How much do Americans love South Carolina? It depends.

Polls are fun, and some are funny. One was released this week that is a little sad, a little scary.

It comes from Public Policy Polling, a company based in Raleigh, North Carolina, that has had phenomenal results in its short history. In fact, the Wall Street Journal ranked PPP as one of the top swing state pollsters in the country during the last Presidential election.

So PPP conducted a massive nationwide polling project late last fall and into the winter, collecting thousands of telephone interviews -- roughly 700 per state -- to get a sense of how Americans feel about states.

The cover summary that accompanied the poll said this:

Over the course of four months starting last October, PPP asked American voters nationally what their impressions of each state are. Hawaii came out on top, by far, with California bringing up the rear.

Americans generally have a favorable view of most states. Only five are in negative territory, led by California (27% favorable and 44% unfavorable), Illinois (19-29), New Jersey (25-32), Mississippi (22-28), and Utah (24-27). Only seven other states have net-positive ratings in the single digits, and another breaks even (Louisiana).

54% see Hawaii positively and only 10% negatively, followed in the top ten by Colorado (44-9), Tennessee (48-14), South Dakota (42-8), Virginia (45-13), Montana (39-7), Alaska (46-17), Oregon (43-14), and North Carolina and Pennsylvania (each 40-11). Ten others are in positive territory by at least 21 points.

Women have a higher opinion of New York by 27 points more than men, Massachusetts by 22 points, Delaware and California by 16, New Hampshire by 15, Vermont and Illinois by 13, and Connecticut by 11, while men see North Dakota more favorably by 17 points, South Carolina by 15, Wyoming 14, Montana 13, and Iowa and South Dakota 10.

Democrats’ favorite states include Hawaii, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Colorado, and New York, and their least favorites are led by Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi. Republicans love Alaska and Texas, and absolutely hate California, followed distantly by Illinois and Massachusetts. So the greatest partisan gap is for California, which Democrats like 91 points more than Republicans do, followed by Texas, which is favored more by Republicans by 82 points.

Black voters dislike 10 of the 14 Southern states.

PPP surveyed 1,200 American voters from February 9th to 12th, 700 voters from January 13th to 16th, 700 voters from December 16th to 18th, and 700 voters from October 7th to 10th, 2011. The margin of error for the February survey is +/-2.8%, and +/-3.7% for the January, December, and October surveys. This poll was not paid for or authorized by any campaign or political organization. PPP surveys are conducted through automated telephone interviews. PPP is a Democratic polling company, but polling expert Nate Silver of the New York Times found that its surveys in 2010 actually exhibited a slight bias toward Republican candidates.

You get the overall picture.

So, how do people feel about South Carolina? I dug into the poll data to find out.

Americans have strong feelings about our state. Their impressions depend a lot on their ideologies and demographics, but here's a cheat sheet: If you're a conservative/Republican white male, you love the place. If you're a liberal/Democratic African-American female, well, not so much.

It appears that the more conservative Americans are, the more favorably they view South Carolina. "Very conservative" voters rated it favorable, 53 percent to two percent (with 45 percent saying they're "not sure"). Similarly, "somewhat conservative" voters rated it favorable, 47 percent to eight percent (with another 45 percent "not sure").

Voters at the other end of the spectrum gave predictably reversed responses: only 16 percent of "very liberal" voters gave South Carolina a "favorable" label, with 39 percent labeling the state "unfavorable. Among "somewhat liberal" voters, the scores were 21 percent favorable and 34 percent unfavorable, with the same 45 percent "not sure."

Self-identified "moderate" voters split their vote, with only 25 percent favorable and 23 percent unfavorable, leaving more than half, 51 percent, calling themselves not sure.

A definite gender gap is found in the data. Men clearly appreciate South Carolina, with 40 percent rating it favorably to 18 percent unfavorably, and 42 percent calling themselves "not sure."

