The clouds parted, the sun shone down and angels sang Tuesday morning when it became known far and wide that Carol Fowler is stepping down as chairwoman of the S.C. Democratic Party. It’s odd to see a party chair that doesn’t bust their ass, or whip others’, to recruit good candidates and fill up the party coffers, but then that’s been Fowler’s legacy as the head of the SCDP. In 2008, when U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham was vulnerable and it was a big Democratic year, was she able to get a legitimate candidate to run? No. This year, she was seemed content for the party to not come close to fill out the slate and to allow two nobodies vie for the chance to lose to U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint.

It’s actually the flubbing of the Senate Democratic primary that has led to the end of her time at the top. She says that’s not the case, but really — after several years of bollixing up the works, the foul-ups this time are putting an end to state Democrats’ frustrations.

For a few weeks, some Democratic fingers have been pointed at the party’s leaders, and Fowler specifically, for not doing more to prevent Greene from running and for not bolstering the candidacy of his opponent, Vic Rawl, a Charleston County Council member and former circuit judge. Most of the criticism has taken place quietly as party members focus on getting their party’s nominee for governor, Vincent Sheheen, elected.

O, Lord. This one paragraph shows the typical short-sightedness of some in the party. The point wasn’t to prevent Greene from running or endorsing someone else in the primary. It was to help get competent, qualified and well-financed people to decide to run for higher office, particularly at the top of the ticket.

The funny part about all this is that despite Republicans loving the schadenfreude of watching the SCDP trip over itself on a regular basis, we’ve also talked to some elephant types who miss challenging battles with the Dems. After all, with a Democratic Party in atrophy, the GOP is left to do what’s been l’habituel over the past few years — fight among itself. There’s a longing for the administration of Dick Harpootlian. Then again, everyone misses Dick — he’s a one-man news machine, a wartime consigliere par excellence.

If the people making the decisions are smart, they’ll choose someone who can recruit, raise money and go at the Republicans. Then maybe we’ll have general elections that are actually interesting, instead of watching the state GOP split in the political mitosis that always happens when one party is way more powerful than the other.

We can’t say this enough: The leadership of the S.C. Democratic Party has woefully failed in its mission to further the party and to get people elected. Actually, we think it was former DNC chairman Don Fowler who said in class one day that the No. 1 job of political parties is to get people elected. Or maybe it was my professor at Alabama. Shit runs together.

Anyway, the party couldn’t recruit and run a decent candidate against U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham in his most vulnerable election year, and is having serious problems filling out the roster on down-ballot races with legitimate candidates. The leadership, seemingly not having a problem with this consistent level of epic suck, is pointing fingers elsewhere.

Democratic chair Carol Fowler blames in part, the economy.

“I think a lot of it is just being pragmatic,” said Fowler. “Fundraising is terrible for candidates this year. Fundraising is always much worse for Democrats than it is for Republicans. There’s just not as much money out there as there has been.”

Intense eye-rolling to commence. Democrats across the country usually have less money than GOP candidates. That’s not an excuse. Nor is the economy a good enough explanation. In a state that gives the Republicans roughly only a 10-point advantage, the GOP has no problem fielding multiple candidates for statewide races. This isn’t a 80/20 or 70/30 state. It’s close to 55/45. That suggests more of a problem within the party than it does external factors.

And as long as the SCDP fails to address the problems within its own operation, the more elections will be decided in the Republican primary in June.

Gov. Mark Sanford‘s announcement

Former DNC chair Don Fowler on CNBC

The Washington Post‘s Eugene Robinson on MSNBC’s “Countdown“

Sen. Jake Knotts on Fox News’ “Studio B“

SCDP chair Carol Fowler on Fox News’ “Studio B“

The Washington Post‘s Charles Krauthammer on Fox News’ “Special Report“

CNN team discusses Sanford announcement

National Democrats are channeling Shakespeare, saying, “Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this son of Obama.” Dems hold the U.S. House, U.S. Senate and the presidency for the first time in fifteen years. A time of strength, right?

Not in South Carolina. The Democratic Party here has been hamstrung by bad leadership, and right now, it is not any better. Carol Fowler will be chairman for another term, dooming the party to other electoral defeats by not stocking the cabinet with good candidates.

Here is a task: pick five possible Republican candidates for governor that have a punching chance. Now, pick five Democrats. Cannot find five Dems? Point proven.

Along comes the latest shot in the dark from the S.C. Progressive Network. Being an unapologetic flaming liberal in one of the most conservative states in the union in one thing. Hey, have at it. Believing that your brand of politics will win statewide is another. And then there is this:

It’s been seven long years since a movement to draft Gilda Cobb-Hunter to run for governor ran into ran into a roadblock: the prospective candidate herself. “South Carolina isn’t ready for a black woman to be governor,” the representative from Orangeburg said. She declined to enter the race against Jim Hodges, and Mark Sanford was elected governor.

