McMaster touts his experience

Attorney General Henry McMaster has spent years building toward his run for governor.

The signs are everywhere at a Florence County Republican Party meeting last week, as McMaster walks around the room, greeting old friends.

One man asks McMaster who he is related to in Florence.

"Ed Young for one," McMaster says, acknowledging the former U.S. representative sitting at the table, before ticking off a half-dozen other names.

Florence gets fewer candidate visits than Greenville, Charleston or other vote-rich counties, but McMaster's comfort is a by-product of relationships built during seven years as state GOP chairman, an unsuccessful challenge for U.S. Senate, two terms as S.C. attorney general and a role in leading U.S. Sen. John McCain's successful 2008 S.C. presidential primary campaign.

That biography is the central part of McMaster's pitch for his election as South Carolina's next governor: Experience.

McMaster, 62 and the oldest GOP candidate, lists a string of accomplishments: an Internet-predator unit that has convicted nearly 200 people; beefing up the domestic-violence prosecution system; helping build a Republican Party that now holds all but one statewide elected office and a majority of both legislative houses.

"We have all the assets. What we need is leadership," McMaster said. "If you have the backing of people, you can get it done."

Implicit in the statement is a critique of current Gov. Mark Sanford, the two-term Republican who has spent seven years squaring off with GOP lawmakers with whom he disagreed.

McMaster does not criticize Sanford directly - "That is the way things should work," he said; "I'm not going to assign blame" - but indicates he will bring a new approach to the State House.

"I work well with the Legislature . . . those are the kind of relationships I have."

John Rainey, who helped elect Sanford, said he is backing McMaster because he wants a steady hand as the state pulls out of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression.

"I think the people of this state are looking for maturity," Rainey says. "He's a seasoned candidate."

CENTER OF ATTENTION

In recent weeks, McMaster has organized a campaign to challenge the U.S. Senate health-care bill.

That bill passed the Senate only after a deal was done to secure the vote of U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., to cover Nebraska's portion of national health-care costs.

Rainey says McMaster's national television appearances challenging the "Cornhusker Kickback" were a welcome change for a state that is often fodder for comedians.

"He looked good. He presented well. It reflected well on South Carolina," says Rainey.

But others see the "Cornhusker Kickback" crusade as an example of what they say is McMaster's tendency to grandstand for his political benefit.

"The lawsuit was just foolishness," U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., said of McMaster's threatened lawsuit. The Nebraska deal was not law and was not going to be approved by the U.S. House, Clyburn said.

"It's good for him to help on his campaign, but that's not going anywhere so there's no need to sue," Clyburn said.

McMaster has made a number of high-profile missteps as the state's top prosecutor, including:

- Personally prosecuting Kenneth Hinson, who was acquitted of sexually assaulting two teenagers and holding them in a backyard dungeon. Hinson later was convicted on a federal weapons charge.

- Unsuccessfully defended the town of Great Falls when a Wiccan sued to prevent town council from invoking Jesus during its prayer.

- Threatening to prosecute online classifieds site Craigslist.org for prostitution ads, despite never prosecuting an S.C. prostitution case. Craigslist.org fired off a countersuit, and McMaster later agreed not to pursue prosecution while a federal lawsuit is pending.

But the attorney general's office also accurately analyzed legal arguments in last year's case over whether Sanford could reject $700 million in federal stimulus money. The attorney general's March opinion very closely matched the S.C. Supreme Court's final decision.

"The Great Falls Wiccan case and the Craigslist stuff do come across as pandering," said Winthrop University political scientist Scott Huffmon. "But that criticism is blunted a bit in the primary because, pandering or not, he was on the 'right side' of the issue."

A KNOWN QUANTITY

Having won statewide election twice, Huffmon said, McMaster is recognized by more voters than his opponents. McMaster also has been on one campaign trail or another for the past decade.

Polls consistently show McMaster a front-runner in the four-person GOP field that also includes U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett of Westminster, Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer of Greenville and state Rep. Nikki Haley of Lexington.

Huffmon said some Republicans have branded McMaster an intellectual lightweight. But, he added, many successful S.C. campaigns have been run on sound bites and sloganeering.

At the Florence County GOP meeting, for example, the crowd cheered when McMaster pledged to pursue cases similar to the Great Falls prayer case.

Supporter Rainey says he sees something more authentic in McMaster's positions.

Rainey recalled attending the sentencing of a man convicted of killing a dog by throwing it on a hot grill. McMaster, who has been a dog owner, argued the man should receive the maximum sentence.

"It was eloquent. It was emotional. It was heartfelt," Rainey said. "It was not pandering.

"That really attracted me."

McMaster's Florence stump speech - pledging to take on the federal government and oppose "Obamacare" - also made an impression on James Sansbury.

Sansbury, 72, grabbed two McMaster yard signs to take home after the GOP meeting.

"I've known of him for years," Sansbury said, adding he just was starting to learn about the candidates for governor. "His experience and his character are two things I really can support him for."