Jim Rex has announced that he will visit Orangeburg today to formally announce his candidacy for governor. Rex, a Democrat, is presently state superintendent of education.

He will announce his candidacy for governor in a series of media events across the state Tuesday and Wednesday. One of those stops will be Tuesday evening in Orangeburg. The other stops will be in Florence, North Charleston, Columbia and Greenville.

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S.C. schools chief announces bid for governor

By SEANNA ADCOX, The Associated Press

Rex said Monday he’s running for governor in 2010 with hopes of moving the state past scandals and political infighting to focus on jobs and education.

The lone Democrat in statewide office said he wants to emulate two previous governors: Republican Gov. Carroll Campbell in job creation and Democratic Gov. Dick Riley, who became education secretary under President Clinton, in “understanding the connection between an educated work force and the economic vitality this state needs.”

Rex, a former teacher, coach and college administrator, enters an increasingly crowded gubernatorial field. On the Democratic side, he joins Sens. Robert Ford of Charleston and Vincent Sheheen of Camden, Columbia attorney and lobbyist Dwight Drake and Charleston attorney Mullins McLeod.

Republicans include U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett, state Sen. Larry Grooms, state Rep. Nikki Haley and Attorney General Henry McMaster. Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer is also expected to run. He’s offered to forgo the bid if Gov. Mark Sanford leaves office amid increased scrutiny after he confessed to an affair with an Argentine woman.

Rex said the state needs a “premeditated marketing campaign” to show South Carolina and its residents positively, rather than “all these haphazard events that reflect on us poorly as a state,” from the former state treasurer’s conviction on a cocaine charge to a South Carolina beauty queen’s ramblings on national TV.

The 67-year-old Lake Wateree resident said job creation must be the top priority, and a governor must be the state’s chief advocate, actively calling CEOs to recruit industry. The father of four recognizes his background is not in business, but cites his current post and previous college roles as management experience.

“I hear a lot of people talk about the need for a two-party system of balance in Washington. It makes sense to have some balance in Washington. I think it makes just as much sense to have balance in Columbia,” Rex said in launching only his second political campaign.

Both chambers of the South Carolina’s Legislature are controlled by Republicans, who have been at odds with Republican Gov. Mark Sanford throughout his tenure.

Rex won his 2006 race by just 455 votes, but hopes his 2 1/2 years in office and voters’ desire for change give him an edge in this red state.

“People are basically fed up with politicians in general,” he said.

As for why he’s not running again for schools superintendent, he said, “I’ve seen the limitations of what I can get done from this position.”

He cites a few of his successes: developing bipartisan support to revamp the state’s standardized testing system; giving schools more budget flexibility amid $500 million in education cuts in the recession; and the fact that more than 60,000 students attend choice programs in public schools, including virtual, charter and magnet schools. Rex hired the nation’s only statewide advocates of single-gender and Montessori programs.

But he has fought the idea of helping parents send their children to private schools through tax credits and scholarships, and calls the issue a yearslong distraction to other reform.

Lawmakers have long delayed comprehensive tax reform, to change the state’s three-decade-old education formulas. He’s also unsuccessfully pushed for a bill that forces all school districts to add choices in public schools. Sanford vetoed it because it did not include private schools in the mix.

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