| Got a running mate? How SC gov candidates decide to make their picks - or not BY TIM SMITH
Greenville News May 21, 2018 10:59 AM
COLUMBIA, SC Half of South Carolina's eight gubernatorial candidates have announced running mates under a new state law that joins governor and lieutenant governor onto the same ticket.
Strategies are reflected in their selections — and their lack of selections — but whether that makes any difference in the 2018 election, which opens with primaries on June 12, remains to be seen.
All three of the state’s Democratic hopefuls have chosen running mates. Rep. James Smith selected Rep. Mandy Powers Norrell. Phil Noble chose Gloria Bromell Tinubu. Marguerite Willis chosen Sen. John Scott.
Gov. Henry McMaster in November chose Travelers Rest businesswoman Pamela Evette as his running mate. He's the only Republican to have announced a choice.
GOP candidates John Warren, Yancey McGill, Catherine Templeton and Lt. Gov. Kevin Bryant have not yet selected a prospective lieutenant governor to serve alongside.
The lieutenant governor now presides over the Senate, but that portion of the job will vanish when new officials take office, according to the new law and a ballot measure passed by voters. The lieutenant governor will continue to oversee the state Office on Aging and can become governor if the governor leaves office — as McMaster did when President Donald Trump tabbed former Gov. Nikki Haley to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Voters decided in 2012 to change the system after lawmakers pointed to past elections in which the governor and lieutenant governor sometimes came from different parties. The new system, they reasoned, will allow a governor and lieutenant governor to operate more as a team.
The mechanics of the law weren’t passed by lawmakers until earlier this year.
Legislators originally viewed such a system operating much like the one in which a presidential candidate, once nominated by their party, picks someone as their running mate, someone who'd become vice president if the ticket wins, said former Sen. Larry Martin, a Pickens Republican who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee. That approach to a running mate gives a presidential nominee the chance to select a campaign rival.
But South Carolina’s law specifies only that the pick be made by August.
Why some have made picks and others haven't "We thought we could give gubernatorial candidates the option," Martin said. "They could do as some have done and select someone early, and let that play out as their appeal to voters. Or they can wait until after the primary and then name someone. It's entirely up to the gubernatorial candidate. We didn't want to bind a candidate into naming someone until you essentially have to later in the summer."
The four candidates this year who've announced choices are locked into their tickets and will be unable to choose a former rival after the primary.
Some of the candidates who have thus far declined to choose a running mate have remained mum on their reasons.
Bryant said when he filed to run for governor that he did not think he would pick a running mate before the primary, explaining there were pros and cons for a decision either way.
“Something could change, but at this point, he does not foresee naming someone before the primary,” said Tori Beth Black, a Bryant campaign spokeswoman. “He just wants to focus on what he’s doing right now in running and telling voters more about himself.”
Templeton’s campaign declined to comment on the issue for this article.
Warren said he wants to focus on introducing himself to voters.
“I have a unique bio in leading more than 300 combat missions and starting a business,” he said. “That in and of itself separates me from all of my competitors. That’s what we’ve been focused on rather than trying to add a running mate because we’re afraid to speak at events by ourselves.”
Warren said he does not plan to wait until August to choose a running mate. He said that while he would not choose McMaster, his other rivals would be potential candidates if he is chosen as the Republican nominee.
McGill did not return messages seeking comment.
Why the choices may not matter Danielle Vinson, a Furman University political science professor, said she thinks “no one will be basing their vote on who the lieutenant governor is.”
“Especially in a primary,” she said. “We don’t vote on president based on the vice president. It may help you with a small handful of people at the margins. But lieutenant governor is not exactly a high-profile position in this state unless somebody gets appointed to something.”
The only reason people have even heard of the lieutenant governor, Vinson said, is because of McMaster’s ascendancy and because of former Lt. Gov. Ken Ard’s resignation and plea to ethics violations charges.
“It’s just not considered that important of an office for most South Carolinians,” Vinson said. “They don’t even know who all the candidates are. They certainly aren’t going to be figuring out who the lieutenant governor candidates will be.”
She said there could be an advantage for gubernatorial candidates making their choice after the primary.
