Democrat SC gov hopefuls speak at stump meeting

PROSPERITY, S.C. (AP) — Democrats hoping to become the next governor made jokes about Gov. Mark Sanford's affair in what turned into their first informal debate in the race for their party's 2010 nomination.

The cracks came from the beginning as Columbia lawyer Dwight Drake noted a Republican debate Tuesday night a few miles away in Newberry. The GOP candidates all sounded the same as Sanford. But "far as we know, they all take fewer vacations and they all have fewer girlfriends," Drake said, bringing a burst of laughter from the crowd.

Sanford returned from a secret rendezvous with an Argentine woman in June and has become the butt of political jokes ever since. Legislators are awaiting a State Ethics Commission investigation to decide whether and when to begin impeachment proceedings that could cut short the 15 months remaining in his second and final term.

The Newberry County Democratic Party gathering at a barbecue restaurant packed with more than 100 people was supposed to be a stump with speeches only, but it effectively became the first debate for the five candidates in the field.

It was also a preview of the themes Democrats will use to regain the governor's office they lost to Sanford in 2002. Now, they're looking to Sanford's weakness and other national GOP scandals and missteps to turn things their way.

The candidates offered ideas on taxes, health care, education and turning the state's economy around.

"There's no reason we should be near first in unemployment ... and near worst in education," Charleston lawyer Mullins McLeod said.

State Sen. Vincent Sheheen noted the first gathering of the field was being held in tiny Prosperity. "That's what we're going to return to South Carolina: prosperity."

He said when he's elected, he'll put professionals in charge of running agencies like state's economic development agency "not just political buddies."

And while one of the candidates proposed bringing back video gambling to raise money for schools, health care and other programs, the four other hopefuls roundly rejected the idea.

State Sen. Robert Ford of Charleston said the state's problems demand money and he'd raise $1 billion by making video gambling outlawed in 2000 legal again and putting 25 percent tax on the games. He said that would pay for innovative school program like intense after-school teaching as well as tax credits for children to send their children to private schools.

"We've got to have money to save this state and I'm the only one talking about money," Ford said.

But Ford's ideas were a bust with the other candidates. None wanted vouchers or video gambling.

"I don't believe we need to go to gambling to solve our problems," McLeod said.

Rex said the lottery, one of the few forms of legalized gambling in the state, isn't working the way it is supposed to because it is now paying for things that tax collections in the past covered.

Relying on more gambling "just won't work," Rex said, noting slumping gambling revenues in other states. "People cannot depend on it."

Even Ford doubted his chances of winning. "Everyone would have to agree that would be a miracle," Ford said.