Campbell name could test dynasty theory

e-mail this story print this story Dan Hoover • Campbell name could test dynasty theory (03/06/05) • Bauer still supports tort reform (02/13/05) • President Sanford? Perhaps (02/05/05) • McAuliffe paved way for Democratic fund raising (01/29/05) • GOP, Dems eyeing state for '08 (01/29/05)

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His dad, populist Kerr Scott, at the head of the "Branchhead Boys," a coalition of textile workers and farmers, had won the governor's office in 1948 in the only race that mattered then, the Democratic primary. Kerr Scott won a U.S. Senate seat in 1954, but died in office four years later.

Restless on the outside looking in, Bob Scott challenged incumbent Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt in the 1980 primary. Scott didn't carry even one of North Carolina's 100 counties.

The magic was gone. The Branchhead Boys had gone elsewhere.

Scott learned that without the aura of power offered by continuity, political organizations wither as once devoted followers find fresh horses to ride.

Top billing That theory will be tested 16 months from now when Mike Campbell, son of former two-term South Carolina Gov. Carroll Campbell, tests the magic of his family's political name in a primary challenge to Republican Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer.

He left office a decade back and was last on the ballot in 1990, but young Campbell's dad remains a popular figure within a state Republican Party that he helped move to dominance. In recent years, the former governor from Greenville dropped from public view, battling Alzheimer's disease from his retirement home in Georgetown.

How much does political pedigree matter?

To Clarence Davis, a Columbia attorney and Republican activist, "That is the unanswered question. It'll play a part, but how much, I don't know."

Warren Tompkins, a Columbia lobbyist-political consultant who was the elder Campbell's first-term chief of staff, said the name should play "prominently," but the grass-roots element of the Campbell organization has since scattered. It was 1990 when it last coalesced around a Campbell.

Tompkins, who hasn't taken sides as yet, said, "There is a core out there, not so much in the political world, but in fund raising and that part of the organization will be much easier to put back in place."

Bauer beat odds Bauer, 35, is credited with being a hard-working campaigner who was underestimated by opponents in winning uphill state House and Senate contests and lieutenant governor in 2002.

"I've run against eight big political names, (but) I'm not running against Carroll Campbell. Last time I checked, he's not even in the race."

The elder Campbell "did a fine job running this state and has a wonderful legacy, but does that transcend to his child? I don't know," Bauer said.

Mike Campbell, a Columbia businessman, sees the name guaranteeing only an audience, not necessarily votes.

"Once you get that audience, it's incumbent upon you to present your own message, basically, sell yourself. That's about as far as it carries you," Campbell said, leaving unmentioned the existing elements of his father's still formidable network.

But Warren Mowry, a former Greenville County GOP chairman, offers a potentially telling observation about young Campbell: "I don't know him. I was once in a room with him — and about 2,000 other people."

Unknown Campbell Neal Thigpen is a Republican activist and political science professor at Francis Marion University. He was Gov. Campbell's choice to chair the state Election Commission in the late 1980s. "Carroll is a friend. I've never met (Mike Campbell); I don't know him and that's kind of indicative of what he's facing," Thigpen said.

"Mike might be a chip off the old block, he might be Carroll all over again, but Carroll's been out of office a decade and the network's been stretched and the people have gone on to be loyal to others and new people have come along," Thigpen said.

"I expect that," Mike Campbell said, adding a belief that time and exposure will cure the problem.

"Obviously, there are a lot of people we've maintained relationships with over the years, but there are others who are going to have to become acquainted with me or reacquainted with me because they haven't known me since my childhood," he said.

Campbell, 36, was born in Greenville, the center of the vote-rich heartland of the state GOP. That's the good news. The bad news is he hasn't lived in Greenville since before he started shaving, leaving at age 11 for Washington after his dad was elected to a second term as 4th District congressman.

Different dynasties South Carolina has had dynasties before, but they've tended to be of the one-man variety, based on multiple offices and longevity. Among them "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman, "Cotton Ed" Smith, Sol Blatt and Strom Thurmond.

The state has something of a track record when it comes to family political dynasties, according to Walter Edgar, University of South Carolina author-historian.

Edgar cited Burnett R. Maybank Jr., who won a Greenville legislative seat in 1952 after his U.S. senator-father died. Maybank Jr. was elected lieutenant governor in 1958, but lost a bid for governor in the 1962 Democratic primary and retired to Charleston.

The Richardson-Manning clan produced six governors from 1802 until 1919 "and could easily be called a dynasty," Edgar noted.
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.