SCDems News
Congressional face-off: Two Democrats battling to take on Joe Wilson
June 3, 2008
WASHINGTON — Two military veterans who share their antipathy for U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson have turned their fire on each other as they vie for victory in the June 10 Democratic primary and the right to challenge the Lexington Republican incumbent in November.
Rob Miller, a former Marine Corps captain who fought in Iraq, and Blaine Lotz, a retired Air Force intelligence colonel who tracked enemy fire in Vietnam, exemplify a nationwide Democratic strategy of tabbing military veterans to help expand the congressional majority the party gained in 2006.
The 2nd Congressional District, which hasn't sent a Democrat to Congress since 1965, embraces all or parts of 10 counties from the Midlands and along the Georgia border to Beaufort, Hilton Head and other coastal areas.
While Democratic operatives in Washington admit picking up the 2nd District seat is an uphill climb, they say it's in play during a tumultuous - and possibly historic - presidential election year.
"We're keeping a close eye on that district," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "It's on our radar screen."
Before Miller, of Beaufort, or Lotz, of Hilton Head, takes on Wilson in the general election, they must deal with each other.
The Miller campaign Friday began sending mailers tying Lotz, who held a senior Pentagon intelligence post before leaving Washington in 2005, to President Bush and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
"We need a congressman who will bring change to Washington - not a Bush administration insider like Lotz," Miller's mailer said.
Lotz, 65, responded angrily Saturday while campaigning in Lexington and Barnwell counties.
Noting he was appointed as assistant secretary of defense for intelligence oversight by President Clinton in 1998, Lotz rebutted Miller's efforts to tie his Pentagon work to flawed intelligence on Iraq before the war.
"The Iraq war was wrong from the start, and I have said so," Lotz said. "While I have publicly praised Rob Miller in the past for his Iraq service, I now find it incredible that he challenges my Democratic credentials.
"I worked for Jack Kennedy, I was at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, I was a staffer to a Democratic congressman and I have held several leadership positions in the Beaufort County Democratic Party."
Lotz demanded Miller and his aides "quit the politics of personal destruction" — but not before deriding Miller, 33, as "a Republican posing as a Democrat whose only record of voting was in January 2008."
EXPERIENCE, CHANGE
Lotz touts his experience and contacts in Washington, while Miller casts himself as a Washington outsider who would help change Congress.
Lotz has been endorsed by the Democratic Party chairmen in seven of the district's 10 counties.
"He's so well prepared, and he has a lifetime of experience," said Kathy Hensley, chairwoman of the Lexington County Democratic Party.Claudia Kennedy, a military retiree who was the Army's first female three-star general and now lives in Hilton Head, said she and Lotz became friends when they worked at the Pentagon.
"He's real calm," Kennedy said. " ... His value system and his judgment and his character are consistent with what you would expect of a leader with a deep military background."
A similar number of other prominent Democrats have endorsed Miller. They included state Sen. Brad Hutto of Orangeburg, state Rep. Leon Howard of Columbia, chairman of the S.C. Legislative Black Caucus, and Columbia Mayor Bob Coble.
"Rob Miller is our best shot at winning the 2nd District in November," said Dick Harpootlian, a Columbia lawyer and former state Democratic Party chairman.In an unusually aggressive primary campaign for a first-time office-seeker, Miller has spent $125,000 on patriotic TV ads extolling his military service and highlighting his South Carolina roots.
Lotz will run TV spots in the week leading up to the June 10 primary, campaign aides said.
Miller, who left the Marines Corps in February, lives on Lady's Island. He and his wife Shane own The Recruit's Depot, a popular Beaufort store that sells Parris Island and San Diego Marine Corps T-shirts, hats, mugs, decals, coolers and other memorabilia.
After leaving the Pentagon three years ago, Lotz and his wife Lynne settled on Hilton Head Island, where he has become active in Democratic politics, aids the Deep Well food pantry and consults on national security with emerging democratic countries.
WINNING CONDITIONS
President Bush got 60 percent of the vote in the 2nd District four years ago.
Miller and Lotz, though, say changing demographics, rising unemployment and deteriorating roads in the sprawling district could help return it to Democratic control. They say the district is less solidly Republican than a Mississippi district that chose a Democrat for the first time in decades in a recent congressional special election.
Miller said Wilson has been a cheerleader for Bush's war policies while neglecting critical needs in his own district.
"There's money that we're spending in Iraq that we could be spending back home," Miller said.
Wilson, a fourth-term Congressman who earlier served 17 years in the state Senate, said he never takes any election for granted, but is confident he can defeat either Democrat.
"I'm more prepared for this cycle than I have ever been," Wilson said. "I'm very grateful for the strong support I'm receiving."
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