Conducted by Matthew Ellison

Joe Erwin served as Chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party from 2003 to 2007 and is considering a run for governor in 2010. He is the founder of Erwin-Penland Advertising, one of the largest marketing
firms in the Southeast. After this interview was conducted, he announced his support for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

As the first primary in the South, South Carolina has a clearly disproportionate influence on who the nominees of both parties will be. What about South Carolina should allow it to have this privilege?

Several factors. Number one is we offer a much more representative demographic profile of America than Iowa or New Hampshire. When the candidates come to South Carolina, they’ll be in front of an audience that on the Democratic primary side will be about 50% African-American; the state population is about 30% African-American. So that’s one thing, just demographics. If you look at some of the other factors, South Carolina has three very distinct regions. You’ve got a very fast-growing successful urban corridor in Greenville/Spartanburg, home of modern manufacturing, low unemployment, and one of the healthiest, most robust economies in the country. Down along the coast, you’ve got high-end retirement communities with a lot of migration of people down from Rust Belt states that are really changing that part of South Carolina in a different way. In the Midlands, you’ve got the University of South Carolina, the largest institution in the state, and a large military presence throughout the Midlands at Fort Jackson and in Sumter. So you’ve got these different areas within a very small state that challenge the candidates to speak to a wide range of issues and not just one or two because they’re less homogenous than the populations of the other early states. You’ve also got in what is now the infamous I-95 corridor, often called now the Corridor of Shame, this significant band of poverty in rural areas that have lost so many jobs to China and other foreign countries, particularly in Asia, in manufacturing and textiles. The economy is so challenged there that candidates are going to be asked completely different questions than they would be asked in a place where the economy is so healthy like up here in the Greenville/Spartanburg corridor. It’s those reasons that make South Carolina more representative
of the totality of the range of people, experiences, challenges throughout America. That’s why South Carolina is relevant and a harbinger of what the candidates will face around the country.

South Carolina’s governor, two senators, and all but one statewide officeholder are Republicans. What, if anything, can South Carolina Democrats do to win statewide?

Recruit great candidates. Over time, know that things change. We’ve seen nationally that conditions change, momentum swings. We are already starting to see the pendulum perhaps beginning to swing back toward voters in this state being open-minded to Democrats. It’s been a long trend of growth for the Republican Party here, and I congratulate the Republicans here. They started small more than a quarter-century ago to build a party that was organized, focused on recruiting, raising money, and winning elections. Now, as Democrats, number one, we have to believe we can win. And if you believe you can win, you’ve got to put your best foot forward with outstanding candidates who can appeal to a wide range of voters, specifically in that middle ground, people that are not so much lined up with one party or the other. For example, as much as Republicans have done so well and have dominated many elections on the statewide level, here’s a point to consider: if you talk to any political scientist or you just look at the numbers of primary voters, what you find is that about 25 percent of voters in this state will say that they’re Democrats. If you ask how many of them would identify themselves as Republican voters, the number is probably 35 percent. So that’s a big differential, and it’s tough to make up; when you put that “D” beside your name, you’re minus ten.

But here’s the reason for hope: that means there’s 40 percent of people in this state who don’t identify themselves as being a member or activist of either party, so if we have messages that can reach out to those people who are not about politics but are concerned about government that works for them or about government that’s not too big, then we have a chance to win. And we’re starting to see that in races around the state, and I’m optimistic that we’ll have more and more Democrats getting elected to office, and not just for the sake of Democrats winning; that’s not important. What I think is important—and the reason I served as chair of the state Democratic Party for four years (two terms) during some pretty tough times, most people would say, being very much an underdog—is that we need to raise the debate. If one party dominates everything for too long, we don’t get good government. There is a truism, and it’s an old quote: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” And when one party, either one, has too much power, it’s not good for voters, it’s not good for taxpayers, it’s not good for kids, it’s not good for anybody. So what we’ve worked at as Democrats is to raise the level of debate, to become more competitive. It’s not an overnight process, but we’re making headway, and voters are starting to pay attention.

How would you rate Howard Dean’s tenure as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC)?

I think Howard’s done a terrific job. What I appreciate about Howard is that rather than invest all of the DNC capital in political consultants—and that’s often where the DNC resources have gone: inside-the-beltway political consultants—Howard has been more about growing the party around the country at the local level, in neighborhoods. His 50-State Strategy of using money raised by the DNC to put field staff in each and every state party organization has been very helpful in South Carolina, giving us people on the ground, political operatives, mainly young, who would go out and do that toiling, that day-to-day work of reaching out to voters and taking the party to the people. I give Howard a lot of credit for that, and I think it’s going to pay dividends for years to come.

