The shift from DINOs to RINOs

A few months ago, I joined four former state senators and their spouses for an evening of warm nostalgia. More than three decades had passed since the senators had served together, albeit on different sides of the political fence. Those were the days of the re-emerging Republican Party in this state when it appeared that the party's revival would result in a true philosophical alignment. What happened?

Two of the senators at the gathering served as Democrats. At that time, their party was in the overwhelming majority, both at the state and local levels. The two former Republican senators were among the state GOP's earliest converts. Both went on to higher office.

One of the former Republican senators was a successful professional whose party involvement was activated by Barry Goldwater's "The Conscience of the Conservative." The other had been a Democratic House member whose risky political switch to the GOP was clearly philosophical. While all four former senators maintained their political differences, their friendships have remained intact.

The gathering prompted me to reflect on how much has changed since those early days of the two-party resurgence and how and why things haven't turned out quite as some realignment advocates had hoped. For more than a century, South Carolina had been a one-party state. But increasingly, at least by the early 1960s, any number of elected officials were calling themselves "South Carolina Democrats," unwillingly, to support the national ticket. In today's political parlance they would be known as DINOs (Democrats in Name Only).

By the late 1960s, the S.C. Republican Party --which jokingly used to be so small it could convene in a phone booth -- had, for the first time since Reconstruction, a few members in the state House and Senate. In 1974, the state got its first modern-day Republican governor and within another few decades the tables had completely turned. GOP officials then generally had more control over who carried the party banner, if only in seeking out those more philosophically like-minded. There's no question that in all but key statewide elections, the power of both parties has been dramatically diminished by the advent of single-member election districts.

In a nutshell, here's why: Until the 1970s, legislators were elected at-large on the basis of county lines. At-large elections also were the basis of most county and municipal contests. Federal lawsuits resulted in gerrymandered single-member election districts that crisscrossed neighborhoods and spanned multiple county lines. The beneficiaries were political minorities. At the time, that included Republicans as well as African Americans.

The end result was an increase in the number of white Republican and black Democratic lawmakers and a decrease in the number of white Democrats who previously could count on the black vote when elections were at-large. Statewide, the Republican Party has occupied the governor's mansion for 20 of the 32 years since the groundbreaking 1974 win and now holds nine of the 10 constitutional offices. Savvy politicians, old and new, got the message, resulting in what is viewed as a substantial number of RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) in the GOP-controlled Legislature.

So, how have RINOs gotten by what in theory is an ideological vetting of candidates in party primaries? For starters county parties, or even the state party in most instances, have little influence in legislative election districts that can cross as many as three county lines or have illogically drawn boundaries that occupy only a portion of a county. Many of the districts have virtually no community of interest and it's often hard for even the candidates to determine who votes in their districts. Further, there is no party registration in this state, which makes primaries even less representative of a party's ideological consensus. For the most part campaigns are based on personality rather than philosophy.

Some former Democratic leaders who switched parties after they found themselves in mostly GOP districts haven't really changed their stripes. But given incumbency's power and the weakness of the parties, there's been little stomach for challenge in the party structure, which still touts its dominance, at least in terms of numbers.

Democratic partisans contend, however, they now have good reason for optimism, noting that the results from the last presidential election show inroads in previous Republican territories. Further, after two terms, embattled GOP Gov. Mark Sanford is finished politically and his personal and legislative troubles have rallied credible Democratic contenders. But is there still hope for a genuine two-party system where candidates choose their party banners based on philosophy rather than political expediency? Ironically, it can be argued that most of those who now run as Democrats are doing so mostly based on philosophy, as did their Republican counterparts decades ago.

What's also now obvious is that the current election system benefits those whose party preference is shaped more by the political ambition than ideology.

Barbara S. Williams, editor emeritus of The Post and Courier, may be reached at bwilliams@postandcourier.com.