The question — How do you integrate faith and values into politics? — would have been red meat for the old Charlie Condon.

But when it came up at a recent debate at the Embassy Suites hotel, the new Condon listened politely as some of the other Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate railed against gay marriage and Hollywood values, defended the Bible against unnamed assailants and stirred a roomful of religious conservatives to applause.

Then Condon, the silver-haired former S.C. attorney general, began by saying he wanted to “echo” what one of the other candidates, former Gov. David Beasley, had said in describing an assault on traditional values under way in this country.

But Condon did so in terms that were much more subdued.

His answer, which drew no applause in an event sponsored by Bethany Christian Services, an anti-abortion group, might surprise anyone familiar with the old Charlie Condon, who rarely missed an opportunity to push emotional buttons.

“I do really believe, as I’m sure everyone on this panel believes, that God does have a place on the public square,” Condon said, speaking evenly. “And we’re now in, I think, a very critical time in this state and this country’s history. We’re now debating issues such as whether God should be in our Pledge of Allegiance, the meaning of marriage. Who would have thought that we’re at the point now where there are significant portions of our population and media and opinion leaders that are even debating this question?”

This from a man who in 1994 suggested an “electric sofa” might be used to execute criminals at the same time; who in January 2001 declared “open season” on home invaders, saying homeowners who killed them should not be prosecuted; and who formed a multitude of task forces and issued news releases in what seemed like an endless quest for airtime on the evening news.

Condon, the 50-year-old Charlestonian who was South Carolina’s attorney general from 1995-2003, suddenly seems more like the son of a prominent Charleston retailer and bearer of a Duke University law degree that he is. Trading sound bites for policy papers, he has opted to reach out to S.C. voters in a new way — by reading and thinking and talking about issues.

“I think he’s thought about it and decided that being the real Charlie Condon — more reflective and thoughtful and smart — is not such a bad thing,” said Cam Crawford, who worked for Condon for five years in the attorney general’s office. “And, I think, the Charlie Condon you’re seeing now is the real Charlie Condon.”

Crawford, a longtime political operative who is now executive director of South Carolina First, a group of businesses and organizations fighting for tort reform, said Condon’s approach represents a departure from his old style, which was borne of his background in Lowcountry politics.

“It was kind of like a barroom brawl down there,” Crawford said. “He took that style statewide, and I just don’t think it’s a good sell.”

HARD LESSONS

Whether Condon — who has worked as general counsel for a Mount Pleasant insurance company since leaving office — can live down the high profile he adopted as attorney general remains to be seen. He left office just over a year ago, not long after finishing a distant third in the 2002 GOP gubernatorial primary, with 16 percent of the vote.

“His gubernatorial run was a disaster from his perspective,” said University of South Carolina political science professor Brad Gomez. “So if he’s going to make it out of the primary, he has to find a way to do so without necessarily making himself a lightning rod.”

One factor working in Condon’s favor, Gomez said, is that another contender for the Senate nomination, former Gov. Beasley, is attempting a political comeback, too.

“Political transformations and reinventions, even of the miraculous sort, are relatively common in politics,” Gomez said. “We can think of someone like (former President Richard) Nixon maybe being the biggest example of not so much reinventing himself but making a comeback.”

Condon, who turns 51 next month, doesn’t share the theory that there is a “new” Charlie Condon. He said he simply is putting the hard lessons learned during the ’02 campaign into action.

“I use the word communication,” he said. “I really feel like — same person, same belief system, same consistency, same — you name it. But it just — not to point any fingers except the finger right here. ... I did not do a good job of communicating that.”

As he speaks, Condon is riding down U.S. 25 between Aiken and Edgefield in a large recreational vehicle dubbed the “Limited Government Express” — rolling proof that Condon has not completely abandoned gimmickry.

On its sides are two giant images, one of smiling cowgirls from the “Cowgirl Hall of Fame” in Fort Worth, Texas, and another from a model rain forest constructed in Iowa. Both received money in recent federal budgets. Both are cited by Condon as examples of runaway federal spending.

