The Colbert Report host and native South Carolinian Stephen Colbert has offered the state’s Republican party $500,000 to pay for the rest of the fee required to run the state’s primary, which traditionally is the first in the South.
This story started earlier this month, when Colbert offered to use his super PAC (political action committee) to pay nearly $100,000 of the $800,000 that the South Carolina GOP was having trouble raising. In return, the GOP would name the primary “The Colbert Nation Super PAC Presidential Primary,” but the party declined, according to The Associated Press. Another problem the GOP had was that individual counties were suing the state over how the primary could be held at all, but the Supreme Court green-lit the primary.
Colbert brought the story back Thursday, when he wrote a guest column for the South Carolina newspaper, The State. In the column, he tells his side of the story, claiming that he did not try to buy naming rights alone. Instead, he said that he would offer the $400,000 that the GOP would have to pay so that the counties could administer the primary. Colbert said that the only string attached would be naming rights to the primary and a non-binging referendum on the ballot to ask voters if they considered corporations the same as people. He then claims that they flew to New York to accept his proposal. Later, he says they found they didn’t need the money and wanted out of the deal.
This week, though, the state GOP decided to pull out of paying for any of the counties’ expenses, only paying what the candidates need to get their names on the ballot, leaving the counties to pay $500,000 to hold the primary. According to The Los Angeles Times, executive director of the state GOP Matt Moore said that the counties “are solely responsible for the primary” after a court ruling.
“That’s money that counties need for emergency services, infrastructure repair, and to complete the wall to keep out North Carolinians. Once again, our first-in-the-South primary is in jeopardy,” Colbert wrote.
He now says that he is offering to pay that $500,000 if the GOP will give him the naming rights and the referendum back.
To add even more drama, The Los Angeles Times also reports that Moore claims that Colbert’s story about the GOP actually accepting his deal in the first place a lie.
"We determined it was not in the State Party's best interests to accept Mr. Colbert's offers. Everything was not 'agreed to.' We did not sign his proposed contract,” Moore wrote in a statement. “Despite our repeatedly saying 'no,' Stephen Colbert, the comedian, seems intent on being involved. It's exactly why we were wary in the first place. The State Party will not be involved with Stephen Colbert going forward,” he added.
An Election Commission spokesman told The Associated Press that the South Carolina attorney general will have to tell the Commission if it can actually accept Colbert’s $500,000.