Celebrity chef Nathalie Dupree, 70, has launched a last-minute write-in campaign in the South Carolina U.S. Senate race. She faces the Republican incumbent, Jim DeMint; the Democratic nominee, Alvin Greene; Tom Clements, the Green Party nominee; and two other write-in candidates, high school teacher Greg Snoad and an inactive attorney, Mazie Ferguson.
DeMint “would rather change the U.S. Senate than help South Carolinians,” Dupree says. “I just think there needs to be a voice at least to make Jim DeMint come home … instead of (trying to be) a big man to create a new party that is gong to create steam from a kettle.”
The $400,000 earmark in question would be used to study the feasibility of dredging the Port of Charleston, which might allow access to larger container ships. According to The Charleston City Paper, the Charleston harbor is the only East Coast port not included in an upcoming spending bill; as a result, The Charleston Post and Courier criticized DeMint in an editorial.
A Charlestonian, Dupree fumes:
“This port is the economic engine of South Carolina,” she says. “This port brought in BMW, Boeing, and Michelin. How can this be that we have a Senator who is so vain and egotistical and driven for his own political agenda that he won’t vote for $400,000 for this state, this city.”