Tour of the South Carolina State Capitol and Recruiting Candidates

 On the seventh day of our road to the White House trip to South Carolina, we visited the state capital of South Carolina which also happened to be on campus for the University of South Carolina which was very cool and very similar to the way that Tallahassee is laid out with FSU and Florida A&M the architecture was absolutely beautiful it was so refreshing to see I really enjoyed it reminded me of traditional political architecture it's not even a genre I love the columns and the marble. However, it was a beautiful building I had a really dark history and I was curious as to whether the tour guide and the grounds would acknowledge that. Thankfully they did need knowledge that though this is a beautiful building and has been maintained very nicely it was built on the backs of slaves. It made me reflect on a lot of things going on right now in Florida, where there's a big censorship on Black history and what slavery really is so having tour guides really discuss in detail what they're doing to be better and to acknowledge the history does not erase it but to also make sure that they're doing the right things of preserving stuff moving forward was really refreshing. The inside was absolutely gorgeous as we moved to the second floor where we got to see the legislature actually be in session we got to speak with two Republican state senators who actually were one of the highlights of my trip as the weather was spoken in and stated their views on how the legislature should actually work was amazing. I agree with a lot of what they had to say, which was very shocking as we come from two different parties, but it showed that were a lot more similar than we are different. We then also got to see the Senate on the other half of the state capital where it was very long and boring. I think their parliamentarian rules are a little bit more strict than ours as people could just get up and talk on whatever as a senator came up to speak about Ukraine, how his dad being at Pearl Harbor had an effect on him, and how the United States Congress has the money to Ukraine. It was very random. 

We then headed over the bridge to a little lunch. It was so nice to be in nature around water. I then met up with one of the chair of the State Democratic campaign committee, where Moses and I discussed the class about recruiting candidates, what it takes, and how you can recruit candidates from different avenues, whether it's through demographic data, fundraising, or going into the community. It was really great because Fla is slowly turning into a super majority and having students know what it's like to recruit candidates, will give us the best possible chance to be able to succeed and take us out of this situation that we currently are in.