Barrett pushes agenda during S.C. bus tour
Congressman Gresham Barrett is on tour, traveling from town to town in hopes that citizens will make him their next governor.
With 43 days left, Barrett embarked on the Barrett Bus Tour around the state, visiting four cities on Monday and keeping the audiences nodding their heads to his string of hit positions on key Republican topics.
Barrett describes his campaign in four words - and three of them were "jobs."
"Jobs, jobs, jobs. It's the top three issue in South Carolina," Barrett said. "It's what we've built our whole campaign around."
Barrett rolled into Aiken County Monday afternoon in a palatial recreational vehicle, chauffeured by its owner, Republican booster and Barrett supporter C.T. Cromer, an Anderson businessman.
Seated in a captain's chair, gazing down the country road ahead of him, Barrett rattled through his policy set referencing all the high points his Republican base lauds - conservative economics, leadership and his family values.
His economic theory, he said, was ground out as a small businessman running a furniture store.
Barrett wants to radically reform current tax codes to make the Palmetto State business friendly.
He wants to put a salesman's mentality into the Department of Commerce by giving an incentive to do their jobs - perform or find a new one.
His leadership skills come from his time serving his country as an Army captain, he said.
It is these, he believes, that will stand him in good stead when the state suffers its next disaster. However, the staunch right-winger believes that, just like his mentor, former Gov. Carol Campbell, he can work with all parties and people.
"At end of the day, the key ingredient is working with people. It's personal relationships with people," he said. "You don't want to compromise conservative principals, but you have got to find common ground - I know that's the kind of governor I can be."
Family and faith are there, also. Policies at improving education come straight from his wife's first-grade class.
As governor, Barrett said he will lead a charge to simplify the "bureaucratic maze" that exists in education and get the education dollars from the state working in the classroom rather than in offices.
On Monday, Barrett said on his bus and again at the Aiken Chamber of Commerce that his state lags well behind the national average in the portions of each dollar that are used in the classroom.
In that classroom, Barrett sees reading as "the heart and soul" of education and believes no child should leave the third grade without meeting reading standards. He also hope to reduce the number of days his wife, and presumably all teachers, spend administering standardized tests to 23 days each year.
With an energy policy on paper, Barrett understands his off-shore drilling and commercial reactor push will not likely bear fruit until after the next governor has been elected and been replaced; however, he feels his drive to an independent South Carolina, running on locally produced power, will be great incentive for corporate investment.
"At the end of the day, if we can get people excited, if there's a governor pushing nuclear energy in preparation for a nuclear renaissance, that's going to get companies excited and invest in South Carolina," he said. "If we can be the tip of the spear in energy independence, we can show South Carolina leading the nation."
Contact Mike Gellatly at mgellatly@aikenstandard.com.