Rudy's New South Carolina Co-Chair

Rudy Giuliani named today as his South Carolina co-chairman Arthur Ravenel, the father of Rudy's former chair, South Carolina Treasurer Thomas Ravenel, who was indicted last week on a federal cocaine charge.

The elder Ravenel, aged 80, does not exactly come to the Giuliani campaign without baggage.

As a rival campaign just pointed out to me (on the condition that the campaign not be identified), Ravanel's tongue has gotten him in trouble in the past.

On October 18, 2006 The Post and Courier of Charleston, SC wrote " Arthur Ravenel Jr., who is running for an East Cooper seat on the board, caught flack 16 years ago when he was in Congress and made a comment about white committee chairmen who operated on 'black time,' which he said meant fashionably late."

As recently as January 2000, the Post and Courier reported in an article headlined "Ravenel stepped outside 'civility,'" that Ravenel called the NAACP the "National Association For Retarded People."

When asked about the comment in the story, Ravenel said that he misspoke. "It was a slip of the tongue. I have never said the NAACP was retarded," he told the Post and Courier. "I made a rhetorical slip, and they want to lynch me for it."