Openly lesbian South Carolina
businesswoman Linda Ketner won't take on Republican Senator Jim
DeMint in the fall, leaving the Senate race wide open for the
incumbent.
Ketner announced Monday that she will
not accept a petition nomination to appear on the fall ballot as a
Democrat.
South Carolinians “deserve – and
desperately need – better government,” Ketner said in an email to
supporters, but then added that she doesn't have the resources needed
to pull off a win.
Ketner asked for the drive to be
stopped.
Former campaign staffers and supporters
began collecting signatures on her behalf after Democrats nominated
Alvin Greene, an unemployed political novice, in the state's June
primary.
While investigators are looking into
how Greene, who claims to be penniless, came up with the $10,440
primary ballot filing fee, the party has voted to uphold the primary
results.
Ketner, whose father founded the Food
Lion supermarkets, financially supported and organized a failed
attempt to defeat a 2006 gay marriage ban. In 2008, she came close
to unseating incumbent South Carolina Representative Henry Brown.
Her campaign won the endorsement of the Gay & Lesbian Victory
Fund, a group that supports openly gay elected officials.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the
nation's largest gay rights advocate, gives DeMint a zero for his
support of LGBT rights.