Lawmakers say Sanford favors talk over tough

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With legislators deadlocked on the budget, Gov. Mark Sanford issued a press release. Then another. Later, he walked upstairs to the lawmakers' lair to lobby.

Campbell, when the situation demanded it, could revert to a world-view that wasn't far from his years as a tough, pool-shooting teen with a pack of Luckies wrapped in his T-shirt sleeve: He knocked heads.

Sanford, who grew up in affluence and had the formal education that eluded Campbell until later in life, takes a more genteel, reflective tack, although some lawmakers say that in recent days he has begun to show interest in the give-and-take that keeps legislative wheels greased.

Two Republicans, two very different approaches to getting what they want.

"He's a very polite, kind, nice person," Senate Minority Leader John Land, D-Manning, said of Sanford, "whereas Carroll Campbell was very forceful and had a reputation for being able to get mean. That's not criticism. That's fact. He would act out more than this governor, who tries more to persuade.

"We'll have to see in the long run which method is best," Land said.

Campbell was doggedly persistent on the budget because of his years in the state Senate and U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, to the point that he "viewed the process as one of the more important functions of his office," said Warren Tompkins, a Columbia consultant-lobbyist and Campbell's first-term chief of staff.

Will Folks, Sanford's spokesman, said the governor's "style has always been substantive, and sometimes that's confrontational. But he always strives for a discourse based on substance."

Travel time

Where Campbell might have kept the phone lines humming during a critical weekend, Sanford took to the air.

On May 22, with the budget still in flux and the Senate debating his signature legislation — the beginning of a phaseout of the state's income tax — Sanford boarded a plane and flew with his family to Bermuda.

Aides said he was an invited dignitary for an event related to the Charleston-Bermuda yacht race, a trip that raised some legislative eyebrows and aroused sardonic humor in editorial cartoonists.

Taking a break on a sofa outside the chamber last week, Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, asked Folks, "Where's the governor?"

After being told he'd left about two hours earlier, Ford shook his head, muttering, "That's not good."

Around the time that Sanford's plane landed, the Senate voted 28-18 to kill his plan to swap a 53-cent cigarette tax hike and the first round of income tax cuts.

Senate-House conferees reached an agreement on the $5.3 billion budget after an overnight session Thursday.

Their product didn't include Sanford's plan, which had been rejected by the House in March and by the Senate a week ago, although the tobacco tax issue contained in separate Senate legislation remained on life support as the Legislature headed into its final week.

As things dragged into last week, Sanford held one-on-ones with key lawmakers, occasionally stalking the halls of the Senate Office Building and trekking to the cloakroom.

Campbell, now living in retirement in Georgetown, came up in the rough-and-tumble politics of a heavily Democratic South Carolina. He is now battling early-onset Alzheimer's and makes few public appearances.

He often liked to recount a story of a friend who planned to run for a local office as a Republican, only to be beaten in a phone booth for his temerity.

That, Campbell has said, marked his own entry into the world of politics.

Different problems

Campbell was a state legislator, then a four-term congressman before winning the governorship in 1986, heralding what would become a Republican takeover of South Carolina politics. But in his two terms, he remained a minority governor who had to deal with a Legislature still controlled by Democrats.

Tompkins, saying he could speak only for Campbell's approach, said Campbell, as a former member, "knew those guys, how they worked and was so knowledgeable about the process."

What Campbell achieved came through force of will, timing, relationships and an understanding of the legislative culture, Tompkins and other friends have said.

Sanford, a Lowcountry developer and relative political newcomer, started politics by winning a congressional seat in 1994, campaigning as a nonpolitician, then walked away from it six years later, only to be wooed into the 2002 governor's race.

Campbell's job was tougher, starting with nine GOP senators and 23 House members; eight years later it was still just 16 and 52.

Although his party now commands comfortable legislative majorities, Sanford remains the outsider that he was in Congress, said some legislators.

Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, said in a Thursday floor speech chiding Sanford that "I don't always buy what comes up from the governor."

Getting one's way with the Legislature is often a stylistic matter, Tompkins said.

"Who you are and where you meet has a lot to do with success or failure," Tompkins said. "The Governor's Office is a powerful place. Governors have a tendency to deal more from a position of strength when they're sitting in their own territory."

Seating matters

Tompkins said the seating arrangements dictated the nature of meetings in Campbell's office.

"You could always tell what kind of conversation was going to take place. If he sat in the wingback chair and had people sit on the couch, it was going to be more relaxed than if he sat at his desk and looked across at them."

Campbell used the trappings of office to the fullest extent, Tompkins said.

"It's something you shouldn't give away because you don't have a whole lot of tools," Tomkins said. "I'm not being critical; it's just totally different styles."

Sanford has met legislators in his office from time to time, from get-acquainted sessions to bill-shaping discussions.

Sen. John Drummond, D-Ninety Six, said of Campbell, "When he'd try to get something done, he'd call the leadership together, sit down and work things out. Not only a budget impasse but every major issue. He'd bring us together.

"The present governor? I haven't seen him," Drummond said, although that was before Sanford began making his forays upstairs.

To Sen. Larry Martin, R-Pickens, "it's a matter of style and how he operates."

He praised Sanford for "making sure everybody knows he's absolutely approachable" and, from a standpoint particularly appreciated by a legislator, "he's made it clear what he's willing to live with."

Sen. John Courson, R-Columbia, attributed the Campbell-Sanford differences to their political backgrounds.

"He was very specific about what he wanted to see the General Assembly do. There was no ambiguity about where he stood," Courson said of Campbell.

Abstract vs. specifics

Martin said Sanford, not having served in the Legislature, arrived in the Governor's Office and began "dealing from a philosophical point in that he was proposing ideas in the abstract, and sometimes without conversing with the leadership. (Now) he's over in the Senate meeting with the leadership, which I think is good."

Both men are strong philosophical conservatives, Courson said.

"Mark is sometimes more of an idea person. If he had a problem initially, it was that he would come up with ideas in the abstract and present them. People were surprised, because there wasn't any specificity to them. That would follow later. With Carroll Campbell, the idea and specificity were connected," he said.

Land recalled that "Carroll stayed in the Governor's Office and called us to him, whereas this morning when I walked into the cloakroom, there was Mark Sanford sitting on the couch talking to several senators, the third or fourth time I've seen him up here.

"He's low-key in his requests, certainly not threatening in any way. Pulled me aside this morning and wanted to know what I thought about the cigarette tax (increase) and income tax reduction getting passed. Told him it was caught up in Senate politics."

Sanford adapting?

Sanford may be warming to the legislative give-and-take.

Before the May 22 vote, Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, said the governor isn't locked into his exact income tax reduction proposal.

"He thought his idea was a good one, but he said in order to get it passed, he was willing to compromise. That's what's going on now. It might make a difference. He's extended the olive branch," Hutto said.

He quoted Sanford as saying, "Look, meet me halfway on this. I've got to have a tax cut, but it doesn't have to be what I first said. If you've got another one equal to or similar to that, I'll look at them."

Hutto said it was "a positive step, to have him say it doesn't have to be his way to achieve the same goal."

James T. Hammond contributed to this report.

Dan Hoover covers politics and can be reached at 298-4883.