Two candidates, two states -- and one jobs platform?

e-mail this story Dan Hoover • Two candidates, two states -- and one jobs platform? (08/01/04) • Irrelevant conventions can still play role (07/25/04) • Dump Cheney? Don't tell GOP (07/17/04) • Tenenbaum, Democrats reacting differently to Edwards (07/11/04) • DeMint victory was deja vu (06/27/04)

One jobs platform?

To hear Republicans tell it, the national Democratic Party stamped out identical jobs plans and handed one to Inez Tenenbaum, its U.S. Senate candidate in South Carolina, another to Erskine Bowles, the candidate in North Carolina.

Luke Byars, executive director of the state GOP, maintains that Tenenbaum's jobs plan is "eerily similar" to the one proposed by Bowles, a Charlotte investment banker and former Clinton White House chief of staff.

The respective plans were produced independently by the campaigns, without help from national party groups, Bowles and Tenenbaum aides said.

The spat is bigger than the origin of campaign white papers consumed only by political junkies.

It's about who gets to define Tenenbaum: The candidate? Or the opposition?

High stakes

At stake are the hearts, minds — and votes — of undecided and independent voters, who generally determine the winners in South Carolina elections.

Within its strategy, the state GOP appears to be functioning as the attack dog, allowing its nominee, U.S. Rep. Jim DeMint of Greenville, to take the high road of focusing mostly on policy.

"It appears on this campaign pop quiz Mrs. Tenenbaum has been looking over the shoulder of one of her Democratic classmates," said Katon Dawson, state GOP chairman.

Dawson didn't resist the impulse to get Tenenbaum's name in the same paragraph with Bill Clinton's with a reminder of Bowles' political pedigree.

Some elements of the plans appear superficially similar, but aren't identical, and both appear to offer state-specific details. Bowles released his in March; Tenenbaum's less voluminous plan came out in May.

Some similarities

The similarities mostly involve big-picture initiatives, but there are similarities between each state's economy and the external impacts on their traditional manufacturing bases.

"She claims to be someone who is not a (national) Democrat, and yet her plan is the same as (Bowles')," Byars said. "Interesting."

Kay Packett, Tenenbaum's spokeswoman, said the candidate personally developed the campaign's "South Carolina Works" plan and it would be "completely irrelevant for other states."

How do you transfer proposals for hydrogen fuel-cell research at Savannah River Site, development of Interstate 73 to promote Myrtle Beach tourism, and various tourism-related initiatives, Packett asked rhetorically.

GOP counter-spin

The GOP counter-spin involves a strategy that extends beyond a press release or two.

South Carolina Republicans are challenging what they contend is Tenenbaum's linkage with the national party and Bowles, with his Clinton ties, to try to trump her efforts to cast herself as a centrist, independent Democrat, not part of the national party establishment.

Last week, as she has since announcing, Tenenbaum traveled around the state emphasizing the "independent" nature of her candidacy and worldview.

"What I hear people saying is that they want an independent voice in the Senate," she told a group Wednesday night in Clinton.

In Spartanburg, she said the salient issue of the election is "jobs, jobs, jobs."

The Tenenbaum and Bowles jobs policies propose cracking down on trade cheaters, a moratorium on new international agreements, repealing tax breaks for companies that offshore jobs, new incentives for firms that don't, health-care tax credits for employers to offer more affordable insurance to workers, tobacco allotment buyouts, increased support for manufacturing extension partnerships.

Thinking alike

Susan Lagana, Bowles' spokeswoman, said there was no collusion with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee or the Tenenbaum campaign.

She said Bowles drafted the plan himself last winter "based on Erskine's experience and ideas he had, and some ideas other people have talked about.

"That plan is so specific to North Carolina, it has such a high, intensive focus on things Erskine has personally done that it could not be more personalized.

He wrote it himself," she said.

Tenenbaum's plan does contain "common-sense proposals germane to the Carolinas, Packett said.

"A good idea is a good idea," she said. "And both states have been hit equally hard by the trade policies Jim DeMint is so proud of."

Dan Hoover's column appears on Sunday. He can be reached at (864) 298-4883 or toll-free at (800) 274-7879, extension 4883, and by fax at (864) 298-4395.