodes from an industrial accident or otherwise makes national news. Even then they come in behind the local leadership. The people in that district believed the RW talking points about Nancy Pelosi/ Harry Reid and their nefarious plans to take guns and throw the Rethugs into the re-education camps run by FEMA. Good news, Romney won that district with a 17 point advantage. We lost by 9 points, so we were able to cut the advantage about in half, at a stretch. Even when our "Moderate and Conservative" Democrats buck the party, it does no good, because the people back in the district know that Democrats led by Pelosi/Reid passed this legislation or that policy. So every candidate becomes a surrogate of Reid/Pelosi to the RW talking points.
The future. The Republicans will primary Sanford. They'll throw money and backing to get a more palatable candidate in there, and even in that situation, with the Republican infighting, they'll win, because that district doesn't trust Democrats.
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