Bill Clinton in town for Riley, Hillary

By RODDIE A. BURRIS - rburris@thestate.com

They’re cut from the same political cloth — former President Bill Clinton and former S.C. Gov. Dick Riley.

It’s fitting then that Clinton will come to Columbia tonight to help shine a spotlight on Riley, who served eight years in Clinton’s cabinet as education secretary.

Clinton also will cut out some time to campaign for the presidential bid of his wife, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

Bill Clinton will be the keynote speaker at a dinner and reception hosted by the S.C. New Democrats at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center.

While Clinton is the draw at the black-tie event, the love in the room will be Riley’s exclusively.

“Dick Riley was the last great Democratic reformer in this state who achieved success, and Bill Clinton was the last great Democratic national reformer who achieved success,” said Phil Noble, president of the S.C. New Democrats.

More links Clinton and Riley than their pasts, which goes to the mid-1980s when they both were governors, Noble said.

“They are both new Democrats,” Noble said, “and the only way the Democratic Party will succeed again in this state is to have new, bold ideas. ... That’s what the South Carolina New Democrats are about.”

Riley, who co-chairs the Hillary Clinton for President campaign in South Carolina, was elected S.C. governor in 1978 and re-elected in 1982.

Riley and Clinton, who was governor of Arkansas, helped found the center-right Democratic Leadership Council in 1985, designed to incubate new ideas to reform government.

Riley then joined with the late state Sen. Isadore Lourie, D-Richland, to start the state affiliate, the S.C. Democratic Leadership Council.

Riley supported Clinton’s 1992 presidential bid, constructed on the Leadership Council’s ideas. After his election, Clinton tapped Riley as his secretary of education. Riley went on to become the only Clinton cabinet member to serve throughout both Clinton terms.

Clinton’s visit is expected to raise thousands of dollars to promote the Leadership Council’s goals.

Tickets for the event range from $100 a person for the reception and dinner up to $10,000 for a table of 10 with access for two people to a reserved reception with Clinton and Riley and a post-dinner Riley reception.

Charleston Mayor Joe Riley, Columbia Mayor Bob Coble, Florence Mayor Frank Willis and Greenwood Mayor Floyd Nicholson are co-chairing tonight’s event, formally dubbed “S.C. Says ‘Thank-You to Gov. Riley.’” All are New Democrat members, Noble said.

“As soon as we told these folks about how we were planning to honor Gov. Riley and his career, they all jumped at the chance to be involved,” he said.

Most recently, Clinton has been in South Carolina to promote the presidential candidacy of his wife, making appearances in Charleston, North Charleston and Rock Hill.

The S.C. Clinton campaign said the former president will do some campaigning at several stops in the Midlands today, before his speech tonight.

Hillary Clinton, the front-runner among Democrats in the 2008 campaign for most of this year, has fallen in several S.C. polls recently and now trails U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in some surveys.

While Bill Clinton remains popular with black voters, who are expected to cast up to half of the votes in the state’s Jan. 26 Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton’s support is slipping among black S.C. voters, some polls show.

Still, Bill Clinton is “Hillary’s Oprah,” if not her campaign’s possible savior, according to political analyst Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

“Among Democrats, Bill Clinton is enormously popular and still a significant (plus), though not an unalloyed plus,” Sabato said.

With Clinton’s “aura of inevitability cracked,” Sabato said voters are beginning to realize they can love the Clintons and not vote for Hillary Clinton.

“(Voters) are saying, ‘Do we really want to go through that again?’” Sabato said. “Once the aura of inevitability is cracked, you can never get it back.”

Reach Burris at (803) 771-8398.