Inside, as Condon bemoans the excesses of government over the thrumming of the engine, he sounds less like a candidate seeking attention than a man who thinks Republicans in Congress — and maybe even the White House — have lost touch with the values of voters who sent them there.

“I think there’s a mind-set of whatever it takes to get re-elected kind of thing,” he said. “You know, the prescription drug thing, I’ve seen the polls, it polls very well. And, of course, if you call my mother and ask her, ‘Would it be a good idea to have prescription drugs paid for by the federal government?’ of course, you’re going to say, ‘Yes.’

“But I would like to think you ask her the next question: ‘We’re at war, running deficits of $500 billion, would you be willing to sacrifice a bit now for the sake of the country?’ She’d quickly say, ‘Yes,’ too.”

The Medicare reform bill approved by Congress in November isn’t the only measure Condon takes as an indicator that Republicans in Washington, who hold majorities in both houses of Congress, have lost touch with conservative values. He thinks rampant pork-barrel spending is a clear sign they have broken away from their philosophical moorings.

“I don’t know what’s happened.”

ON THE ISSUES

What you get with Condon these days, then, are policy proposals rooted firmly in conservative ideology.

Quoting Thomas Jefferson — “The government is best which governs least” — Condon says he wants to trim the size of the federal bureaucracy through “fiscal discipline” — which he said means everything is on the table except military spending.

“Whatever the military says they need to defend the country, we’ve got to be prepared to give it to them,” Condon said. “I say that we give the troops the stuff that they need to fight with, period. That’s got to be the top priority.”

Condon also would increase funding for No Child Left Behind, the president’s education initiative, which critics argue was not fully funded.

Most other federal programs should be considered for cuts, he said, to begin lowering the federal deficit.

Condon’s desire to get a handle on spending doesn’t preclude cutting taxes, however. If the first vote Condon faced in Washington called for making the president’s tax cuts permanent, he said he would vote yes wholeheartedly.

“I think that’s essential for job creation, for enhancing government revenue,” Condon said. “I’m just convinced that that has done what the president had hoped it would do. It’s gotten the economy going and actually enhanced government revenue.”

So where would he find the savings to reduce the federal deficit? Condon said he would target fraud and waste, and try to slow the growth of “entitlement spending” programs like Social Security and Medicare.

He proposes lowering the cap on annual growth in Social Security and Medicare from its current level of 5.6 percent to 4.6 percent. If that affects benefits paid when the number of recipients balloons as the baby boom generation grows older, Condon says tough choices will have to be made.

“You’ve got to have the political courage to talk about that and put that on the table,” he said. “And so absolutely, whatever it takes — whatever it takes to get the job done, to get that 4.6 percent.”

Condon’s campaign is being coordinated by John Lerner, the Washington political consultant who ran Gov. Mark Sanford’s successful 2002 campaign, including his defeat of Condon in the GOP primary.

Condon said he found Lerner’s issues-oriented approach appealing after seeing it up close during the 2002 GOP runoff, when Condon endorsed Sanford, and in the general election.

Condon said his new style fits the campaign he wants to run.

“There’s no Sanford playbook here,” Condon said. “This is a Condon playbook. I mean, ‘Limited Government Express,’ the policy and position papers, talking about what I did as attorney general — this is my campaign.”

RUNNING ON A RECORD

Condon’s attempt to shed the lightning rod image he acquired as attorney general is not an attempt to run from his record.

He speaks proudly of what he did as attorney general, saying he promoted victims’ rights, helped speed up the death penalty appeals process and successfully pushed for longer mandatory sentences for violent offenders. The state’s crime rate dropped significantly during his tenure, he said.

Condon said his experience working at the local law enforcement level would serve him well in the Senate, where homeland security and domestic terrorism are sure to be ongoing concerns.

