Update: Bauer has issued what some are calling an apology. He has referred to poor people as domesticated animals rather than stray ones. "I never intended to tie people to animals," he said on Jan. 25, then added, "If you have a cat, if you take it in your house and feed it and love it, what happens when you go out of town?" This is not an apology -- keep the pressure on Andre Bauer.

South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer, who may very well be the Republican nominee for this fall's gubernatorial election, has made startlingly hateful and ignorant comments about people living in poverty in his state. That's a lot of people -- according to 2008 data from the Census Bureau, 15.7 percent of the population, or about 800,000 South Carolinians, live in poverty.

Speaking at a town hall meeting on January 22, Bauer told lawmakers and voters, "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better."

While not explicitly racist, his scorn is disproportionally directed at minorities. The majority of people in South Carolina living in poverty are black or Hispanic despite the fact that blacks and Hispanics make up less than a third of the state population. There is a history of conservative white politicians making similar statements that use poverty as a euphemism for minorities in order toconjure up racist sentiments for political gain under the pretense of criticizing social programs. It's time for this to stop.

Bauer, who is currently fund-raising for a November run for governor, displayed a remarkable and willful ignorance of the causes and effects of poverty when he blamed the poor for institutional obstacles, rather than blame institutional obstacles for the rampant poverty in his state. Unfortunately, as with Rep. Joe Wilson's fund-raising success after he shouted "You lie!" during President Obama's speech to Congress last year, Bauer might reap political rewards from his remarks. Let's make sure he doesn't. Demand an apology from Bauer and a disavowal from the SC GOP.