If it gets serious in South Carolina, Colbert should find out what happened to Al Franken, who gave up intentional comedy for the US Senate four years ago and hasn’t been seen since. Is there a protection program to keep professionals from being embarrassed by natural-born clowns like Mitch McConnell?
A poll favorite to replace hilarious Jim DeMint, Colbert has been tweaking Gov. Nikki Haley to add the part-time job to his resume in exchange for untraceable SuperPAC money, but she refuses to put him on the short list.
Just as well. Colbert has already been overshadowed on his own show by Newt Gingrich, who won the state’s presidential primary with money from Las Vegas showman Sheldon Adelson.
Could he compete for comedy with Jenny Sanford, whose main qualification is that her former husband ditched her and the governorship to find true love in South America, or with current senior Sen. Lindsey Graham, John McCain’s bozo, for that matter?
The Palmetto state is a funny place, as I can testify from having spent formative years there involuntarily, first in World War II basic training eating the red clay of Spartansburg and later breakfast grits in Charleston’s Citadel, the West Point of the South.
My experience in the former place with another comic figure could serve as a cautionary tale for Colbert.