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By James T. Hammond
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The Democratic Party primary for nomination to run for governor, until recently a race of two, is looking more like a contest with the entry of state Superintendent of Education Jim Rex and Columbia attorney and veteran party activist Dwight Drake.
This morning, Drake’s stealthy campaign emerged publicly via e-mail. Some 146,000 people who have had some contact with Democratic campaigns in recent years received the announcement of his candidacy. He planned to follow that with a telephone news conference.
Drake, 64, has never run for public office. But he has participated in more campaigns than most of the people who will offer themselves for office next year.
He cut his political teeth in support of then-U.S. Rep. William Jennings Bryan Dorn’s unsuccessful bid in 1974 to become governor. And he was a senior aide to Gov. Richard Riley. Drake is a partner in the state’s largest law firm, Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough and has combined courtroom work with lobbying at the Statehouse.
Drake clearly aims to run against the image of the Republican Gov. Mark Sanford, who has admitted an extramarital affair with a woman from Argentina.
“We need to get South Carolina working again, because the last eight years have been wasted,” Drake says on his introductory video. “The first thing a governor should do when he wakes up in the morning is ask himself, ‘What can I do to bring good jobs to South Carolina?’”
The reliance on electronic media to build support reflects the methods used to boost President Barack Obama to office. Social media outlets, such as Facebook, are expected to be a major component of all the campaigns gearing up for the 2010 election.
Rex, another recent entry into the race, maintains a Facebook page and has already scheduled campaign and fundraising events in Aiken, Orangeburg and Rock Hill. Rex has been endorsed by Rock Hill Mayor Doug Echols, who will host a Rex fundraiser on Sept. 3.
Rex, 67, is former dean of education at Winthrop University. He served as president of Columbia College and vice president for university advancement at the University of South Carolina. He was the only Democrat to win statewide office in the 2006 S.C. general election, defeating Republican Karen Floyd by a narrow margin.
Drake and Rex join three other candidates who previously announced their bids: Charleston attorney Mullins McLeod and state Sens. Vincent Sheheen and Robert Ford.
McLeod, 37, a Walterboro native, announced his bid in April and said he has raised $169,000 through the June 30 reporting deadline. The partner in the Pierce, Herns, Sloan & McLeod law firm of Charleston also has never sought public office before. His most recent Facebook posting is a video of a campaign appearance in Little Mountain.
Sheheen, 38, was first to announce that he would seek the Democratic nomination for governor, in February. The former state representative and second-term state senator comes from a prominent Camden political family. His uncle, Robert Sheheen, was the most recent Democratic speaker of the state House of Representatives. In addition to his public service, Sheheen is an attorney.
And Ford, a Charleston Democrat, is running on a platform of resurrecting video poker, which was banned by the General Assembly in 2000.
Drake, long a member of the state Democratic Party’s inner circle, surprised even close friends with his entry into the gubernatorial contest. He made clear to a gathering of friends and political allies Monday evening that he will focus laserlike on job creation and education.
His introductory video on his campaign Web site features BMW North America executive Carl Flesher, who says Drake was present from the beginning in the effort to recruit the German automaker to South Carolina. And he highlights his role in fighting proposals in the Legislature to divert taxpayer funds from the public schools to vouchers for private schools.
Likely contenders for the Republican Party nomination to run for governor are 3rd District U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett, S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster, S.C. Rep. Nikki Haley and Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer.
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