Ralph Norman launched his gubernatorial campaign with a simple pitch: South Carolina needs term limits, and career politicians need to go.

“I am running for Governor to shake things up, clean up Columbia, and knock down the corrupt political establishment once and for all,” Norman’s campaign website reads. At his Rock Hill campaign launch he told supporters “we do not need more career politicians or lawyers running government.”

At his August 2025 stop in Myrtle Beach he was blunt: “We don’t need more career politicians and lawyers in office.” The word “career” appears on nearly every page of his platform.

Here is Ralph Norman’s actual career.

He was first elected to the South Carolina House in 2004. He served from 2005 to 2007, left to run unsuccessfully for Congress, then returned to the State House from 2009 to 2017. He won the June 2017 special election to replace Mick Mulvaney and has been reelected to four succeeding Congresses. That’s 21 years in elected office. Not counting his failed 2006 Congressional run, the two years he spent actively trying to be in office.

So, the 10 term 21 year politician is going to convince two third of the SC House and two third of the SC Senate to vote for a constitutional amendment to put themselves out of a job. He does not occupy the moral high ground to do that being a career politician himself nor can he convince a 31 percent trial lawyer legislature to vote themselves out of very lucrative jobs.

This is what the Political Ruling Class looks like. They make promises they know they cannot keep. A good measure of Ralph Norman is look at what he has accomplished in his two decades in politics. Can you the citizen name one consequential thing that has impacted your life?

The Rock Hill Silfab story is another story but if you want to understand how arrogant he is go watch the August 2024 video where he had a town hall with Rock Hill residents. In that meeting he actually told them that as Chair of the Solar Caucus in Washington, he had no idea a solar panel plant that uses hazardous chemicals was going into his district in the middle of land his family owns about 1000 feet away from an elementary school. He further told emotional parents if they wanted help they could call the state agencies like Department of Environmental Services. That is the real politician not the one making impossible promises.

It is time we held the leaders accountable for their public record. Otherwise accountability in this state will remain a dream.