What's been even more disheartening than the Democrats' destructive combination of viciousness and ineptitude has been that Republican congresspeople are supine.  Most of them crumble when anyone says "racist" or "January 6."  Worse still are those Republicans who have chosen to ally with the Democrats regarding everything from January 6 to the radical LGBTQ+ agenda.  The only way to change this is through the primaries.  South Carolina is illustrative.

Too many Republicans began paying attention to South Carolina's House of Representatives race for the 1st District in October 2020, when it was Joe Cunningham, the Democrat incumbent, versus Nancy Mace, the Republican.  Mace won, but what a disappointment she has been.

Mace is barely even a RINO, so left are her positions.  "I strongly support LGBTQ rights and equality," she stated, and she means it.  She supports Roe v. Wade and wants to make marijuana legal, which Colorado's experiment argues against.  Mace is a Liz Cheney–supporter.  Only reluctantly did she vote to remove Cheney as chair of the House Republican conference, but then only because Cheney was "divisive."  And of course, Mace is on board with the Democrats' January 6 narrative.

Had more voters paid attention during the primaries, they might have averted Mace's candidacy and put a real conservative in Congress.  Mace's record was always dodgy.  For example, Mace made a big deal about being the first female cadet to graduate from the Citadel.  She did that by getting credits from a community college so she could graduate before the three female cadets who started with her.  Maybe Mace just wanted to get out of college fast, but it smells like an operator trying for a résumé-enhancer.

When she left the Citadel, Mace didn't take that rigorous training to the military.  Instead, she went into business.  There's no obligation to enter the military after graduation from the Citadel, but there's also something a little tacky about her racing to get that "first female graduate" label and then...nothing.

A minute's digging would also have revealed Erick Erickson's 2013 post about Nancy Mace, entitled "No Way in Hell Will I Support Nancy Mace."  Or Newblog45's "Profiles in Discourage: Nancy Mace."  Those two articles alone would have ensured that conservatives would not have supported her in the 2020 primary.

The problem is that Nancy Mace now has a foot in the door.  Incumbents have a huge advantage, especially in the kind of tight political circles you find in long-established communities like the Charleston area.  That's why it's especially important for conservatives to focus on their primaries and learn who's challenging weak incumbents.

Image: Nancy Mace (public domain); U.S. Capitol by Martin Falbisoner (CC BY-SA 3.0).

This was brought to my attention when I ran into Ingrid Centurion, who is challenging Mace to be the Republican candidate for South Carolina's 1st District.  I'm not endorsing Centurion, because that's not what we do here at American Thinker.*  I just want to tell you about one of the people who is doing the hard work of challenging a RINO.  I'm betting you'll find similar challengers in your communities — but you must pay attention to the primaries.

Centurion is a dynamo.  She's the youngest of four children born to immigrant parents.  (Her father came from Argentina and her mother from Puerto Rico.)  When Centurion was two, her parents were in a serious car accident that killed her father, leaving her mother to raise four children on her own.  Inspired by her mother's strength, she was a commercial pilot by the time she was 20.  Rather than staying in the commercial arena, Ingrid chose to serve her country, joining the U.S. Army as a pilot:

She is a combat tested and proven leader who flew combat missions searching for terrorist groups from Balad Airport, Iraq.  Ingrid served our country for over two decades in the U.S. Army as a helicopter instructor and maintenance test pilot and RC-12P fixed wing pilot.  She flew interdiction missions along the South Western Border and served as the Science and Technology Officer for Joint Task Force North.

Centurion retired as a lieutenant colonel after 24 22 years and went into private industry, where she again took on high-level responsibilities.

When it comes to her values, Centurion is a true conservative.  She stands for free speech and the Second Amendment.  She opposes Critical Race Theory, COVID mandates, the extreme LGBTQ agenda, open borders, abortion, and the Democrats' continued push to enshrine voter fraud.  I liked her and will keep an eye on her as we go into the primaries.

My point, though, isn't to endorse Centurion.  It's bigger than that: you must understand that, by November, it's too late to get politically involved.  If we're to have a Congress that will stand up to Biden, investigate corruption, and reverse creeping socialism, we must have conservatives on the ballot, rather than whatever RINOs the GOP selects.  The battle ends in November, but it begins with the primaries.

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* Currently, the other Republicans who will be on the June 14 South Carolina primary ballot for the 1st District, and whom I haven't yet met but would be happy to speak with, are Thomas Allen, Keith Blandford, and Lynz Piper-Loomis.