I’m Not Piling on Beltram.

I refuse to be another to speak ill of Spartanburg GOP party boss Rick Beltram.

Nope. Not gonna do it.

After all, his hometown paper potentially ended the twisted love affair they shared when it finally turned on him (Here, Here, Here, and Here) for selling campaign services to Spartanburg County primary election candidates out of the party headquarters where he located his office after leaving the family business.

NOTE: Rick, you should have known that it would eventually happen. Maureen Dowd said it best. “Wooing the press is an exercise roughly akin to picnicking with a tiger. You might enjoy the meal, but the tiger always eats last.”

South Carolina’s blogs have been on the offensive, too. FITSNews hit him twice (Here and Here). Palmetto Scoop presented this piece and this piece. I even disagreed with his practices here recently.

Rick made a mistake. He knows it and was a big enough man to voluntarily quit peddling his services until Sunday when his party leadership gave him permission to restart his enterprise on a limited basis.

I disagree with the Spartanburg County party’s decision, but I’m not going to criticize them over what many view as an overwhelming appearance of impropriety and conflict.

What I will do is applaud Rick Beltram.

He took a free tool like Voter Vault and was able to charge candidates to organize the data and provide printouts of the information.

He actually figured out a way to take a database tool that is worth every penny of what the party normally charges and get $10 American for every precinct.

The secret is that Voter Vault is a mess. It’s not updated. It’s outdated. It’s inaccurate. It’s also a lot of other synonyms that aren’t really coming to mind right now.

In the end it costs the candidates and campaigns that use it.

Candidates base large parts of their communications/messaging strategies on what is a great offering in concept. Unfortunately, Voter Vault’s records are fraught with dead voters (literally, not some metaphorical political term), wrong contacts, and voters who moved. It isn’t updated frequently enough to add new voters, it hates any browser other than Internet Explorer, and it’s also so compromised that Mrs. Charles seems to be the only person without login information. Doesn’t that sound like a great tool?

It’s a great idea, but it has too many errors to be of real value. Until the RNC pays attention and elevates Voter Vault to what it should be in concept, I congratulate anyone who can make money off of it.

Of course whether or not the RNC shares my appreciation is a different story, altogether.

– Wilson Charles