Women hedge their bets; only 28 percent rate the state favorable, with 21 percent rating it unfavorable and more than half, 52 percent, saying they're not sure.

The poll data surfaces clear differences according to specific party affiliation, too. Call yourself Republican, and 49 percent of you give South Carolina a favorable rating, compared to five percent unfavorable and 45 percent unsure. Call yourself Democrat, and only 20 percent of you see the state favorably, compared to 35 percent unfavorable and 46 percent unsure.

Half of Independents say they're unsure; 35 percent rated South Carolina "favorable," and 15 percent "unfavorable."

Finally, race plays a part in one's view of South Carolina. Among Hispanic voters, 35 percent rate the state "favorable," compared to 21 percent "unfavorable" and 44 percent "unsure." But even more whites and African-Americans were unsure of their answers, 45 percent and 46 percent of their categories, respectively. Still, white Americans appreciate the state, 38 percent favorable to 17 percent unfavorable; African-Americans hold an opposite view, 32 percent unfavorable to 21 percent favorable.

Haley to state's children: Want state parks? Pay up.

If you live in NORTH Carolina, your access to all of North Carolina's state parks is absolutely free. Even after the new conservative legislature imposed some fees for some services last year, admission remains free statewide.

That's because in North Carolina, people regard some spaces, programs and services as necessary to promoting a high quality of life for all its citizens. So North Carolinians support those spaces, programs and services with tax dollars, and just as public libraries are free to visit, state parks are free to visit, too.

It's no wonder North Carolina ranks consistently high for its quality of life.

This is especially beneficial to North Carolina's working poor, and their children. Where else can they go for outdoor recreation, not to mention for sheer enjoyment of natural beauty, if they don't live happen to live at the country club?

But here in South Carolina, the working poor and their children -- indeed, all of us -- have to fork over several dollars per person just to get inside, which means the working poor and their children likely don't go to their state parks.

We have some beautiful state parks (and state historic sites) and a dedicated -- and tiny -- staff of park rangers and interpreters. I can see charging out-of-state visitors a fee to enjoy our parks. That makes perfect sense. But our own citizens? Don't the parks belong to us?

Now, even though admission fees pay for 83 percent of the cost of running our state parks already, Governor Nikki Haley says the parks cost too much of the state treasury. Rather than making our state parks a perk of living in South Carolina -- where perks are few and far between for the less-than-wealthy -- her goal is to make the parks completely self-sufficient. That means charging everyone -- even South Carolinians, as if we're just customers in our own state -- more. And if they happen, one day, to start turning a profit for the state, so much the better...

After a yearlong review, South Carolina's 47 state parks will remain within the state Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism with a goal of making park operations pay for themselves by the end of next year.

When Gov. Nikki Haley took office last year, she asked for a review of the parks system with an eye toward whether the parks might be more efficiently administered by the state Department of Natural Resources.

After traveling from the mountains to the sea visiting all the state's parks, PRT Director Duane Parrish recently presented the governor with a report on the status of the park system. The park system began during the Great Depression with 15 parks carved out of the wild by workers with the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Ah, the Civilian Conservation Corps, a federal program initiated under Franklin Roosevelt to create jobs for American's working poor, to help the nation get out of an economic downturn. Where have good ideas like that gone today?

The 80,000-acre state park system features 3,000 campsites, 144 cabins, 80 hotel rooms, two golf courses, and more than 300 miles of hiking and riding trails.

The report makes four main recommendations:

-- That state parks remain under PRT to better market and develop the parks.

Marketing in North Carolina: Letting people know that their state parks are free and open to the public, almost every day of the year.

Marketing in South Carolina: Letting people know that if you want free state parks, move to North Carolina. Ours cost money to visit. Poor folks might want to stay home, put some lawn chairs in the yard and string some tin cans together for the kiddies to play with.

-- That steps be taken so park operations, which last year cost about $24 million to operate, are self-sufficient by the end of 2013.

