Steve Thies, CEO of Spartanburg Steel Products, probably wasn’t looking for a punch line when he told President Bush about a sister company that makes beer kegs.

“We’re the only American beer keg manufacturer in North America,” Thies advised the president during his campaign stop Monday at BMW in Greer.

A bit of nervous laughter rippled through the crowd. After all, Bush had taken some heat in the 2000 presidential campaign for his history of drinking, including a 1976 DUI arrest in Maine.

The president broke the tension by pointing out: “I quit drinking in ’86.”

Thies couldn’t resist.

“Well, we did notice a dip in demand at a point in time — probably no relationship.”

NO LOVE LOST ... LITERALLY

Mark Sanford loves Americans for Tax Reform. He quoted the conservative organization during his campaign; he has cited them in his speeches; he signed their no-tax pledge.

So The Buzz was surprised to read that the love affair was seemingly not mutual.

Americans for Tax Reform recently released its list of “Gold Stars” — the top eight tax-cutting governors in the country — and Sanford was not on it.

Nor was he on the list of 10 runners-up, though five Democratic governors were.

Seems the Americans for Tax Reform ranked governors on their ability to lower taxes, not on the desire.

Sanford spokesman Will Folks was cool.

Think USC football, he said — unranked at the start of the 2000 season but victorious in a bowl game on New Year’s Day.

“Think ‘Miracle on Ice,’ think Florida Marlins,” Folks said. “It’s not where you are pre-season, it’s where you are at the end of the season.”

John Skorburg, managing editor of Budget & Tax News, which published the study, said it shouldn’t be read as a slam — at least not on Sanford.

Sanford wants to lower taxes, but the General Assembly didn’t follow his plan. “If it were left up to him,” Skorburg said, “he’d be on there.”

THE REB NOW THE LIB?

The S.C. Republican Party doesn’t have The Reb to kick around anymore.

Rebekah “Reb” Sutherland of New Ellenton announced recently that she has joined the Libertarian Party.

Sutherland finished sixth out of seven candidates in the 2002 Republican gubernatorial primary.

In a news release announcing her switch, Sutherland slammed the GOP for taking “a giant step to the left of the political spectrum.” That giant step, she said, was the national Republican chairman’s saying that the federal role in public education has been settled.

Sutherland is an avid home-schooler who has said public schools undermine individual freedoms.

Luke Byars, executive director of the S.C. Republican Party, was neither heartbroken nor magnanimous upon hearing of Sutherland’s switch to the Libertarian Party.

“I congratulate them for doubling their S.C. membership,” Byars said. “But seriously, my heartfelt condolences go out to Libertarians everywhere.”

There are more than two Libertarians in South Carolina, obviously. Libertarian Kenneth Curtis got more than 15,000 votes in the 2002 lieutenant governor’s election — more than five times the 2,770 votes Sutherland won in the gubernatorial primary.