The buzz among friends who know her best is that she is open to reconsidering a run for governor or, perhaps, taking on Sen. Jim DeMint for his US Senate seat.

A lot has changed in seven years, not the least of which is that we have a black man in the White House. While white men — from president, to governor to the legislature — have proven their inability to meaningfully address the problems facing our state and nation, it may well be time for Gilda to reconsider her earlier hesitancy.

The Democratic Party is fielding some nice guys to contend for its nomination for governor. Sen. Vince Sheheen of Camden, Rep. Harry Ott of Calhoun County, and Mullins McLeod of Charleston are names being mentioned. But they don’t resonate with the demand for substantive change that could inspire new South Carolina voters. We can’t expect their candidacies to be far removed from the traditional Democratic strategy of playing to the right of center to pick off a couple of percentage points from the Republican vote. This is the “Republican Lite” strategy that has failed for the past 30 years.

But what if a bold candidate spoke to the 43 percent of South Carolinians who did not vote in the last election?

To put it in perspective, McCain got 1,034,896 votes in South Carolina’s last general election; Obama got 862,449. That adds up to 1,897,345 South Carolinians who voted. Sitting it out were 1,472,048 of the voting-age population (24 percent of them registered voters) who didn’t vote. That’s an untapped market of 43 percent of folks in this state who could vote but chose not to.

We only need to mobilize 12 percent of the people who don’t vote to turn the state blue. Of all the Democratic candidates mentioned, Gilda has the magic to make this happen. She is the one person in the legislature that who be counted on to vote in the interest of working people, minorities and the disenfranchised. Her candidacy for governor or US Senate would inject a level of enthusiasm into the race — helping all Democratic candidates — that nobody else could provide.

You could get 10 experts on Southern politics in a room, and nine of those, at least, would agree that a black Democrat cannot get elected statewide in South Carolina. Just ask Steve Benjamin how well his 2002 election night went.

Some people may not like that assessment, but that does not mean it is not true. Rep. Cobb-Hunter is better off working hard in the House, rather being a sacrificial lamb for a party that would not be able to get one of the Duke boys elected in 2010.

South Carolina may be entering one of the most politically strange periods in the state’s history. As it stands now, Carol Fowler will be the chair of the S.C. Democratic Party going into the 2010 elections, and, most likely, Karen Floyd will be the chair of the S.C. Republican Party.

At any other time, having two women run the two major parties in a Southern state would be something to celebrate. However, there are a number of people who are apprehensive about the future.

The Democrats
Carol Fowler is, possibly, the worst person Democrats could have running their party. Last year, when Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham was at the most vulnerable point he will be in his career, she failed at both grooming a candidate and recruiting a candidate to run against him.

Democratic insiders would say that she was not that big of a deal in years past, and her marriage to SCDP heavyweight Don Fowler has put her where she is now. Unfortunately for the donkey class, she is running for another term as state chairman and does not seem to have any credible opposition.

In the announcement of Fowler’s intention to run again on Indigo Journal, State Superintendent of Education Jim Rex and House Minority Leader Harry Ott endorsed her candidacy. Maybe they felt they had to. But, one thing is for certain: if Fowler is in her current position next year, Ott will still be in the minority, and Rex will probably be out of a job.

If the Democratic Party in this state wants to be competitive in 2010, they need to overthrow the leadership that has been driving the party into the ground for the past several years.

If they want to remain irrelevant in South Carolina, they can keep doing what they have been doing.

The Republicans
Pick your poison: Spartanburg County chairman Rick Beltram or former Superintendent of Education candidate Karen Floyd. Obviously, Beltram will not be elected. He is too idiosyncratic, and too widely disliked, to win the SCGOP chairman’s job. Hence, Floyd is basically a shoo-in. And, that is a shame for all Republicans.

Floyd was the only statewide Republican candidate in 2006 to lose, and not the least of which because she was wedded to the Howard Rich crew, which pissed off enough Democrats and moderate Republicans to let Rex win.

So, the argument has to be made: if she could not properly manage her own campaign, what would that mean for the SCGOP in the two years she would be chairman?

Conclusion
If South Carolinians rest on their laurels and let these two people run the state’s two major parties over the next two years, it will not be a surprise if we continue to get bad candidates nominated and bad officials elected. Democrats and Republicans need to gain control over their parties and put forth smart partisans who will groom, recruit and get elected the best candidates possible.