CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) - Thomas Ravenel wants to talk about ideas in his independent run for U.S. Senate. But his felony drug conviction sometimes gets in the way.
Ravenel is serious about this run. In the months since he presented his 16,500 signatures to get on the November ballot, Ravenel has met voters at Irmo’s Okra Strut and Beaufort’s Water Festival. He’s given speeches at a gay pride parade in Columbia and to tea party groups in Laurens, Sumter and elsewhere.
The television crew taping the second season of his reality show “Southern Charm” doesn’t follow him all the time. At a recent event it was just Ravenel and his campaign manager. “It’s my money, I tell them when I want them,” he said of the crews, now taping the show’s second season.
But his bid to take out a man he holds in contempt - Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham - is stalled. A Winthrop University poll from last week had placed him at 8 percent of likely voters, with Graham at 46 percent and Democratic challenger Brad Hutto at 28 percent.
Ravenel recently said he is reassessing his campaign after the poll. He has spent about $300,000 so far - mostly from his own pocket. The businessman isn’t sure if it is a good investment to spend a whole lot more, even if he knows millions in television advertising is his only possible path to victory.
“If it’s obviously a situation where if we can’t win I’m not going to waste a lot of money,” Ravenel said Thursday, speaking with The Associated Press before an appearance before the West Ashley Rotary Club in Charleston. “But I want to make a good showing and get my issues out there.”
It’s a far cry from Ravenel’s first Senate race in 2004, his first political race ever. The seat was open thanks to the retirement of Ernest “Fritz” Hollings. Ravenel, a handsome and TV-savvy Republican whose star was rising, poured $3 million of his real estate developing fortune into a massive TV blitz. He was just 4,500 votes shy of beating Jim DeMint for second place and making a runoff that DeMint won.
Ravenel would become state Treasurer two years later. But then came a 2007 arrest on a cocaine charge that haunts him today. Ravenel pleaded guilty to the felony and served 10 months behind bars for buying cocaine for himself and his friends. He also pleaded guilty to driving under the influence in Long Island, New York, earlier this year and had his license suspended for six months.
After getting out of jail on the cocaine charge, he wrote on Facebook that he no longer wanted to be an American citizen and he owed this country nothing because it destroyed his reputation, confiscated his wealth and took his freedom. Ravenel later said that was satire.
Then he became the star of a reality TV show “Southern Charm,” where there was plenty of drinking and debauchery. He got a co-star less than half his age pregnant. Ravenel, 52, has moved in with her and is helping to raise their infant daughter.
At the Rotary Club meeting, Ravenel spoke about his ideas of limited government and personal liberties, linking Graham and New Deal policies to U.S. problems today. He opened the floor to questions. The first person asked about term limits. The second said he was going to address the elephant in the room. Ravenel let out a sigh and took a drink of water as he was asked why anyone who voted for him before all his problems should vote for him again.
“My personal life has been my Achilles heel,” Ravenel said. “But I’ve been very strong in business I think I’m right on the issues. Like Meatloaf said in that song in the 70s - two out of three ain’t bad.”
It didn’t satisfy the crowd, which kept asking questions and pointing out Ravenel’s private problems could become public problems again if he’s elected. Ravenel insisted he had learned his lesson.
Ravenel could barely hold in his disdain for Graham, calling him a “whore for military industrial complex.” Ravenel said Graham’s support for surveillance erodes personal liberties and the senator’s love for military intervention and bipartisan politics will destroy America and that’s why he decided to run.
He even said Hutto would be a better U.S. senator for solidly Republican South Carolina than Graham because when Democrats “want to grow government, take away our freedom, they need bipartisanship. Graham is the indispensable Republican.”
Graham dismisses Ravenel too. His campaign refuses to talk about him, referring any questions from reporters to the state Republican party. Graham debated his challengers in almost every primary and general election in his career, but turned down an invitation for a statewide televised debate on Oct. 13 that would have included Hutto and Ravenel.
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