During the 2020 campaign season I had a chance to talk to many candidates for office at many levels. None was as impressive in every way as freshman Rep. Nancy Mace of the South Carolina 1st congressional district.

Over several conversations Mace displayed the right message and the moxie to get it out to the public in an effective manner. Now Wednesday, in her first remarks in the House on Trump impeachment, her words cut through the partisan miasma and got to the heart of the matter.

Mace: “The U.S. House of Representatives has every right to impeach the president of the United States. But what we’re doing today, rushing this impeachment in an hour- or two-hour-long debate on the floor of this chamber, bypassing judiciary, poses great questions about the constitutionality of this process…”

“I believe we need to hold the president accountable. I hold him accountable for the events that transpired, for the attack on our Capitol last Wednesday. I also believe that we need to hold accountable every single person, even members of Congress if they contributed to the violence that transpired here.

“Today I’m asking my colleagues to remember the words of the legendary, the great leader in this country Dr. Martin Luther King, who once said, ‘The time is always right to do what is right.’ And if we’re serious about healing the divisions in this country, Republicans and Democrats need to acknowledge this is not the first day of violence we’ve seen. We’ve seen violence across our country for the last nine months.

“And we need to recognize, number one, that our words have consequences; that there is violence on both sides of the aisle. We’ve contributed to it. We need to take responsibility for our words and our actions, we need to acknowledge there’s a problem, take responsibility for it, and stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution.”

Absolutely right. The president needs to be held accountable for last Wednesday’s assault on the Capitol and any member of Congress who applauded or excused BLM and Antifa riots also needs to held accountable and at least censured. Mace nailed it.