“There is a quiet awakening going on right now.”

The State, in an article about how South Carolinians view Governor Mark Sanford, notes that many former supporters are losing faith in him.

But it also quotes Senate President Glenn McConnell who says “I don’t see anything wrong with his approach." And there's the Upstate software sales rep, who wrote the Governor, urging him to stay true to his principles, and noted the stimulus is losing support among the public. “There is a quiet awakening going on right now,” she wrote.

So which is it? Are South Carolinians turning into pro-government, big-spending liberals? Or are we hunkering down, planting victory gardens, and vowing as at Gettyburg, "We'll fight them sir, 'til hell freezes over, and then, sir, we will fight them on the ice?"

The truth is, it's a little of both. The original member of the Marx brothers comedy team, Karl, once noted: "What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers." Recessions make moderates into liberals and liberals into socialists. But they also turn bourgeosie into Bourbons, lighting the barricades beneath all those pesky student revolutionaries.

This economy is not going to turn South Carolina blue, any time soon. If a gubernatorial election were held today, the Republicans would still win. Some of that has to do with history, some with culture, some with a failure to engage reality. But much of it can be laid at the feet of a state Democratic party that still has not found a vision, message or leader. And until that happens, Mark Sanford's poll numbers are meaningless as the Dow Jones.