Self-sufficient: Run like a business, so that when costs go up, you either raise admission prices and other fees, or you fire some park staff, or both. Making parks self-sufficient brings us one step closer to privatizing them altogether.

-- That deferred maintenance needs be prioritized and other sources of money be found to pay for such maintenance.

"Other sources" means not public dollars. Spending public dollars to maintain public parks might send the wrong message; for example, that all of South Carolina's citizens are welcome to attend, when we all know...

-- That revenue bonds be considered for capital projects, such as water attractions at state parks that will produce additional revenue.

Which means Disney-fication of the state parks. Can you see it? Long lines at the Swamp Fox roller coaster ride? Maurice Bessenger could get the state concessions contract: Piggies in the Parks!

The report also found the state's parks have almost $155 million in deferred maintenance needs. It found five must be accomplished within five years to avoid closing some areas because of safety concerns.

Translation: We've done such a poor job of funding needed maintenance, repairs and renovations with existing revenues that our some of our state park features are in danger of being completely closed.

Oh, well. Those who live close enough to the border can cross and enjoy North Carolina's state parks. This year's theme: "Naturally Wonderful."

You know what you could do for free in South Carolina?

Here the past, present and future of BMW come together in a one-of-a-kind building. See the cars, the speed, the innovation–all for free in the only BMW museum in North America. The Zentrum is more than just a museum; it’s a meeting and events center, a cafe, a gallery and a history lesson–all wrapped into one ultimate experience. Located next to the only BMW manufacturing plant in the U.S., this unique place offers something for everyone.

Thanks to massive corporate tax breaks -- courtesy of you and me -- BMW allows us to come and visit their museum in Greenville.

Poor folks, load up the kids and come to Greenville. And make it a two-fer! Greenville's close enough to the North Carolina border that you might spend half a day at some North Carolina state parks, for only the price of gas.

Some South Carolina facts for discussion in quiet rooms

Some fascinating facts about South Carolina's people, wealth, businesses and home ownership were updated by the U.S. Census Bureau late last month, and they offer a snapshot worth considering.

Here are only a few notes:

How many are we? Our 2010 population totaled 4.625 million, an increase of 15.3 percent over the 2000 census. It would appear that despite all the rhetoric advising Americans not to complete and return their census forms, South Carolinians did.

How old are we? Of that total population in 2010, nearly a quarter -- 23.4 percent -- were under the age of 18. Senior citizens -- those age 65 and over -- accounted for 13.7 percent of our total.

What is our dominant gender? At 51.4 percent of the total, women outnumber men.

What color are we? Representing 66.2 percent of the population, whites outnumber everyone else. The next largest minority is African-Americans, with 27.9 percent of the total. Hispanic or Latino respondents accounted for 5.1 percent.

How safe is our border? For all the Sturm und Drang over immigration -- which has always been a bee in South Carolinians' collective bonnet -- foreign-born persons represent only 4.4 percent of our residents, well below the national figure is 12.4 percent. So why the xenophobia?

How many of us have served the nation? According to data collected between 2005 and 2009, South Carolina is home to a shade less than 400,000 veterans, roughly 1.73 percent of the nation's total of 22,894,578.

How educated are we? The good news is that 82.2 percent of South Carolinians, age 25 and older, have graduated from high school; the bad news is that the other 17.8 percent of us haven't. Only 23.5 percent of us hold bachelor's degrees or more advanced degrees.

How many houses do we have? Our total "housing units" are 2.137 million, but 17 percent of those are in multi-unit structures -- presumably beach condos, apartments and dormitories.

How many own our homes? There are 1.693 million "households" in our state, with an average 2.52 persons per household, and 70.3 percent of us own homes.

How wealthy are we? We're rolling in filthy lucre, by medieval standards. South Carolinians earned $23,196 per capita, in 2009 dollars, in the 12 months before being surveyed. Our median household income in 2009 was $42,580 -- roughly 12 percent of Mitt Romney's income from public speaking fees last year.

