Campbell redux?

As bushmen, Bushwomen and the national media swarmed to the ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel in Columbia to cheer the primary victory, pols and pundits could not help but notice the scene on the dais: Peeler, Condon, and Wilkens all accepted the applause of the audience, spoke briefly, and complimented each other for their part in Bush's win, but nonofficeholder Campbel--ormer four-term (1978-86) House Member and two-term (1986-94) governor--drew the loudest cheers, spoke the longest, and introduced George W. Bush. The ebullient Texan, in turn, put his arm around the man he called "my friend Carroll Campbell" and thanked him effusively.

The message from this little scene was quite obvious: At age 60, ten years after he was last on the ballot for anything, and six years after he became a well-paid insurance lobbyist in Washington, Carroll Campbell still packs a wallop in his home state. Bush clearly benefited February 19 from vigorous campaigner Campbell's widespread contacts and from We votes of South Carolinians who remember him fondly for presiding during a boom in the '90s that created 207,000 new jobs in the state.

Campbell, it seems, can almost certainly write his own political ticket-for a Senate bid to succeed Strom Thurmond, who has said he will retire in 2002, for his old job as governor that same year, or for a cabinet position should Bush win the presidency. The primary was, as University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato put it, "a big, big, day for Carroll Campbell. If [Campbell] decides he doesn't want to be senator, he can be anything he wants to be. And if he wants to retire early, he can be ambassador to Bermuda."

Almost to a person, Campbell-watchers I talked to in Columbia last week said that he was all but certain to defer to Rep. Lindsey Graham on a Senate race in two years because he really wants an unprecedented third nonconsecutive term in the governor's office. (Only one other South Carolina governor has ever been elected to nonconsecutive terms: Democrat Olin D. Johnston, who served from 1932-38, and then from 1942 until he was elected to the Senate two years later.)

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Mar 3, 2000
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