“I think I can do quite well with that on the policy side, I really do, given the life experiences I’ve had, particularly with local law enforcement,” Condon said. “What works and doesn’t work? How do you get things done on the local level?”

Crawford, Condon’s former aide, said Condon’s style of operating as attorney general often clouded the fact that he made the office a vital, aggressive force on law enforcement issues.

“I think he was a great attorney general,” Crawford said. “His style was one thing, but you look at what he got done and he really did a lot. He was just very aggressive.”

There were times during Condon’s tenure as attorney general when his efforts to draw attention and his attempts to be effective seemed incompatible to local law enforcement officials, who give Condon mixed reviews.

In early 2001, for example, after Condon declared “open season” on home invaders, he was criticized roundly for his handling of a case in Walterboro in which a woman was accused of stabbing her lover.

Condon decided not to prosecute the woman for murder because he believed she was defending herself in her home.

“I never agreed on this,” Mike Devin, then Walterboro’s police chief, said at the time. “I was not given the option to give an opinion. It just all of a sudden happened.”

At the time, Condon said he would consult with all agencies involved in a case in the future, before dropping charges against people who defend themselves in their homes.

Last week, Condon said he was surprised when Devin objected. The decision not to prosecute elicited no objections from SLED, which had taken over the case, Condon said. And, after Devin objected, Condon said he sent the police chief a letter saying he was free to reopen the case. “He declined to.”

Randolph Murdaugh III, the Lowcountry solicitor who handled the Walterboro case, said he had a lot of good experiences with Condon’s office but felt Condon’s desire for publicity sometimes interfered with good law enforcement.

“I thought his office was an efficient and effective office, but, in certain instances, he played to the press as opposed to the people,” Murdaugh said.

Of the “open season” policy, Murdaugh said: “To emphasize the right to shoot somebody on a home invasion just invites something bad happening.”

Murdaugh cited another instance in which he said Condon tied the hands of prosecutors unnecessarily by issuing an edict that seemed geared to gain attention. That was an order Condon issued in 1995 saying that cases involving a second violent crime could not be plea-bargained.

That was a problem, Murdaugh said, because sometimes prosecutors don’t have enough evidence to convince a jury a defendant is guilty. As a result, they might welcome a plea bargain.

Lexington County solicitor Donnie Myers said he knew some solicitors weren’t comfortable with Condon’s high-profile approach. But, Myers said, when he dealt directly with Condon, he felt the Charlestonian “did a pretty good job” as attorney general.

“You know, some of them are low-key and some of them are a lot of publicity,” Myers said. “Charlie was a lot of publicity.”

THE SAME CHARLIE

The person who is perhaps most surprised and amused by all the discussion of “two Charlies” is Emily Condon, his wife of 24 years and his best friend by both their accounts.

A practicing physician who stayed in their home on Sullivan’s Island with their four children during Condon’s eight years as attorney general — he commuted home on the weekends — Emily Condon said she has known only the thoughtful, even-tempered person she sees at home.

“Since I’ve heard reporters say the ‘new Charlie Condon,’ I’ve always said, ‘What are they talking about?’” she said.

Emily Condon said she and her husband talked about his work as attorney general but didn’t spend much time on the subject of his image. She said his success in his bid for re-election as attorney general helped convince her he was successful.

“I really didn’t think about his public image,” she said. “What I was interested in was if he was meeting the challenges of the job, and I felt that he was.”

Emily Condon said her husband works hard at home and on the job, and has a gentle curiosity about people. She said if she thought about it, she might have advised him to be himself as much as possible, but she didn’t feel she should tell him how to handle his political work.

“To me, the thing that would make the most sense is clearly to try to project who you are and what you’re about,” she said.

And that is where Charlie Condon ended up. He said he has enjoyed the “arcane budget analysis stuff” from think tanks and other sources he has been poring over in preparation for the race.

He also thinks it gives him an advantage over the other candidates.

“I’ve spent a lot of time on this policy,” he said. “And I don’t get the sense that anybody else has done that.”