There were two reasons to think the election was going to be closer than it was. The first was the only public pollster surveying the race, Public Policy Polling, had Sanford up by only one point but with momentum. Special elections with their unusual turnouts are traditionally very difficult to poll and last night’s was no exception. That is partly why no other pollsters even dared trying to poll the race.

With the special election for South Carolina’s 1st Congressional district taking place tomorrow the race couldn’t be closer. According to a new PPP poll former Gov. Mark Sanford holds a single point lead over Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch.

Elizabeth Colbert-Busch (D), sister of Stephen Colbert, has released an internal poll showing her with a small lead over former Gov. Mark Sanford (R). According to the poll conducted by Lake Research Partners, Colbert Busch is at 47 percent in the special election for South Carolina’s 1st Congressional district, while Sanford is at only 44 percent.

This has been a big week in both religious and legal circles. As the US Supreme Court took up Hollingsworth v Perry (the Prop 8 case) and US v Windsor (the DOMA case), the Jewish community began their celebration of Passover and Christians were in the midst of Holy Week preparations for Easter. But outside of the hallowed halls of the Supreme Court, the push for marriage equality continues to move forward. Deep in that liberal hotbed of South Carolina, a famous cupcake bakery is making more news with their icing-covered statements in favor of marriage equality, and the campaign twitter feed of SC-01 Democratic candidate Elizabeth Colbert Busch agrees that “It’s not holy to hate.”

Now *that’s* a sermon.

Down South Carolin-ey way where the the former Governor recently returned to run for office once again(he is tan, rested and depleted of man gravy after humping hiking the Appalachian Trail), and where former Board of Education Chairwoman Kristin Macguire used to like to scribble little forget-me-nots on state issued Post-It notes like

I fully expect Stephen Colbert to return to work in 2013 in high dudgeon: the most qualified applicant was, yet again, passed over because they had to give the job to a “minority.” Not much has changed in the Carolinas since Jesse Helms’ day, I guess.

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley chose Tim Scott to become the interim replacement in the US Senate for Jim DeMint, who will leave to run the Heritage Foundation in January of next year. Scott becomes the first African-American Senator since Roland Burris left in 2010, and the first African-American representing the South in the Senate since Reconstruction (there have only been six other African-American Senators total in the history of the country). Governor Haley made the announcement at the State House in Columbia a short while ago.

Obama, a consummate politician, made the decision that for his second shot at casting for the future, nuclear power is political deadweight.

In voter suppression news, a big ruling in Ohio paves the way for thousands of wrong-precinct provisional ballots to be counted. But in Pennsylvania, election officials have introduced a new voter ID card but but it’s almost impossible to obtain one before the election, since the few offices where people can get them are closed most of the time.

I keep seeing these confident predictions from health care experts that no state would be so foolish as to reject the Medicaid expansion for their state. I want to set up a poker game with these people, to provide for my family in retirement. How many times can you say “well that’s so radical and extreme, it could never happen!” and be wrong before you review your assumptions?