COLUMBIA - Halfway through his four-year term, S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford has gotten none of his major proposals through the legislature. He's had numerous highly publicized clashes with leading lawmakers of his own majority party.

Sanford acknowledges that parts of his agenda lack public support. So where does all this leave Sanford politically?

"Among Republican governors, Sanford and Arnold Schwarzenegger are the most popular in the country," said Bill Carrick, a national Democratic political consultant based Los Angeles who has worked in numerous S.C. campaigns.

Candidates' polls during the 2004 election campaign consistently showed Sanford's job approval rating at higher than 60 percent - a figure no S.C. governor has achieved since Carroll Campbell, who left office in 1993.

Now, some lawmakers are predicting a breakout year for Sanford when they reconvene Jan. 11, despite a strained relationship with legislative leaders that culminated in the governor bringing oinking piglets to the Statehouse in the spring to protest what he said were pork-barrel projects passed over his vetoes.

Top priorities

Sanford never served in the General Assembly. Although he spent six years as a U.S. House member, he often was at odds with the Republican leadership in Congress.

As governor, Sanford's first two years in office were "mostly about him understanding how to work with the legislature and how to get things done in South Carolina government," said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston. "He's learned a lot, so I think you're going to see a lot of things happen very quickly during this legislative session."

Lawmakers also see the need to cooperate with Sanford, political observers say.

"The politicians have all seen the polls," Carrick said. "So the message is pretty clear to the Republican legislators: whether or not you like him personally, this guy is popular with your constituents, and they expect you to work with him."

Sanford has managed to maintain the persona he developed during his election campaign in 2002, that of an outsider who was going to shake up S.C. government and try novel approaches to solve what have been the state's chronic problems.

Cal Sims, an Orangeburg real estate broker who heard the governor speak to his Rotary club last month, said that, although he is a Democrat, he likes what he sees in Sanford.

"He's got a different way of doing some stuff," Sims said. "I believe in new ideas and standing up for what you believe, and not just negotiating everything out."

Sanford has positioned himself as someone who is being thwarted by the dug-in good ol' boys in the legislature, even though both the House and Senate are Republican-controlled.

"I think people know where I'm coming from; they know that I'm trying," Sanford said during an interview in his office last week. "So whether the Senate does or doesn't adopt some of our major legislative agenda items, it's on their back."

He said he plans to run for re-election in 2006.

Since October, Sanford has been traveling the state to drum up grass-roots support for his "Contract for Change," his top legislative priorities.

One of them is to change the rules of the Senate, where filibusters - or the threat of them - blocked virtually every bill Sanford was pushing.

The S.C. House, with stricter time limits on debates, passed 14 of the 16 items the governor identified as priorities during the 2004 session.

A key item that passed the House but died in the Senate was cutting the state income tax to 4.75 percent from its current top rate of 7 percent. The income tax cut is at the top of Sanford's agenda for the upcoming year.

Also on the list:

Reorganizing state government by putting the state Department of Education, the state's central administrative functions and several other agencies directly under the governor. Currently, they answer to a combination of independent elected officials and semi-autonomous boards.

Giving tax credits of up to $4,000 a year to parents to reimburse them for private-school tuition.

Putting limits on the damages plaintiffs can collect in civil lawsuits.

Making it easier to shut down filibusters in the Senate.

Speaking last month in Orangeburg, Sanford said: "We can boil it all down to: How do we become more competitive in South Carolina, in attracting businesses, jobs and capital?"

He said cutting the income tax will help small businesses create jobs, and reorganizing state government will make it more efficient and accountable.

Sanford said he's pushing tuition credits because it's politically impossible to change much of what's wrong with the state's education system.

"If policies won't change it," he said, "will market forces change it?" He said lawsuit reform would have "a direct impact on small businesses' ability to do business."

Critics' concerns

State Rep. Jim Smith, D-Richland, who just stepped down as House Democratic leader, said what concerns him about Sanford's priorities "is what's not on the list. There's nothing about improving public education - only an effort to undermine it further. There's nothing on the list that really focuses on trying to develop a knowledge-based economy and trying to make up for the losses of manufacturing jobs."

All the proposals reflect Sanford's belief in limited government, which goes over well in a state as conservative as South Carolina, said College of Charleston political science professor Bill Moore.

The item least likely to pass, said Moore, is tuition tax credits. He said the issue cuts across party lines, especially in areas with strong public schools. York County is one such area, and state Sen. Wes Hayes, R-Rock Hill, said he has strong reservations about the governor's proposal.

"I'm willing to listen, but right now, I'm very skeptical about taking public money from a school system that has been cut because of tough economic times," Hayes said.

At the same time, Hayes predicted that Sanford's other agenda items all have a good chance of being enacted, the Senate rules change included.

"We've been, to a great extent, at the mercy of a minority," Hayes said. "Any bill of any real controversy has been blocked."

He said, "A lot of us determined early on that if the Republican Party maintained a majority this time, we needed to change the rules."

As for Sanford, Hayes said, "I think he's been the most principled governor that I've served with, in that he's extremely consistent and fair. People are used to governors checking the polls ... before they say anything, but he doesn't do that."

Hayes said, "He's extremely popular with the public, and if you're going to take him on in a direct confrontation, you'd better be willing to count the cost."