How many of us live in poverty? South Carolinians living below the poverty level in 2009 totaled 17.1 percent of us. That's three percent higher than the national average.

However, those South Carolinians in business are really in business.

How many "firms" are based in South Carolina? 360,397 in 2007. Of that number, only 12 percent were owned by African-Americans, 1.8 percent were owned by citizens of Asian heritage, and 1.7 percent were owned by Hispanic/Latino citizens. Women owned fewer than a third: only 27.6 percent.

But some of us have made out like bandits: We shipped nearly $94 billion in manufactured goods in 2007, we booked more $40 billion in merchant wholesale sales in 2007, and our retailers did more than $54 billion in business the same year. In fact, our retail sales per capita in 2007 totaled $12,273 -- which is striking, given that it represents half of our per capita income.

What does this tell us? Maybe that the average South Carolinian is a white female, between 18 and 65, with a high school diploma but no college degree, who earns less than $25,000 annually and who doesn't live alone, and who has a much greater chance of knowing someone who lives in poverty than of knowing a veteran.

Is this an appropriate topic to discuss in the public square, as a matter of public policy, or should we -- as Mitt Romney advises -- only talk about these things in "quiet rooms"?

I like how editorialist Eric Zorn put it, in an op-ed published last week in the Chicago Tribune:

Inside voices everyone, please!

We're going to talk about the widening income gap between rich and poor, tax policy and the seemliness of predatory investing, and GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney wants us to do so only "in quiet rooms."

He made this suggestion in an interview Wednesday with NBC "Today" host Matt Lauer, the relevant portion of which began when Lauer challenged Romney's assertion in his victory speech Tuesday after the New Hampshire primary that questions about his lucrative career in high finance are rooted in "the bitter politics of envy."

"I think it's about envy," Romney replied. "I think it's about class warfare. I think when you have a president encouraging the idea of dividing America based on 99 percent vs. 1 percent, and those people who've been most successful will be in the 1 percent, you've opened up a whole new wave of approach in this country which is entirely inconsistent with the concept of one nation under God."

Had I been in Lauer's chair, I would have reminded Romney that "under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, when top-bracket earners paid a 91 percent federal income tax rate. They now pay 35 percent, and yet Republicans howl that those who want to move it back up to 39 percent, where it was through most of the 1990s, are "socialists."

Instead, Lauer asked, "Are there no fair questions about the distribution of wealth without it being seen as envy, though?"

"You know I think it's fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms," Romney said. "But the president has made this part of his campaign rally. Everywhere he goes we hear him talking about millionaires and billionaires and executives and Wall Street. It's a very envy-oriented, attack-oriented approach."

Attack? Yes. Politics isn't beanbag as Romney himself reminded us recently. And harsh criticism of opponents' records and philosophies is common, as the broadsides against President Barack Obama in Romney's stinging, hyperbolic victory speech illustrated.

But envy? No. Envy requires bitter resentment, and most of us don't resent or begrudge the material success of the industrious, the talented or even the lucky — Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, say, or Oprah Winfrey, Derrick Rose, Steven Spielberg and Scott Anetsberger, the Lombard man who, we just learned, hit the $1 million jackpot in the Illinois Lottery's Merry Millionaire scratch-off game twice in nine years.

I'd even go so far as to say the vast majority of Americans admire successful venture capitalists — those who get rich investing in the ideas of ambitious entrepreneurs (whom we also admire), thus creating new products and businesses that fuel economic growth.

That's free enterprise. And despite Romney's complaint that those in both parties who are critical of his tenure at Bain Capital investment firm "want to put free enterprise on trial," no one in the political mainstream is challenging its basics.

What they are challenging are the rules of high finance that allow private equity firms like Bain to sweep in, buy up mature companies, gut and restructure them with heavy infusions of other people's money, then bail out with handsome profits even when the company may be headed for bankruptcy.

