On Monday, Kuhn called Campsen hypocritical for preaching reform in Columbia while his family used political connections to escape paying $1.12 million of a $2.44 million debt owed by their Fort Sumter tour boat company.

A central player in getting the debt reduced was Gov. Mark Sanford, who as a South Carolina congressman in 2001, put a little-known piece of legislation into an emergency spending bill ordering the park service to settle the dispute.

Sanford's directive came after the Campsens, family friends with Sanford for 20 years, had lost several attempts in court and in Congress to get their tab reduced.

Campsen said Monday his family did nothing wrong in trying to get relief from what they felt was an excessive increase in its franchise fee.

"What this was," he said, "was the congressional delegation standing up for a small business that was falling through the cracks in a Washington bureaucracy."

Most other members of the South Carolina congressional delegation backed them in the dispute, said Campsen, who charged Kuhn was raising the issue as an act of desperation ahead of their June 22 primary runoff for Senate District 43.

Kuhn said the course of events shows that Campsen, then a member of the S.C. House of Representatives from the Isle of Palms, used his family and political clout to get a reduction in a debt "which resulted in a taxpayer-funded $1 million financial windfall for his private business."

He added, "I've spent my three years that I have been honored to serve in the state Senate fighting for the taxpayers against special interests and special interest legislation." Campsen, he charged, "is a special interest."

Though he said he wasn't being critical of Sanford, Kuhn noted that Sanford's legislation ordering the park service to mediate was done through the same kind of "bobtailing" that Sanford has criticized in Columbia.

"Bobtailing" is when unrelated bills are combined and passed by a legislative body.

The dispute between the National Park Service and Fort Sumter Tours Inc., lasted more than 10 years. In 1993, the business sued the park service over a franchise fee hike that tripled from 4.25 percent to 12 percent of the company's gross income. The Campsens insisted that park service accountants in Washington had over-calculated the company's income.

One complaint was that the park service added profits from non-Fort Sumter trips, such as nighttime dinner cruises. The case went to federal court and to Congress, where it drew some allies from South Carolina -- though many others in Congress opposed it.

After Sanford's legislation ordering the park service to "work with" Fort Sumter Tours Inc., was passed, officials announced in July 2002 the dispute had been settled and that the company would pay $1.12 million of the debt to cover extra fees from June 13, 1991, to Dec. 31, 2000.

Spokesman Will Folks said Sanford stood behind the legislation and noted Sen. Fritz Hollings introduced a Senate bill that would have done the same thing.

"This governor has always stood up for small businesses and the best interests of individual taxpayers," Folks said.

He added "You would think that an entire congressional delegation standing up for a small business that was being unfairly treated by big government would be something Sen. Kuhn would support. It's unfortunate he doesn't."

Kuhn said the issue is consistency and that Campsen "stands for everything I don't stand for."

Campsen finished first in the primary with 42 percent of the vote; Kuhn finished second with 36 percent.

Since the June 8 primary, both sides have stepped up their rhetoric. Kuhn called a special face-to-face meeting with Campsen on June 9, but both sides today disagree on its purpose. Kuhn said it was about the tour boat legislation; Campsen said it was about the course and conduct of the race.

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