For Tuesday's presidential debate, the Charleston County Republican Party hosted a watch party complete with food, drinks and ... someone dressed in pimp garb who wore an Obama mask.

I find that personally disturbing, not just because I’m active with the competing party in the area, and not just because I find CCRP's welcoming of that attendee to be just as discriminatory, negatively-stereotyping and racist as his costume, either.

What offends me is the negative implications now placed upon my Republican friends and relatives.

The person who pulled this stunt made it clear that the Republican Party no longer represents the values of its voters. While party officials and representatives may talk about faith, families, limited government and other so-called conservative issues, their actions are completely different. And that unfairly paints a negative image upon voters who actually support those ideals.

We see this in Republican politicians and candidates very often.

Take, for example, the rhetoric regularly stated by our Republican congressman Tim Scott. He publicly complains about “big government,” but his record seems to indicate he’s in favor of “Big Brother.”

He voted to extend warrantless searches of your computer, for example – that allows government to directly access your computer, even your Internet history, at any time without any authorization or even established need. Scott also voted to allow your employer to force you to give up your passwords to social websites, such as facebook, so that your boss can keep a close eye on your private life. If your employer doesn’t like what he sees, or if you refuse to hand over your passwords? You can be fired.

How, then, is Scott supporting the traditional Republican tenets of freedom and smaller government?

From a more local perspective, consider Dorchester County's Councilman Bill Hearn and state house candidate Ed Carter. While both proclaim conservative values as foundations of their campaigns, both had their campaign websites designed and maintained by a company that also does “soft porn” sites.

So is this a double standard? Or isn’t this simply another example of how very many Republican officials don’t subscribe to actual Republican values, and maybe aren’t actual Republicans?

This hypocrisy is especially evident in Carter’s campaign platform. In a “Political Courage” survey he answered earlier this year, for example, Carter gave some classic conservative answers, calling for reductions in Medicaid benefits and absolutely no restrictions on the purchase or possession of weapons.

In 2000, though, and in response to a survey from this same Vote Smart organization, Carter said he supported an increase in Medicaid benefits, even for non-US citizens. And we should “maintain and strengthen” gun laws, he said. (See his 2000 “Political Courage” responses here.)

So to which party, then, does Carter actually align: Democrat or Republican?

Neither one. Carter apparently wouldn’t represent anyone other than himself.

My brother, for example, who’s a very conservative financial consultant, is quite fed up with the financial irresponsibility that the GOP keeps presenting in its budget proposals.

A neighbor and very good friend, who’s quite firm in his faith, has lost faith in the Republican Party because of the apparent double-standard its elected officials hold for themselves.

And I know that the Republican voters in our community aren’t childish with hints of racism, either, even though that seemed to be the projection at Tuesdays’s local GOP event.

To the actual, true Republican citizens in the Lowcountry, don’t worry – I won’t let that incident affect my perspectives of you and your values, and I’ll make sure local Democrats know that, too.

But you need to reclaim your party very quickly, or else just leave the GOP.

Until then, we all need to vote our values this November. And the only way to do that, apparently, is by voting Democrat, especially in these local races.

When it comes to campaigning for office, there are some things a politician simply can’t do.

For example, a candidate for public office can’t openly affiliate with any person, group or entity that has any questionable record. Doing so automatically associates the candidate with the negative public reception that entity can have.

Somebody needs to tell that to a couple of South Carolina Republicans, though, who are both having significant portions of their campaigns operated by a company affiliated with adult entertainment.

Summerville Media Group designed and operates the websites of two Republican candidates in Dorchester County – Ed Carter for State House 97 and Bill Hearn, the incumbent County Councilman for District 6.

For verification, simply check the bottom-right corners of each one’s website. At both www.edcarterforthehouse.org and www.billhearn.org will you read “Proudly powered by Summerville Media Group,” complete with link.

It’s when that latter link is explored that things get interesting. Summerville Media Group’s site not only offers additional verification that it designed those political pages (it has images of Carter’s site posted as a sample its web design, for example), but it lists other sites designed and maintained by SMG, too – including (get ready) “Sexy Skin Magazine.”

SMG lists “Sexy Skin” as a proud example of its site design and online marketing.

Using only its SMG page description as source, “Sexy Skin” seems to promote itself as a hub for amateur porn, inviting persons to offer their own photographs for a weekly contest.

“Do you have what it takes?” that website asks, inviting ladies to submit their own pictures. The winner of its “Hottie of the Week” contest can get “a chance to shoot a ‘Feature Layout’ with a Sexy Skin Magazine feature staff photographer.”

SMG affiliation with “Sexy Skin” delves a little deeper, too. It also does “a lot of the Photo Edits of the girls,” its site states, as well as “design the magazine covers for all the issues.”

(Another site claiming affiliation with “Sexy Skin,” and making the exact same “Photo Edits of the girls” claims of personal contribution to it, is that of 106 Designs, which apparently is another name used by SMG. Adding to the GOP:Porn affiliation, 106 Designs lists the website of Dorchester County’s Republican state Rep. Chris Murphy as one of its projects.)

This certainly seems to be an inappropriate affiliation for any politician to have (let alone openly acknowledge, as indicated by their sites’ “proudly powered by” links), but this is a pretty standard theme for South Carolina Republicans.

Take Roland Corning, for example. This former state representative was an assistant deputy Attorney General for the state when he was found in a cemetery one afternoon with an 18-year-old strip dancer – and Viagra. Corning’s a SC Republican.

So is Beverly Russell, who in fact was on the executive committee of the state’s Republican Party. Russell admitted under oath that he had molested his teenaged stepdaughter for over nine years.

Then there’s former Gov. Mark Sanford, who was busted for using taxpayer dollars to fund his extramarital affair in Argentina. Sanford’s GOP, too.

And let’s not forget the longstanding Republican segregationist Strom Thurmond, who impregnated a 16-year-old African-American woman, and then denied being the father of the child throughout his 47-year term in U.S. Congress.

(This isn’t limited to South Carolina Republican officials, please note. Consider the long listing on www.republicansexoffenders.com, which apparently couldn’t keep up with the multitude of consistent news releases of such incidents – it hasn’t been updated since mid-2008.)

This soft-porn affiliation isn’t extended to the Democratic opponents of Carter and Hearn, though. Incumbent Dist. 97 Rep. Patsy Knight has her website maintained by Harbor Light, which includes in its long portfolio not a single site that a kid couldn’t see.

And the same can be said for Miriam Birdsong, the Democratic candidate for Hearn’s county council Dist. 6 spot. Birdsong’s site (still under some construction at the moment) is being made by John Kauth, a photographer with some dazzle in website design. 

There are no accusations of reading dirty magazines or visting porn shops cast upon either of these Republican candidates, but if Hearn says he will “lead by example,” and if Carter claims “personal responsibility” as an attribute, then perhaps both should live up to those claims by answering to the affiliation their political campaigns now carry.