THURSDAY WITH THIGPEN: Sanford impeachment on hold and gubernatorial debates

Every Thursday Dr. Neal Thigpen provides his insights on the week’s top political stories. This week the impeachment of Gov. Mark Sanford is put on hold and the candidates to be the next governor plan to debate.

QUESTION: As promised, during Tuesday’s special session, state Rep. Greg Delleney (R-Chester) introduced a resolution of impeachment against Gov. Mark Sanford for “serious misconduct,” after disappearing for 5 days and lying to his staff during a trip to Argentina in June. The governor has since admitted having an extramarital affair. However, House Speaker Bobby Harrell (R-Charleston) ruled that Delleney would have to wait to introduce the impeachment resolution, because the terms of the special session don’t allow lawmakers to introduce new bills, including impeachment. Was Harrell’s decision a politically motivated? Or was this simply a matter of procedure?

ANSWER: I think it was strictly a matter of procedure … . I think that what happened was that the resolution was introduced and it was tabled. And it was tabled of course at the speaker’s urging…what I found interesting was that the people who sided with the speaker on the floor and spoke in favor of tabling (the impeachment resolution) and even called the amendment resolution premature were Democrats…I think one of the fears that Speaker Harrell has always had was that this thing would come up in January and take up the entire, or a goodly portion, of this year’s legislative session. And he didn’t want that to happen, so his action in my estimation was somewhat of a surprise … so I don’t know if you could really say if it was politics or not. … I think largely it was a matter of procedure and neatness, but you’re not gonna be able to hold Delleney (from filing impeachment charges) when the legislature actually meets. As a matter of fact, he’ll probably pre-file the resolution of impeachment and it’ll be assigned a committee then and then come up in the legislative session … I’m kind of bewildered as to just where the Republicans…are going with the thing. Just looking at it on the surface, it would almost tend to suggest that the Republicans had changed their minds and maybe they’re not so daft on having a resolution of impeachment passed in the House against the governor. It’s kind of a little bit bewildering.

QUESTION: The 10 candidates that hope to replace Gov. Sanford, by winning the 2010 gubernatorial election, will meet next week in a televised debate. There are five Democrats (Columbia attorney Dwight Drake, state Sen. Robert Ford of Charleston, Charleston attorney Mullins McLeod, S.C. Superintendent of Education Jim Rex and state Sen. Vincent Sheheen of Camden) and five Republicans (U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett of Westminster, Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, state Sen. Larry Grooms of Berkeley County; state Rep. Nikki Haley of Lexington and S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster) vying for the nomination. The debate will be broadcast statewide Tuesday at 8 p.m. by S.C. ETV, from the Rocquemore Auditorium at Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College in Orangeburg. According to ETV, this is the first time in state history that primary candidates from both parties will participate in one debate. Do you like this format? Or will 10 candidates, from both parties, be too much to handle?

ANSWER: My guess is that it’s probably way too much to handle…I’ve moderated a lot of these debates between candidates in primaries…and it even gets hard to handle when you’ve got two or three candidates, from a managerial standpoint…this is what I would call quite a cattle call…the thing is scheduled on television to be aired for (90 minutes)…to even get around and ask each of the 10 candidates…one question and maybe even a follow-up question…it could take up hours…so the difficulty there is…getting anybody but the most mad-dog, junky on politics tuned in…the average viewer would maybe look at it for a few minutes…that would be about it for them…then they’d lose interest…but the other side of it is…it is the first televised debate and so many of these candidates are not known to the public…this would be the first chance…to get coverage from the print media…as to their pronouncements on different issues…but I would think that only the most fervent…viewers of politics…would stay tuned in for very long.

QUESTION: A new pole conducted for Jim Rex, suggests he is leading the race to be the Democratic nominee for governor. The poll, conducted this week by Washington, D.C. based Hamilton Campaigns, surveyed 400 likely S.C. Democratic voters and had a margin of error 4.9 percentage points. Despite a majority (43%) of respondents stating they’re undecided, a quarter of those polled say they would vote for Rex if the primary were held today. The survey also found that Rex has the strongest name recognition among the Democratic candidates. However, some observers have questioned Rex’s ability to raise enough money to compete. Is this poll accurate? Is Rex the Democratic frontrunner? Or should we never trust polls paid for by a candidate? 

ANSWER: When a pole is paid for by a candidate or taken for a particular candidate…how many poles have been taken for candidates that have never been released…(because) it doesn’t demonstrate anything that’s in sync with their campaign strategy. But my guess is the pole is reasonably accurate and what it simply shows…is that Dr. Rex is so much better known than any of the other contenders…the fact that 25 percent of them would vote for him and a far lesser number for the two people I think would be his closest competitors…(state) Sen. Vincent Sheheen and Dwight Drake…I think that’s about what you could expect…what it reflects is name ID…and I’m not surprised at it in any fashion, because he’s the only person who’s ever run statewide on the Democratic side and is, in fact, the only statewide elected official (seeking the Democratic nomination)…but it’s early yet…and all it really shows is, of the whole Democratic field, he’s much better known than the others. But the others have got time…both Sheheen and Drake have demonstrated something so far that Dr. Rex hasn’t and that’s the ability to raise money. Dr. Rex has never been a good fundraiser…the other two have got time and they’ve already raised a good bit more money than Dr. Rex…and money can be turned into visibility… so what Dr. Rex has to do is put his time into raising money and building a good state organization…so I think you’d have to put Dr. Rex down as the leading candidate right now.

Dr. Neal Thigpen is a longtime political analyst and former political science professor at Francis Marion University, where he served as chairman of the department for 25 years. Active in state and local politics, Thigpen has served as a delegate to both the South Carolina and National Republican Conventions many times. We talk with Thigpen every week to discuss the latest in South Carolina politics.