Democratic US Senate candidate Hutto: ‘I don’t mind saying that I’m for government’

Brad Hutto grew up on a dairy farm in Orangeburg County, bailing hay, driving a tractor and milking cows.

“I know what hard work is, and today we don’t value hard work like we should,” the Democratic state senator from Orangeburg told a gathering of Sumter Democrats recently, pressing his candidacy to unseat incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of Seneca.

The underfinanced Hutto is a long shot to win in November in heavily Republican South Carolina.

But, after the debacle of Alvin Greene in 2010, Hutto is a candidate who makes the Democratic Party proud, leaders say. While the unknown, erratic Greene embarrassed Democrats by winning their party’s nomination to oppose Republican U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, Hutto is a Georgetown University-educated lawyer with almost 20 years of experience as a state senator.

Even if he loses in November, Hutto could find his way onto future statewide tickets.

But Hutto does not plan to go down without a fight.

In Sumter, he turned his childhood story of working on a farm into fodder for knocking Graham.

“We’ve got a senator now who’s voted against an increase in the minimum wage,” Hutto told his listeners. “That’s not valuing hard work.

“We’ve got a senator now who has said that men and women working at the same job shouldn’t get paid the same thing. That’s not valuing hard work.”

Hutto gave his stump speech on a recent Gamecock football Saturday, which Sumter County Democratic chairman Allen Bailey said contributed to the sparse crowd of about 20.

But Hutto still spoke energetically, earning applause and chuckles from his audience.

He told a story of answering his door to a find a patient asking if his pediatrician wife, “Dr. Mac,” was at home to treat a snake bite.

When Hutto asked, “What kind of snake?” the response was: “This one,” Hutto said, mimicking holding up a snake.

Hutto’s wife, Tracy Macpherson, treats thousands of children in Orangeburg. She also helps Hutto stay up-to-date on legislation that affects youth.

Hutto has worked to pass mandatory seat-belt laws and stronger penalties for boating under the influence. For eight years, Hutto also worked to pass Chandler’s Law. The law, which passed in 2011, requires children under 16 who ride all-terrain vehicles to wear a helmet and eye protection.

“If you’re going to invest time in people, invest time in children,” Hutto said in an interview. “You’ll make a bigger change over the long run.”

And, perhaps, a dividend at the polls.

Hutto has been involved in the Boy Scouts of America since he was 6, rising to Eagle Scout. As an adult, Hutto helped grow a Boy Scout troop to 150 boys from fewer than 10.

“Some of those boys are starting to vote now,” Hutto joked with the Sumter crowd.

‘Votes win ... not dollars’

Hutto was in the honors program at the University of South Carolina, completing a degree in the equivalent of political science and philosophy in just three years.

Then, he went to the Georgetown University Law Center. There, he lived on South Carolina Avenue, walking past the U.S. Capitol and legislative offices every day. Now, he hopes to make one of those offices his own.

The last time Graham ran for re-election, in 2008, the Seneca Republican won 58 percent of the vote, easily beating his little-known Democratic opponent, Bob Conley.

But Hutto doubts this year’s winner – whoever it is – will receive 50 percent. Why? The presence of two-wild card candidates: Libertarian Victor Kocher of Columbia and petition candidate Thomas Ravenel, a former Republican state treasurer and wealthy “Southern Charm” reality TV star.

Their candidacies give him a better chance of winning, Hutto said.

Still, on paper, it is not much of a chance.

Having spent almost $10 million to hold off a half-dozen GOP primary opponents, Graham still had $2.7 million available to spend at the end of June, the most recent reporting period.

Hutto had about $51,000.

“Luckily, votes win and not dollars because Sen. Graham has more dollars than I have,” Hutto said. “But I think, in the end, our votes are going to be very close.”

A Democrat since high school, when he helped with local races, Hutto was named the S.C. Young Democrat of the year in the early 1980s.

S.C. Democratic Party chairman Jaime Harrison said Hutto is part of the reason he became involved in politics.

When Harrison was a student at Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School, Hutto was the chairman of the Orangeburg County Democratic Party. That is when Harrison began cutting his teeth on politics.

This year, when Harrison began recruiting Democratic candidates to run, Hutto was high on his list.

Jay Stamper, who moved from Washington state to run against Graham, already was running for the Democratic nomination. But post-Greene, Democrats had no desire for another embarrassing nominee.

“Jay had been convicted of some felonies in other areas, and that was just not the face of what I wanted for our party,” Harrison said. “The Alvin Greene debacle a few years back was enough.”

Hutto handily defeated Stamper in June’s Democratic primary, winning 77 percent of the vote.

Hutto is a candidate Democrats are proud of, Harrison said, adding he could see the Orangeburg Democrat as a future candidate for governor or the U.S. Senate again, pending November’s outcome.

Asked about a possible 2018 race for governor, Hutto said: “I don’t think I’d ever rule anything out completely.”

Hutto said he has contemplated a run for statewide office for a while, considering a bid for governor previously. Now, he adds, he is giving his all to the U.S. Senate race.

A main emphasis in his campaign is focusing on S.C. issues and criticizing Graham for his emphasis on foreign affairs.

“(Graham) wants to talk about Syria,” Hutto told the group in Sumter. “Let’s talk about Sumter and Spartanburg and St. George.”

‘Bunch of old guys’

While Graham is not popular with some in his own party, polls show the Upstate incumbent with a roughly 15 percentage-point lead over Hutto.

Part of the problem for S.C. Democrats — more moderate than compared to the national party — is that S.C. voters favor a generic Republican candidate over any Democrat by about 10 percentage points.

“Democrats in this state have to play a little game where we don’t act too Democrat,” said Sumter party chairman Bailey.

Hutto said he focuses on issues instead of party, touting his ability to be agreeable even with his far-right state Senate colleagues.

From the state budget to “the concern about the encroaching federal government,” Republican state Sen. Lee Bright of Spartanburg said he disagrees with Hutto on every major issue.

“We are philosophically on different ends of the spectrum,” said Bright, who won 15 percent of the vote in his GOP primary challenge against Graham, the most of any of the incumbent’s six challengers.

But Bright, who did not say who he planned to vote for in the Senate race, described Hutto as cordial and fair. “I’ve never known him to be anything but honest.”

Last spring, for instance, Bright and Hutto disagreed on the General Assembly’s desire to punish the University of South Carolina-Upstate and College of Charleston for assigning their students gay-themed books.

Citing the books, Bright said higher education was becoming more about indoctrination and less about education.

Hutto filibustered in defense of academic freedom, the Boy Scout leader calling out the 45-man, one-woman Senate.

“As soon as S-E-X is mentioned in a book at the college level, we’ve got a hang-up,” Hutto told senators, adding supporting the cuts made senators look like a “bunch of old guys” who are offended by homosexuality.

Eventually, the General Assembly directed the two schools to spend the same amount that they had spent on the books teaching American founding documents.

Hutto, who previously had used a parliamentary maneuver to block an effort to nullify Obamacare in South Carolina, was unfazed.

He describes himself as idealistic when it comes to government.

“I don’t mind saying that I’m for government,” he said. “But by that, I mean smart government, effective government, a government that works for people and not just the powerful.”

This story was originally published September 14, 2014 at 9:01 PM with the headline "Democratic US Senate candidate Hutto: ‘I don’t mind saying that I’m for government’."