Like in football, the offseason (or, in this case, the deadening boredom of summer) is a good time to crunch numbers and glean what you can from prior efforts. Ross Shealy at Barbecue & Politics ran the stats on the Sandlapper Group’s candidates, and as you can see above, there was really no surprise. When you have a consulting firm founded by a guy from SCRG and another from Conservatives in Action, formed just last November for the ‘08 primaries, it’s really no surprise who its candidates were and the piles of cash they got from Howard Rich and friends.

One of their recruited puppets, Kyle Boyd, received over half his cash from Rich and took his sweet time in revealing it. He didn’t even report the $37,232.37 he paid Sandlapper in May and June until Saturday. What’s the hold up?

The funny thing about Sandlapper is that instantly after forming, it led a “grassroots training seminar” in places like Irmo, Rock Hill and Clemson. Who were the sponsors for this event? SCRG, the South Carolina Association of Christian Schools, the South Carolina Association of Independent Home Schools and Chad Connelly’s Freedom Tide organization.

Speakers at those seminars included Walter Whetsell of Starboard Communications, Sen. Kevin Bryant, Sen. Danny Verdin, former Gov. David Beasley and the Palmetto Family Council’s Oran Smith.

But, yeah – there was no massive, organized effort in this state, financed by Howard Rich, to elect school choice drones while pulling wool over the eyes of the voters. That’s just a fantasy.