Sharpton, Gilmore Eye White House Runs

[Ron Burgundy]

CQPolitics - By Marie Horrigan, Greg Giroux and Rachel Kapochunas, CQ Staff

The following is a roundup of candidate developments in the 2008 presidential race, from CQPolitics.com.

• Sharpton Hints at Run, Bumps Obama: Already a dozen strong, the field of Democrats officially running for president or seriously thinking about it has gained a new — but very familiar — name: that of Al Sharpton, a Pentecostal minister and political activist who made a splash with his brief bid for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.

The 52-year-old New Yorker — known nationally for his outsized personality, smart wit, sharp tongue and brushes with political controversy — told a conference on urban affairs Monday that he is thinking about taking the plunge again.

And in doing so, he went where no Democratic White House prospects has gone so far: taking a swipe at first-term Illinois Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record), who hasn’t committed to running for president, but whose personal magnetism has many talking about his prospects to be the nation’s first African-American president.

Sharpton, according to the Associated Press, told the audience the Democratic field needed a candidate who could provide substance on urban-related issues to the candidates’ debates.

“Right now we’re hearing a lot of media razzle dazzle,” Sharpton said, referring to Obama. “I’m not hearing a lot of meat, or a lot of content. I think when the meat hits the fire, we’ll find out if it’s just fat or if there’s some real meat there.”

Sharpton’s flamboyance set him apart from the field in the crowded debates in which he participated early in the 2004 campaign.

He took a total of just 2.4 percent of the Democratic primary votes, topping out at 9.7 percent in South Carolina and 8 percent in New York. Like most opponents to Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the eventual nominee, Sharpton was eliminated from contention by early March. But he did get a speaking slot at the party’s convention in Boston that summer, which he used to launch a lacerating attack on President Bush that had Democratic activists roaring with laughter and approval.

• Palmetto I: The campaign office of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who is exploring and expected to launch a bid for the Republican presidential nomination, announced the endorsement of a new backer in a key early primary state: South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint (news, bio, voting record).

DeMint issued a four-page letter praising Romney, a former CEO in management consulting and private equity investing for his business background and for his positions on a host of issues, ranging from national security to energy independence.

A social issues conservative, DeMint also said he and Romney both oppose abortion and same-sex marriage. Some conservatives have alleged that Romney’s views over time have not been consistent on those issues.

South Carolina’s primary is likely to be a significant test of the GOP presidential candidates’ relative clout in the South, the party’s strongest region. That was the case in the party’s most recent past competitive nominating battle: front-runner George W. Bush’s victory in the Feb. 19, 2000 contest nipped the rising challenge of Arizona Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) in the bud.

It is not yet clear, though, whether state Republicans will move their event up as early as the Democrats plan to in 2008. Addressing complaints from many other states about the longstanding primacy of the “first in the nation” Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary in the nominating process, the Democrats added caucuses in Nevada on Jan. 19, 2008 — five days after the scheduled Iowa event — and a South Carolina primary Jan. 29, exactly a week after the New Hampshire contest.

DeMint’s backing came one day after hundreds of Romney’s supporters pitched to help raise an estimated $6.5 million in a “National Call Day,” Romney’s first fundraising push of his campaign.

Read DeMint's Letter


• Palmetto II: The first debate among Democratic presidential contenders has been scheduled for April 26 — and it will be held in South Carolina.

The state siting highlights the importance of that early primary. The exact location —South Carolina State University in Orangeburg — highlights the importance of the party’s strong African-American voting base: the historically black college is located in the black-majority 6th Congressional District.

The scheduling of the debate was announced Monday by eight-term 6th District Rep. James E. Clyburn — recently elected by his House colleagues as the new majority whip — and state Democratic Party Chairman Joe Erwin.

Because of his prominence in the national party and as the only black representative from South Carolina, Clyburn will be courted by Democratic presidential hopefuls seeking his endorsement.

His 2004 experience suggests, however, that he may not be quite a kingmaker in the state. Bypassing then North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, a South Carolina native, Clyburn lined up with a longtime political ally, Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt. But Gephardt’s failure in that year’s Iowa caucuses forced him to the sidelines before the Feb. 3 South Carolina primary.

Clyburn then shifted to backing Kerry. But Kerry, though he eventually won the nomination, lost in South Carolina to Edwards by 45 percent to 30 percent.

• Gilmore the Explorer: James W. Gilmore III, the Republican who served as governor of Virginia from 1998 to 2002, is now officially testing the waters to bid for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination. The Federal Election Commission on Tuesday processed the papers that the 57-year-old lawyer filed to established a presidential fundraising committee, which Gilmore defines as exploratory.

Gilmore originally had announced Dec. 20 that he would set up the committee. His announcement came as a surprise to most observers: He has not run for office since his gubernatorial win in 1997 and has not had a high public profile in recent years, leaving him with much lower name ID than prospective candidates such as Arizona Sen. John McCain, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Gilmore does have credentials in national politics to tout. President Bush, after his first White House win, chose Gilmore to chair the Republican National Committee (a position he took in January 2001 and held for a year). That tenure overlapped his chairmanship of a presidential commission on terrorist threats within the United States; he remains involved in think tanks dealing with national security and homeland security.

Gilmore hopes that background, his record of strongly supporting tax cuts and his overall conservative profile will give him appeal to right-leaning voters expected to be active in the party’s nominating process.

But his tax stand is not an unmitigated political benefit for Gilmore. He was elected governor on a pledge to eliminate Virginia’s car tax, but his determination to stick with that position in the face of a state budget crisis damaged his job approval ratings.

Limited by state law to just one term, Gilmore was succeeded by a Democrat, Mark Warner, whose success at cleaning up the budget mess made him highly popular during his four years in office.

Gilmore would enter the presidential race as a distinct longshot; some analysts see his presidential exploration as a means for Gilmore to return to political prominence in his home state in time for a possible 2008 Senate bid (should veteran Republican Sen. John W. Warner decline to seek re-election) or for the open governor’s seat in 2009.

Gilmore is currently a partner at the Washington office of the law firm Kelley Drye & Warren.

• No Surge, Says Clark: Wesley K. Clark — the retired high-ranking general whose opposition to the Iraq war gained him attention during his bid for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination — is speaking out against President Bush’s expected proposal for a major U.S. troop “surge” in that war-torn nation.

Clark, who served as supreme commander of NATO troops during the 1990s military intervention to stem ethnic warfare in the Balkans, wrote in the Washington Post Monday that a troop surge would “put more American troops in harm’s way, further undercut the morale of U.S. forces, and risk further alienating elements of the Iraqi populace.”

Clark, who gave a well-received speech to the 2004 Democratic national convention, is mulling whether to launch a presidential bid for 2008.