GOP candidates say they can win speaker's gavel

COLUMBIA, S.C. - None of the four GOP candidates who want to replace House Speaker David Wilkins are ready to drop out of the race and all say they could win if the race were held now.

It's a big if.

Speculation to the contrary, President Bush hasn't nominated the Greenville Republican as U.S. ambassador to Canada and the candidates say Wilkins hasn't told them he's leaving.

Speculation has come and gone for four years about Wilkins. He twice led South Carolina campaign efforts for President Bush, opening wallets enough here to join the ranks of Bush's Rangers. He also helped Bush's father's presidential campaigns.

In January 2001, the late Sen. Strom Thurmond wanted the Greenville lawyer for a federal district judgeship. Later that year, Bush wanted him as ambassador to Chile. Wilkins stayed, saying he wanted to finish a session of the General Assembly dealing with a new lottery law and redrawing district lines.

On Monday, expectations ran high that Bush would tap Wilkins during his Statehouse visit. But Bush kept to a script of talking about Social Security.

Those who want to replace Wilkins have settled in to a waiting game, but still say they could win if the race were held today.

"Well, the good news is the race isn't being held today," House Speaker Pro Tem Doug Smith, R-Spartanburg, said. "Nevertheless, I'm very optimistic."

Five years substituting for Wilkins when he is away and five years as Rules Committee chairman "gives me a strong advantage from the standpoint of how we conduct business in the House," Smith said.

Smith said he could offer a "seamless, transparent way to move from one speaker to the other without a lot of commotion, a lot of turnover," including in committees.

Smith faces Rep. Bobby Harrell of Charleston, who runs the Ways and Means Committee; Rep. Jim Harrison of Columbia, the Judiciary Committee chairman and Rep. Harry Cato of Traveler's Rest, who leads the Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee.

Observers regard Harrell and Harrison as the contest's front-runners.

"I have a lot of members on both side of the aisle who told me they would vote for me," Harrell. "But we're a long way from an election happening," Harrell said.

Harrison said he is "very encouraged" with "commitments across regional boundaries and across party lines and across racial lines. I've got broad support around the state."

"I feel good about where I am," Cato said. If "the stars line up," he can win the race, but he should have started lining up votes earlier, he said. "It needed to start about two years ago. It seems like there were a lot of commitments that were made long ago."

Wilkins won't step down, Harrell said, until the U.S. Senate confirms him. That could take months.

It usually takes two to four months to complete background checks and prepare nominees for Senate Foreign Affairs Committee confirmation hearings. A nomination announced now likely would leave Wilkins with the speaker's gavel through the end of the session.

If Republicans want to hold an election after the June 2 adjournment, they'll need a two-thirds vote in the House and Senate to allow a special session.