"There's a big difference between financial manipulation and capitalism," said Newt Gingrich, the GOP candidate whose technically unaffiliated political action committee will spend a reported $5 million in South Carolina this week to promote and air "When Mitt Romney Came To Town," a 28-minute video that portrays Romney the businessman as rapacious, heartless and obtuse.

Others critics are challenging a tax system that has allowed wealth to concentrate more and more at the top, impeded income mobility and hit particularly hard at middle-income families, losers in a class war they did not start.

They want to put on trial a structure that bails out bankers in trouble but shrugs off the woes of the unemployed and the foreclosed as part of the "creative destruction" necessary for growth.

They're angry, not envious.

As a relatively calm person, I support Romney's implicit call for polite, reasoned discourse here. But it won't happen until he sets an example, stops flinging self-pitying accusations and acknowledges that his foes and critics have reasonable concerns about fairness and growing income inequality. He could start by allowing that it isn't anti-God and anti-capitalism insisting that we do better by those destroyed in the cycle of creative destruction.

In other words, expect a lot of noise in the coming months.

What is South Carolina's story?

Yesterday, I posted a note about an unfortunate letter written by a Charlestonian and published in Andy Brack's Statehouse Report. While the correspondent proposed sweeping the seamier facts and figures reflecting South Carolina's reality under the old rug, I suggested that we might be more authentic if we addressed those bad outcomes and changed our ways to make future reports better.

Brack published last week another item that speaks to the same issue: What to do about South Carolina's reality? He attended a forum sponsored by the Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, where he heard Commerce Secretary Bobby Hitt, a former Australian premier, and a couple of public relations gurus discuss the question. Their suggestion: Rebranding.

Brack writes,

One of the first rules of politics is to define yourself and not let your opponent define you.

As a state, we've ignored this rule for too long. We've become frequent fodder for late-night comedians who poke fun at images we've brought upon ourselves -- from a philandering governor who redefined what hiking the Appalachian Trail means to the current lieutenant governor who can't seem to get his story straight on how he uses his campaign money.

One friend remarked years ago that the only time outsiders saw South Carolina in the news was about something bad -- either leaders in a pickle or when another embarrassing or bad statistic reared its ugly head.

So maybe it's high time that we devote some real effort into fixing South Carolina's image by giving ourselves a new brand. Let's make South Carolina mean more than the Palmetto tree and crescent moon logo that confuses most outsiders.

"We need to work a little bit on the good," S.C. Commerce Department chief Bobby Hitt said this week at a development forum put on by the Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina. "The bad and ugly are winning."

Mm. Sadly, the bad and the ugly are the doors we walk through to get to our own front porches. But I'm fully in support of Hitt's suggestion to work on the good. It's not enough to cut weeds off at the ground; you have to pull them up by the roots and replant something beneficial to the community.

But was Hitt -- and his co-panelists -- talking about digging up and replanting, or merely putting a privacy fence around our weedy lot and redirecting the public's eyes to the pretty fountain across the street?

Former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, who was on the same panel, agreed. "Marketing can change South Carolina's image."

The state may be well on its way, in fact, by ripping off an idea from its sister state of Queensland. About a dozen years ago, Beattie said his state in Australia was down in the dumps like South Carolina is. To counter the image, Queensland started investing big in biotechnology and university research. It developed the concept of Queensland being the "Smart State" for research and development in the new economy.

In May, South Carolina's Centers of Economic Excellence program, which seeks top-notch academics to join Palmetto State research universities to drive economic development, changed its name to the SmartState Program, in part as a rebranding effort. Coincidence? No.

Sounds a lot like Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, the South's own "Smart State." Heavy investment in education, check. Biotechnology and university research, check. Developed the state as a center for research and development in a new economy, check.

Question: Are South Carolina's leaders willing to make the investment that Queensland and North Carolina made to birth a new South Carolina?

Prediction: Not hardly. But we can imagine -- briefly -- before the whistle blows and we have to punch in at the timeclock again.