Some people worry that a relatively liberal presidential nominee will hurt Democrats on the rest of the ballot in states like South Carolina. Of Barack Obama’s impact on down ballot races, South Carolina State Senator Robert Ford, himself an African-American, said, “Every Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose - because he’s black and he’s top of the ticket. We’d lose the House and the Senate and the governors and everything.” Of Hillary Clinton, who Ford endorsed, and her impact on down ballot races, Indiana Democratic State Rep. Dave Crooks said, “She would be a drag.” Do you worry that if one of these two is the presidential nominee it would be harder for other Democrats to win in South Carolina in 2008?

That’s hard to predict. Robert’s a friend of mine, but I don’t agree with his statements at all, and with regard to Hillary, I think either one of those two or anybody on the Democratic side is going to get a great look from voters across America who are just ready for change and ready for somebody who has proven leadership skills and has demonstrated that he or she can work well with other members of the Senate or people in the other party, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats. 

Those two examples, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, are two people that we have seen, who have offered proof positive that they are capable of reaching out and building coalitions and not building walls, which has been the problem I think that a lot of people have found with the Bush Administration, whether it’s the president himself or some of the people in his administration. To the specifics of your question, I think it is fair to say that in some places, whether it’s Hillary or whether it’s Barack, where they’re not as well known, not as much appreciated, it may make it harder for us to win local races with one of them as the nominee. For example, we saw in the last cycle when John Edwards, a South Carolina native, was on the ballot and actually won the South Carolina Democratic primary, he brought with him a whole new wave of excitement in South Carolina among Democrats and Independents—and this is the important thing: Independents voted in record numbers in the Democratic primary because they were attracted to what they saw as this fairly moderate, charismatic candidate who was one of their own. In Hillary, we’ve got somebody who is not from the South, who’s originally from Chicago, and is tied to some of the perceived baggage of the Clinton Administration, and so yes, you’re going to hear some people talk about how that makes it tough. But you know, to me, that’s excuse-making. Whoever the nominee is, there will be opportunities for South Carolina Democrats to work well with the national party, with the nominee, and be successful because ultimately, if we have a Democrat in the White House, then there are more and more opportunities for party-building at the state level. We need not fear one of our own being elected; we need to embrace one of our own being elected.

Will we see you on a statewide ballot in the future?

I don’t know. I’ve made it clear that I’ll consider elective office. I’ve never offered before. But my years as party chair opened my eyes to a range of opportunities, and also, frankly, problems that I’m now more acutely aware of around the state. I have a great passion for service. I think it’s a very high calling; I was raised that way. My mom and my dad, before he died when I was a young boy, taught me to believe that public service is a very, very high calling, so I’ve never forgotten those lessons, and now that I’ve had a very successful business career, it has allowed me to consider that I could offer for elective office, and I may do it. I’m going to look at a possible gubernatorial bid for 2010, and I’m starting some of the early work to assess whether or not it might be appropriate for me to run for that. That decision comes sometime within the next year. I’m not one of those people who has to have that for ego. I know a lot of people, and I’ve been around a lot of politicians all my life, and I love so many of them, and some of them frustrate me, but I don’t have to have it for ego, it doesn’t define me. But what my final assessment will be is if I see that I can make a difference through leadership, through bringing the parties together and solving problems or creating great opportunities for South Carolina, then I may make a run.

I’m going to put you on the spot. Who do you think will win the South Carolina Democratic primary, and who do you think the nominee will be?

I’m not going to answer. Sorry. I don’t have a crystal ball. You read these polls, you’ve got to be very careful. I’m almost amused when I hear pundits say right now, you know, this candidate’s got a 12-point lead, so it looks like he or she is going to win in Iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina or anywhere else. You look at history, especially in Iowa and New Hampshire, those polls can flip in 48 hours. I think even though we’re starting to be in the countdown of weeks, not months, to these early primaries, we still have to be cognizant of the fact that momentum is a very powerful part of politics. Any candidate who starts building momentum
over the next several weeks can come from second or third and win an early state or two, and if you win one early state or two, then that bounce in momentum that we’ve seen can create trajectory that can carry you to the nomination. Or, conversely, if you unexpectedly lose and have negative momentum, you can go from being the runaway favorite to yesterday’s news. So I don’t know who’s going to win. I think the campaigns are all doing some good work, they’re using a lot of new strategies beyond just television and retail door-to-door politics. We’re seeing great use of YouTube and the Internet in ways that will change campaigns. We’re seeing campaigns in South Carolina with field forces the size of which I’ve never seen before in Barack Obama’s case. We don’t know how much of a difference those things may make down the home stretch. I think perhaps they can be very significant. You can try and put me on the spot, but I’ll just plead blissful ignorance and say let’s just wait and see what happens.

---