Campaign ’96 / THE SENATE : Thurmond Thinking of an Eighth Term; Voters Aren’t So Sure : Though popular, the 93-year-old Republican risks handing his seat to a Democrat if he runs again, observers say.

Folks have been spreading stories about Strom Thurmond for as long as he’s been in politics. They told stories about his health habits, stories about his hair implants, stories about his eye for the ladies, particularly young ladies.

None of it did any harm. It just added to his legend. Nor did it matter when he switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican side. The 93-year-old South Carolina senator is a larger-than-life figure, a politician who has straddled the 20th century history of his state like an eccentric and cantankerous Colossus. What did it matter if he was a bit of a character? That’s just old Strom.

But the stories they’re spreading now are different. They’re saying that Thurmond’s too old, that perhaps he’s even senile. They’re saying he’s out of touch, especially with South Carolina’s new generation of voters. They’re saying that in this age of term limits, the idea of running for an eighth six-year term--taking him past his 100th birthday--is just too much and might jeopardize the Republican hold on what otherwise is a safe Senate seat.

But Thurmond has no intention of stepping down. Accompanied by former Vice President Dan Quayle at a rally in Greenville, S.C., on Tuesday, he hinted that he is ready to run again, but he stopped short of officially announcing his reelection bid.

“I’m not in the position to announce anything yet, but you won’t be disappointed,” he told supporters. “There’s a few liberals running around saying I shouldn’t run again. What counts is not age but performance; getting the job done. What do you think?” The question brought a standing ovation from the crowd at Bob Jones University.

But others were not as sure about his reelection hopes. “I think he’s jeopardizing his seat by this last campaign,” said Earl Black, a University of Texas political scientist and longtime observer of South Carolina politics. Thurmond hasn’t had a serious challenge since 1978, and even then his campaign aides were concerned that he appeared too old, Black said. But, he added, “this is one of those instances where the candidate, for whatever personal reasons, is just determined to have one last fling.”

Thurmond’s detractors cite news stories from last year about Senate colleagues questioning whether Thurmond was up to the job of chairing the Armed Services Committee or occasions when he seemed disoriented during hearings. And there was an incident when Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.) helped a Capitol police officer subdue a man who shoved Thurmond near the Senate subway cars. Thurmond walked away, apparently unaware of the trouble. If he wins reelection, five months into his term he would become the oldest person ever to serve in Congress.

Then there’s the matter of South Carolina’s changed political scene.

Thurmond, who as South Carolina’s governor in 1948 ran for president as the candidate of the segregationist States Rights Party, won election to the Senate in 1954 and moved to the Republican Party in 1964. His switch to the GOP helped to instigate a movement of Southern whites to the party that still is underway. But Blease Graham, a political scientist at the University of South Carolina, notes that Thurmond initially stood apart from his new party at a time when most state voters still saw themselves as Democrats. “He got elected as Strom Thurmond,” Graham said.

Now the GOP is dominant in the state. Ironically, however, the party is not populated by the kind of people likely to look on Thurmond as an unassailable figure. These new Republican voters--younger, many from out of state--as well as independents, “like Thurmond until they hear him or see him,” said Graham.

So as the nonagenarian gears up for yet another election, Scott Sokol, executive director of the state’s Democratic Party, asserts that Thurmond may be vulnerable. A poll taken in December showed 59% of South Carolina voters think he should retire. “It’s an incredible opportunity for the Democrats to take Strom Thurmond’s seat,” Sokol said. Doing that would be a tremendous bonus to the Democrats, who are anxiously trying to fend of GOP attacks on several Senate seats being left vacant by Democrats who are retiring.

Republicans, of course, scoff at such talk, especially coming from a Democratic Party that has been so weakened that it holds only one statewide elected office: comptroller.

And Graham says he can’t see the Democrats prevailing, despite Thurmond’s age and the state’s changing demographics. “As long as Thurmond [physically] can keep the seat, it’s his to keep,” he said.

Even Black stops short of asserting Thurmond will lose: “I’m not predicting that Thurmond will be defeated. I just think this is a chancy race.”

Thurmond’s age--he was born in 1902, only 37 years after the Civil War ended--is not a new campaign issue. “They’ve been saying that the last three times he’s run,” said Cindy Carter, political director of Thurmond’s campaign. “So really there’s no difference this time. . . . He’s been hearing the same thing for so long.”

And many South Carolinians long ago made their peace with--or chose to ignore--Thurmond’s idiosyncrasies, such as his orange hair implants and his marriage to two beauty queens who were, respectively, half and a third his age.

He also is an exercise enthusiast who eschews cigarettes and alcohol. “He advocated physical exercise before exercise clothes were devised,” quipped Graham.

So far, Thurmond faces no significant primary challenge. His two strongest potential GOP challengers--Gov. David Beasley and former Gov. Carroll A. Campbell Jr.--both say they support Thurmond’s reelection bid. Secretary of State Jim Miles has hinted he might challenge Thurmond for the nomination but Campbell has publicly warned him not to do so.

On the Democratic side, however, Thurmond faces a well-heeled opponent. Elliott Close, 42, a wealthy real estate developer, has statewide name recognition because of his family’s textile business and philanthropic involvement. Close is a moderate who has demonstrated an impressive ability to raise funds without accepting money from political action committees.

Thurmond likes to say he is running on his record. But Democrats question whether he is too far out of sync with voters to prevail--and they say his record, both in its particulars and in its length, is part of the problem. In seeking one more reelection, Thurmond, who has become a professed supporter of term limits, is bucking voters’ distaste for career politicians.

Thurmond’s popularity in South Carolina derives in part from the attention he pays to constituent service and in using his influence in Washington to get funds for highways and other job-producing benefits. “I don’t want to take away what he’s done,” said Sokol, the state Democratic Party official. “He touched people at a retail level.”

But voters across the country increasingly have been attracted to candidates such as Close, who are successful in business and have no previous experience with a political system many voters find untrustworthy.

“Strom Thurmond does business in the old way: politics as usual, politics at its worst,” Sokol maintains. “He represents everything that people seem to dislike.”

The question is whether--as they have done in the past--voters will make an exception for him.

Thurmond has always been a rule-breaker. In his 1954 Senate victory he ran as a write-in candidate, making him the only person to ever win a seat in the chamber through that method.

A former Democratic New Dealer, he first came to national prominence with his 1948 presidential bid in which he led his so-called Dixiecrats, a dissident band of segregationists, away from the Democratic Party. He won 39 electoral votes.

He remained an ardent segregationist into the 1960s but then began to seek and win black support. He was the first Southern senator to hire black staffers.

“When you look back on the guy’s history, there is almost something like a kind of prescience--a feel for the pulse of politics,” Graham said. The question now is whether Thurmond has lost that touch.