It's a crowded ballot of names trying to get the first congressional seat in South Carolina. Nineteen people are running for the office that covers parts of five counties--including Beaufort. Among them: some long-time politicians and some standout names. Elizabeth Colbert Busch, mostly referred to as Stephen Colbert's sister, and Teddy Turner, Ted Turner's son.
It's a topic he cannot escape in an interview.
"It's 75 percent blessing and 25 percent curse depending on the day, and then it switches on the day so it's good and bad to it all," Teddy Turner said.
But when you're Ted Turner's son, running for political office as a conservative, people want to know how someone so left could raise someone so right.
"I have a lot to say, he is notorious for having a lot to say. He passed that onto me, he just didn't pass politics onto me," Turner said.
Teddy Turner says he's known he wanted to seek office, but was waiting on the right one and the right time, and thinks there's no better than the seat left open by Tim Scott, who was appointed to the US Senate. He says it's time to move career politicians like former Governor Mark Sanford out, and bring in fresh faces that have new ideas which yield different results. On balancing the budget, Turner says he would not want to cut specific programs, but have the department heads determine where they can trim the fat.
"Cut your budget ten percent," he suggested. "You're the expert, you tell me where it's going to come from. I'm coming back in a week and we're going to talk about it," he said of what he'd tell department heads in Washington.
And the big talker lately-- gun control, an issue Turner believes was solved years ago.
"When you have the government taking away your guns, that's exactly what the forefathers are talking about they didn't want to happen. So I realize we don't need bazookas, but I do realize I need to protect myself and my family not only from offenders, criminals, but from the biggest criminals there are, which is the government of the United States right now," Turner said.
WSAV.com
