HICKS COLUMN: Refreshing, politically incorrect voice of Fritz Hollings still needed in S.C.

His accent is unmistakable, his tongue as sharp as ever, his towering presence undiminished by age.

Fritz Hollings still has it.

The former U.S. senator and South Carolina governor made a rare public appearance Thursday, attending an Exchange Club of Charleston luncheon where he was honored with the club's "Book of Golden Deeds" -- only the 29th time in the club's history it has given out this public service award.

The man who Mayor Joe Riley says "set the gold standard for gubernatorial leadership" accepted this graciously, taking a few friendly pokes at Henry Berlin and joking about the time he was kicked out of the Sertoma Club. And then he sat down.

Now 90, Hollings claims his days of public speeches, of lashing out at the inanities of the world, are over. But it doesn't take much to get him going on the sorry state of politics in this country, or talking about what he thinks the problem is.

"Silly pollster politics have taken over everything," Hollings says. And today's politicians talk out of both sides of their mouth and do nothing "because the people let them."

Sick of campaigns

Once he was the most quotable man in politics, his unvarnished opinions as refreshing as they were sometimes politically incorrect.

These days, Hollings spends his time quietly caring for his wife, Peatsy, writing opinion pieces and raising money for his charities. In 2005 he started a charity giving college students 10-week internships with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency he helped set up.

He works with the Charleston School of Law, the Hollings Cancer Center at MUSC and the Hollings Center for International Dialogue, something there isn't enough of these days.

Although he's out of politics, he still takes shots at Washington on The Huffington Post. He offered Congress a way out of the wilderness in his 2008 book, "Making Government Work." But common sense has no place in D.C. these days. Government can't work now because both sides have one guy designated to filibuster everything so, he says, the rest of them can go out and raise money to get re-elected.

And then there is this presidential mess.

"Everybody is sick of the campaigning," Hollings says. "It's sad. We just haven't got another year to waste."

Fortune teller

Look back at Hollings' resume and you notice something immediately. He was ahead of his time.

As governor, he started the technical college system in South Carolina and educational television. As senator, he led a campaign against hunger, created the Women, Infants and Children nutritional assistance program, passed laws to protect the oceans and our coast. He also sponsored a landmark deficit reduction act. A Democrat preaching fiscal conservatism 20 years ago? It must boggle the minds of tea partiers.

When the hawks wanted to go to war with Iraq, he proposed a tax to pay for it, knowing the budgetary dangers of unfunded conflicts.

All of that amounts to a tenth of his resume, but it's hard to imagine any politician these days accomplishing half of that sampling. In other words, the Exchange Club honor was well-deserved.

These days, Hollings says, "I try to stay out of the politics" -- and that's too bad. His honesty and ability to work across the aisle is sorely needed these days.

South Carolina's elder statesman is living proof that politicians aren't what they used to be.

Follow Brian Hicks on Twitter at @BriHicks_PandC.