Alas, the public relations gurus focused on devising a palette of lipsticks to use on the pig. There are so many choices, they said.

The value of fixing the state's brand can't be underestimated, according to two of the state's top marketing and advertising executives.

"We are not telling the full story about what South Carolina has to offer in areas like business, tourism, education and quality of life," said David Campbell, president of Columbia's Chernoff Newman agency. "The advantages [of branding] are that you get to control the story and get to help shape and realign perceptions by telling our unique characteristics. Disadvantages in today’s economic environment mean that there can be large costs associated with communicating through mass media. However, we must remain competitive so we can hardly afford not to. But you must have a clear vision about what you want to communicate. What is our story -- a pro-business state, a great place for tourism, a great place to live?"

Bruce Murdy, president of Rawle Murdy Associates in Charleston, said the state should tell its story strategically over a long term to shape how people think about the state.

"Every state has strengths and every state has its weaknesses, silly stories and attention-grabbing headlines from time to time," he said. "A good branding program isn’t about ‘glossing over’ issues as much as it can help refocus and put the spotlight on the great things our state has to offer.

"We’re a great vacation destination, and yet we’re so much more. So, do we let the media highlight our unemployment rate … or do we provide them great stories about BMW, Google and Boeing? Do we let the bloggers talk about our education challenges…or do we highlight what’s going on at ICAR, CURI and the Academic Magnet High School in Charleston? Do we let the headlines underscore our high obesity rates…or do we talk about the amazing discoveries at MUSC?"

Here's a thought: Bloggers talking about South Carolina's education challenges are not the problem. A self-perpetuating system of self-satisfied government that keeps South Carolina's children and public schools stuck in the Eisenhower era is.

And if the solution is to hold up BMW, Google and Boeing as our state emblems to redirect attention, let's beginning the planning now for the next of these forums in another decade, when we can repeat the whole conversation, yet again. Maybe then we can decide that to change perceptions, we might need to change reality.

Brack wraps it up smartly:

Bottom line: It's high time to redefine South Carolina. Our leaders need to invest in a smart, long-term strategy that will inform people about what we all know about the Palmetto State. And while they get smart people to spread the good word about South Carolina, maybe they can work seriously on bettering education, technology and workforce development that can turn around some of our bad statistics.

Breathe deep the summer breeze; 2011-2012 comes next month

Summer doesn't end until September 21, but summer break expires in less than a month's time, educators. Don't look now, but for those on traditional school calendars, the start of the 2011-2012 school year is now mere days away.

This note from the Times and Democrat in Orangeburg comes like ice-water to sunburnt cheeks:

Edisto High School will hold a Freshman Camp again this year for rising ninth-grade students at 8 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 2, in the EHS auditorium.

August 2! The second day of August... only 23 days away...

Can you get it all in before the 23 days are up? All the deep sleep, the rest, the relaxation, the cleaning, the summer reading, the cookouts? Have you made it to Tomlinson's this year, yet? Did you get to Bowen's Island? The Thunderbird at Exit 64? The Chat-N-Chew? McCabe's? Have you had time to fight mosquitoes with your grandkids at the Old Sheldon Church? You knew the Chocolate Tree changed hands this summer, though it's still in the family, didn't you?

If you haven't made that drive, and can't, I hope you'll still take a Sunday afternoon to go tubing on the Chauga, though watch out for chiggers. Or go to Saluda Shoals -- but take some ones, because they started charging to park two or three years ago.

Is there time for your own back-to-school shopping? Time's running out.

There was a time when summer break was a break: Start school the last week of August, get out by the first week of June. But life is hard, summer break is short, it's hot as blazes and the bulletin boards have to be put up.

At least you have 23 days left. Think about your co-workers who are still stripping and waxing floors, moving desks and tables, keeping the grounds mown, all under this unforgiving sun.

Twenty-three days, folks. Get it all in while you can. And be careful.