The S.C. Democratic Party is said to be heartened by the voters' return of Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. to City Hall for an eighth term. What party leaders seem to be ignoring is the fact that Tuesday's election was, for the first time, non-partisan. The Democrats can take no more credit for the Riley win over four challengers than can the GOP for the non-partisan elections that put known Republicans in the mayors' chairs in Mount Pleasant and North Charleston.
No question, Charleston City Hall once was a Democratic bastion, as was most of the state. Joe Riley started his political career as a Democratic legislator and won the mayor's office seven times under the Democratic banner.
The mayors of the county's two other large cities also began their political careers under partisan labels. Mount Pleasant Mayor Harry Hallman was a Republican member of the House of Representatives and North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey previously was a Republican member and chairman of Charleston County Council. But their political affiliation is rarely an issue since their town elections have long been non-partisan.
Republicans had been the most resistant to the non-partisan change in the city of Charleston, primarily because they started making inroads some years ago on City Council. The growing Republican trend also is doubtless one of the reasons the Riley administration backed the change to non-partisan elections. Voters approved a change in the system two years ago, agreeing with the argument that there is no real difference in how Republicans and Democrats perform such basic municipal services as garbage collection.
There's no question that both parties' machinery played a role in the city's first non-partisan election Tuesday. City Council still has members who were elected as Republicans and who wanted to see the mayor ousted, and they had support from within the party organization and some of its leaders. But there also were some heavily credentialed Republicans in the Riley camp. When it comes to partisan politics, we're told a Riley poll found that the city is now fairly evenly split among Republicans, Democrats and independents.
But despite the spin that state Democratic leaders are trying to put on the latest Riley victory, the fact is that the candidates weren't presented to the voters on a partisan basis. State Democratic Party Executive Director Nu Wexler was engaging in a little wishful thinking when he told reporter Schuyler Kropf that the Riley vote bodes well for Democratic candidates outside the city. In effect, party leaders seemed to be trying to say that the voters' reaction to the kind of job Joe Riley had been doing in the city of Charleston is somehow translatable to Democratic candidates winning partisan offices, such as in the state Legislature. That's a real stretch.
We don't believe, for example, that Joe Riley's win in such heavily Republican territory as Precinct 1, which is mostly below Broad Street, is a sign the Republicans are in danger of losing their base in partisan elections. Republican Gov. Mark Sanford won that precinct handily last November and we suspect he would again.
The Riley strength was citywide and strong among both black and white constituents. It reflects voter satisfaction with his success as Charleston's chief executive. It can't be construed as support for a party banner the mayor no longer carries, at least not when it comes to city business.
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