Sanford foe has his work cut out

By Aaron Gould Sheinin

Knight Ridder

COLUMBIA - Democrat Tommy Moore was politicking in rock-ribbed Republican Lexington County at Batesburg-Leesvilles Poultry Festival in May when several Republicans approached.

They told Moore they would cast their votes in the GOP gubernatorial primary for upstart Republican challenger Oscar Lovelace - not Gov. Mark Sanford. But come November, the GOP voters told Moore, they'd vote for him.

For Moore, the longshot Democratic nominee for S.C. governor, the hope of the Poultry Festival was reinforced by last week's primaries.

In the Republican and Democratic primaries, more than 384,000 votes were cast. More than 159,000 went to Sanford.

But 224,000 went to someone else.

While he trounced Lovelace - a political newcomer with litle money - Sanford's victory was unimpressive enough to change Moore's mission. What once looked like Mission Impossible is now just Mission Improbable.

Standing in Moore's way is the fact that South Carolina is turning into a one-party, Republican state.

Plus, there's Sanford's campaign war chest, stuffed with $4.4 million - and counting - through Tuesday's Republican primary. Sanford has no plans to sit on the money. He launched his first ad of the general election campaign Friday, and his campaign manager made it clear the governor has the resources to run ads through Election Day, Nov. 7.

To be competitive in the fall, Moore has a lot of work to do.

He needs money. The $405,000 that was in his campaign account on May 29, the most recent deadline for filing with the state, must be multiplied several times.

Last week, Moore's campaign declined to provide updated financial numbers. However, on primary night, S.C. Democratic Party chairman Joe Erwin said Sanford's showing was weak enough that the national party might pump some money into the state to help Moore.

On Friday, Erwin said he's working on that.

"I just finished three phone calls about that," Erwin said. "I don't know when we'll know, but the story is that a year ago, that didn't even look like a possibility."

Moore also must take advantage of the animosity in Lexington County toward Sanford, becoming the first Democrat in years to take large numbers of votes from the self-styled "most Republican county east of the Mississippi."

Moore must turn out voters in a dozen traditionally Democratic counties, including Calhoun, Orangeburg and Richland in the Midlands. Then-Gov. Jim Hodges got 10,000 fewer votes in those counties in 2002 than he did in 1998, when he unseated Republican Gov. David Beasley.

Sanford faces challenges too.

The first is win back Lexington County voters, angered by his veto of a Lexington hospital project. Absent that, Sanford must figure out a way to win re-election without the 22,000-vote margin that he won in that county four years ago, when he ousted Hodges from the Governor's Mansion.

Looking at Lexington

Moore sees a path to victory.

It's about people, he said. "It's not about politics; it's not about partisanship."

S.C. voters, used to picking Republican candidates, are not afraid to cross over and vote for a Democrat, he said.

"It's not that they're blind, loyal Republicans," Moore said. "They just tend to vote Republican. They say they just need a reason, and I'm their reason."

Moore said he has had offers from Republicans to launch a "Republicans for Tommy Moore" effort, but he declined to provide names.

"At the poultry festival in Batesburg-Leesville, several Republicans came up and told me they were going to vote for Oscar Lovelace in the primary, but, 'We're going to vote for you in November.'"

The first part of that statement came true Tuesday, when Prosperity physician Lovelace got almost 2,000 more votes than Sanford in Lexington.

Of course, Sanford trounced Lovelace statewide, winning 65 percent of the GOP vote. But the 35 percent that Lovelace collected surpassed the 28 percent won by Bill Able, the only other GOP primary candidate ever to challenge a sitting Republican governor.

But the question is: Do the votes for Lovelace translate into votes for Moore in November?

Maybe, said Sen. Nikki Setzler, D-Lexington.

"People in Lexington County are very independent minded," he said. "They're going to vote for a candidate they believe in, and they're going to vote responsibly."

Rep. Ted Pitts, R-Lexington, disagrees.

"The majority of those votes [for Lovelace] were protest votes," Pitts said. "A lot of those were Republicans who think this governor needs to do a better job of communicating and getting things done."

Sanford acknowledges he suffered in Lexington County because he vetoed a bill that would have granted Lexington Medical Center a license to develop a new heart center.

That veto, sustained by the General Assembly, still stings, Pitts said, and he expects some prominent Lexington lawmakers and other "prominent Republican names" to back Moore.

But, Pitts said, "Aside from those big names, I don't think you're going to see any overwhelming number of Republicans vote for Tommy Moore."

Why?

Moore's issues "are not Republican issues," Pitts said. "I don't think that's what the Republican ideology is about."