Fowler won't seek 3rd term

The S.C. Democratic Party will have a new leader next spring following the Alvin Greene political debacle.

Party chairwoman Carol Fowler said she will not seek a third term in the spring of 2011 but said her decision is not because of Greene, the party's surprise U.S. Senate nominee, who is facing a federal obscenity charge.

Greene, an unemployed military veteran from Manning, whose finances are being investigated by the State Law Enforcement Division, trounced party favorite Vic Rawl in the primary election despite having mounted no campaign. News of the pending obscenity charge and questions about Greene's finances immediately followed his victory, which put him on the fall ballot against Republican U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint.

For the past few weeks, some Democratic fingers have been pointed at the party's leaders, and Fowler specifically, for not doing more to prevent Greene from running and for not bolstering the candidacy of his opponent Rawl, a Charleston County Council member and former circuit court judge. Most of the criticism has taken place quietly as party members focus on getting their party's nominee for governor, Vincent Sheheen, elected.

"Twice is plenty. I've never intended to run again," Fowler said. "I don't think anybody should be the state chair more than two terms. You always need new ideas so the party doesn't get stagnant."

Fowler and some other Democrats say there is little she and the state party could have done to halt Greene's candidacy after he paid the required $10,440 filing fee.

"I tried a bit to discourage him when he came in to file because I thought he was a bit naive on what it would take to run and win and how much this would cost," Fowler said.

"I am very squeamish about having the party take official acts to endorse or attack a candidate in a primary," Fowler said. "We've always been more open than that, and I've been reluctant to start down the path where party insiders choose the nominee."

Still, the state party is in talks to amend its rules because of Greene's win.

"It has been suggested that we require candidates have a (criminal background check) done on themselves when they come to file," Fowler said, "but no decision has been made."

Some Democrats, including state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, say the party has learned from the Greene nomination.

"This has been a teachable moment," Cobb-Hunter said. "In hindsight, of course, some vetting should have been done. Is the Democratic Party responsible? Of course, we are. We fell down on the job."

Cobb-Hunter said Greene's opponent, Rawl, also shares in the blame for failing to run an aggressive enough campaign to raise his name identification with voters. And Democratic primary voters share some blame too, Cobb-Hunter said, for blindly choosing a candidate without knowing much about either Greene or Rawl.

"We have a lot of people who are not paying attention to politics, who are uninformed about candidates and who don't do a lot of homework on their own to see what people are about," she said. "People didn't know either one of these guys. This was not just a case of black folks voting for Alvin Greene because his name sounds black. I've talked to white people who voted for him as well."

To be sure, the mysterious case of Greene is not over.

In addition to a SLED investigation into whether Greene illegally claimed indigent status in his criminal case to obtain a public defender, the state Republican Party is making political hay, trying to package Greene with Sheheen as a ticket.

"Vincent Sheheen has found himself in a greene pickle," reads the S.C. GOP website, which encourages voters to download a green-colored Greene-Sheheen logo and place it on their Facebook profile or use it as their Twitter icon.

"It's the Greene-Sheheen Democrat Machine!" the Web post reads. Sheheen, considered by many Democrats to be their strongest gubernatorial candidate in years, has said he never has met Greene and has no plans to campaign with him.

The egg on Democrats' faces has raised the ire of some. Retiring state Rep. Ken Kennedy, D-Williamsburg, called on Fowler to step down from her post.

State Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, blames the party as a whole.

"We do need change at the party level. We've got to move forward, and we don't seem to be going anywhere right now," Rutherford said, citing the election of only one Democrat to statewide office and long-standing Democratic minorities in the state Senate and House. "We need a state party that can throw punches and point out the hypocrisy of the Republicans."

Substantial changes in the party are unlikely to come before the November general election. Until then, all focus is on electing Sheheen and a slate of other Democrats that does not include Greene.