She pointed to former President Barack Obama as an example. Obama, Vinson said, ran a hard-fought campaign against both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and then made Biden his running mate and Clinton his secretary of state, galvanizing support across his Democratic party.
Vinson said McMaster had a legitimate reason to pick his running mate early, to fend off criticism about the 70-year-old’s age and to “liven up the campaign trail.”
“Again, I haven’t seen a whole lot about her, except for that first big splash,” Vinson said. “So I don’t know that it’s making any difference.”
McMaster has said that he chose a running mate early to give voters a look before the primary.
“He wanted to let the state know what our ticket was going to look like,” Evette told a radio audience recently. “He didn’t want any surprises, so he wanted to get me out meeting people in the state, for voters to know exactly what they’re going to get with our ticket, which I think is great. And the other thing, which I hear, is you know GOPs all around the state get disappointed that the governor can’t be there, but our governor has to govern. Most of our other candidates get to just politick, right? But our governor has a very important job, and there’s a lot of critical issues going on in the state.”
Why the choices may matter David Woodard, a Clemson University political scientist, agrees that McMaster’s running mate had not yet hurt or helped the governor.
Woodard wonders if other candidates are waiting until just before the primary to try to score a late boost. He cited the late President Richard Nixon’s quote that a vice president candidate cannot help you, only hurt you.
“The same may be true of the lieutenant governor,” he said. “I think it’s the way we ought to run them. But in terms of politics, I don’t think it’s made much difference.”
Chip Felkel, a Greenville GOP political consultant, said the reason different candidates are approaching the running mate issue differently is because “it’s unknown territory and nobody knows quite how to handle it.”
He said he thinks McMaster made a strategic move.
“It was as much a gender play as it was a geography play,” Felkel said of McMaster's choice of Evette, a woman from Travelers Rest. “She gives him an Upstate angle and a woman on the ticket, plus she’s not a career politician. And that kind of rounds out criticism about McMaster’s longevity in politics.”
His campaign is using her so he can maintain the duties of the office, he said.
Willis said she also believes voters need to see a candidate and their running mate work as a team before they go to the polls in June. Not seeing a running mate before voting, she said, “is like buying a pig in a poke.”
“If you vote for me and then in July I pick someone you don’t like, you’re stuck with me as the primary winner,” she said. “I just thought that wasn’t fair to the voters.”
Willis entered the race in February and said she sought someone to compliment her background. She said she chose Scott, a Richland County African-American who has served in the House and the Senate, because of his experience in government and because she is committed to diversity.
She said the two of them have worked well together on the campaign trail.
“He was a gift to me,” she said.
Felkel said he doesn’t think it’s necessary for candidates to pick a running mate prior to the primary.
“The voters aren’t quite used to a ticket,” he said. “I think if you can do it and pull it off, it strengthens your ticket. I’m not sure most of the voters know that is the case right now. I don’t think it’s making that much of an impact.”
He also noted that one reason some candidates might not choose a running mate is because of money.
“Some of those candidates may not have resources to do much with that running mate other than earned media, which is only going to go so far,” Felkel said.
Smith announced Norrell, a three-term Democrat from Lancaster, as his running mate last week, calling her “easily the most qualified lieutenant governor candidate on the ballot.”
“Mandy shares the same vision for this state that I do, a state that can do more for its people and a state must move forward to ensure a better South Carolina for all,” he said.
He said he wanted to choose a running mate before the primaries because "it helps voters know who your choices are." He said he also wanted Norrell's help on the campaign.
Noble chose Tinubu, the first African-American to earn a doctorate in applied economics from Clemson University and the first African-American female to win a party’s nomination for Congress, just last week.
He said he decided to pick someone before the primary because "it's a way to tell people what you're about and what you're for."
"You can say you're playing games if you wait and you're playing political games if you don't wait," he said.
Noble, who is running as a Statehouse outsider, said while he wanted a woman as his running mate, he didn't chose Tinubu because she is black.
"It's not about race or gender," he said. "It's about 'Statehouse thinking,' if you're part of the system in the Statehouse. Gloria is not 'Statehouse.' She doesn't think 'Statehouse.'"
Noble also disagreed with experts who say a running mate can't sway voters and make a difference.
"Mine already has," he said. | 
