Highlights and sidelights
from a week of interviews
By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
SOME NUGGETS from interviews this past week with candidates in the June 13 primaries:
Monday, 8:30 a.m. Surprise: Rep. Joe E. Brown, the retired school administrator who has represented S.C. House District 73 for 20 years, seems to have viable Democratic opposition. Energetic young lawyer Chris Hart calls the incumbent “a true Southern gentleman” who has “become complacent. He’s become ineffective.” Some think that’s why former Speaker David Wilkins found him the one Democrat nonthreatening enough to be a committee chair. Mr. Hart says “every legislator should have to articulate a vision.” Mr. Brown is a quiet man. We’ll see what he has to say in his interview May 22.
2:30 p.m. Rep. Kenny Bingham, who speaks proudly and often of his service on the Lexington 2 school board, spent a good bit of his interview explaining why he was among the minority who spoke up and voted for the latest attempt to provide subsidies for private schools. He said he didn’t think it would have impact; public schools shouldn’t fear the competition because “they got all the dang money in the world, more than any private school.” He thinks the whole issue is a waste of time, but “when you continue to say ‘no, I’m not going to do it,’” you find you don’t have a “place at the table.”
5:30 p.m. Tony Mizzell, Richland County Council Democrat, belabored a horticultural metaphor in explaining why he wants another term. He’s “planted a lot of seeds” and watered and weeded and so forth, “and things are just starting to grow.” He worked the analogy every which way save one: fertilizer. I wondered at that. Other politicians like to lay on lots of fertilizer.
Tuesday, 1:30 p.m. “This will be a positive 
campaign,” said Columbia businessman Bob Staton, seeking the GOP nomination for S.C. schools superintendent. “I think we’ve beat up public education so much in election cycles” that the electorate is sold on the idea that it’s just bad, and not going to get any better. “If you believe you can do something, you’re going to come a lot closer” to getting it done. “You don’t build up by tearing down.”
2:30 p.m. Oscar Lovelace, quixotic challenger for the GOP nod for governor, is
more eloquent than the incumbent and knows it: “I just believe strongly that the governor is missing some critical leadership skills” — communication, cooperation and common sense. “Our governor has never been CEO of anything before we made him CEO of South Carolina,” said the family doctor who has built a practice with 38 employees and 15,000 patients. “Our governor has never attended a public school in South Carolina…. I can speak from the bully pulpit. Mark Sanford can’t, because he hasn’t had the real-world experiences.”
4:30 p.m. Norman Jackson, challenging Mr. Mizzell, was a longtime member of the Richland County planning commission, and has a structural criticism: “I would not want to see more than two members from any one special interest on a commission,” he says. With “two developers, two real estate developers and a lawyer who deals with real estate,” he counts five. “They do a good enough job,” he admits. “I’m just saying….”
Wednesday, 10 a.m. “I love the detail,” said Jeff Willis, who describes himself as the only one of four Republicans seeking to be state treasurer with financial experience. “We need a more active, engaged treasurer,” he says, but he thinks the treasurer should continue to be an elective post, and he would keep the unconstitutional Budget and Control Board as is. “If I can do one-tenth what Grady Patterson has done, it would be an honor and a privilege.”
12:30 p.m. Rick Quinn, the former House majority leader seeking the same nomination, disagrees. He would ditch the Budget and Control Board and implement a “paradigm change” in the treasurer’s role. “We’ve had Grady so long that people don’t expect the treasurer to weigh in” on critical fiscal issues, such as tax reform. He would.
2 p.m. Two hours with Gov. Mark Sanford covered more than I 
can summarize here. The most interesting thing was his emerging advocacy of state funding for education (see editorial above). That came at the very end of the interview, and an aide dragged him away before he could get much into it. More on that later.
5 p.m. Mike Ryan is the only Republican who works in public
education seeking to be education superintendent. After 20 years in the Army (82nd Airborne), he retired as a major. He’s the assistant principal of Wando High School and, unlike many in public education and some in this race, believes in the Education Accountability Act. His is a “no-excuse mentality. Here’s the mission, and how do we get it done?” He corrects those who say we’re just “teaching to the test” with PACT. “We’re teaching to standards, which are on the test.” And in part thanks to those standards, “I honestly believe we’re ready to turn the corner.”
Thursday, 11:30 a.m. Retiree Keith Bush wants to be the Republican to take on Billy Derrick, Lexington County Council’s sole Democrat. Mr. Bush says he’s “a great supporter of user fees,” and he isn’t kidding. No checking out books for free at the public library if he had his way. And that’s just the start. “How are colleges funded? Tuition. How are private schools funded? Tuition. How are public schools funded? Taxes.” That makes no sense to him.
12:30 p.m. Some interviews range beyond local issues. “For years I’ve driven a Suburban,” said Lexington County Councilman John Carrigg. “The other day I went out and bought a little Saturn Vue.” He gets about twice the 14 miles per gallon that was the best he could do before. “We citizens have a responsibility to stop driving those trucks around.”
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Well, John Carrig just lost the Suburban vote. I wonder what he thinks of “citizens” burning recreational boat fuel out on the lake? Why stop there? Think of all the gasoline wasted at Darlington last night. Do we have a politician who will return to horseback? Now, that would be the winning strategy.
Then there is Oscar. Lovelace no less. Who is he going to cooperate so well with? Free spending status quo legislators who like to give breaks to the billboard companies maybe? Or how about college presidents who would like to have a new branch campus in every town. How about a new Clemson Clemson Road branch campus? Many of us are happy the governor doesn’t want to rubber stamp this legislature. I see Oscar as a wealthy doctor who owns a cash cow business but now wants to run the state of SC. Personally I hope he goes back to doctoring, and soon.
Hear, hear! May they ALL soon go back to some other form of screwing the people rather than via politics.
Hey Dave, give the guy a break. Heck, if evolutionary theory is right, Americans will soon be born without legs, since we don’t use them, anyway. Given our tendency toward obesity, we could just become blobs. Remains to be seen if the American joy in getting away from my neighbor and being as untouchable as I can in suburbia can be sustained with cheap energy, anyway.