Senate Balance Teeters on 98-Year-Old Legs

Talking about Strom Thurmond’s health around here is a little like sticking your finger in a bowl of grits: It ain’t polite.

True, the Washington power dynamic rests on the stooped shoulders of the increasingly shaky 98-year-old Republican senator from South Carolina.

With the Senate split 50-50, if Thurmond passes away before his term ends in 2003, the Democrats will probably take over and be in a position to block presidential nominees and stymie George W. Bush’s legislative agenda.

But in places such as Mims’ Corner Store in Edgefield, which looks just as it should with corncob pipes dangling from the wall, buckets of seeds on the floor and dusty old men sipping Bud and watching “The Price Is Right,” such conversation draws some hard looks.

“It ain’t nice to speculate on another man’s demise,” explained Louise Mims, the generously cut proprietor. “And Strom ain’t going anywhere anyway. Y’all just wasting your time.”

A call to the office of Gov. Jim Hodges, a Democrat, to ask what will happen if the eight-term senator dies before the next election brings a scolding reply from spokesman Morton Brilliant: “That’s morbid to even ask.”

Oldest Senator in U.S. History

Some say it’s Southern courtesy not to count a man out till he’s gone. Others call it denial.

South Carolinians are so attached to “Ol’ Strom,” the oldest U.S. senator in history and the longest serving, there’s been little public maneuvering to take his spot.

“We’re more concerned about who’s going to win the World Series in 2008,” said Richard Harpootlian, the state Democratic chairman. “Strom’s like the ocean. He was here before all of us. We fully expect him to be standing in the Capitol rotunda in January 2003 swearing in his successor.”

Indeed, Thurmond has not missed a single vote this year.

But the man who, as president pro tem of the Senate, is third in the line of succession to the presidency is not exactly spry. He needs an aide on each elbow to get around. In February he checked himself into a hospital for a weekend. He felt tired, he said.

It’s not clear how together he is. His chief of staff, Robert “Duke” Short, is essentially running the office. In the middle of a recent vote, Thurmond was seen shuffling around the Senate floor, passing out candy.

His aides are trying to keep him out of the spotlight. They’ve turned down interview requests, shooed away reporters and let few people get close to him.

“It’s almost like he’s a Soviet leader or something,” said David Lublin, a Southern politics specialist at American University. “Some people may wonder if he’s really alive anymore.”

To the relief of many, Thurmond has announced he will not run again in 2002. If he can’t make it that far, Hodges has promised--in previous brief comments on the matter--to appoint a caretaker senator, one who won’t stand for election after the interim term is over.

Two possibilities mentioned are former Education Secretary Richard W. Riley and U.S. Rep. James E. Clyburn. Both are loyal Democrats.

A small group of Republican legislators is trying to force Hodges to pick someone from the GOP if there’s a Thurmond vacancy. But few expect that effort to succeed.

As for the November 2002 election, the front-runner is Republican Rep. Lindsey O. Graham, an outspoken conservative who became nationally known as a leader in the impeachment of President Clinton. The Democrats are still searching for a candidate.

There’s a lot of pressure. Thurmond couldn’t be a much tougher act to follow.

With 72 years of public service, he’s the undisputed champion of retail politics.

Nobody in South Carolina, it seems, is more than one or two degrees of separation from the teetering man with the translucent skin and thin, reddish hair. With a big staff, a record-setting tenure and a relatively small state, Thurmond has managed to build a block of support as solid and immovable as Ft. Sumter by doling out an unfathomable number of jobs, internships, judgeships, favors and personalized letters of congratulations and condolences over the years.

“The first thing his staff does in the morning is clip the obits,” said Jack Bass, author of a recent Thurmond biography. “It’s worked.”

These days, with the Senate split 50-50, there’s intense interest in just about everything Thurmond does.

Some Signs of Poor Health

When he recently stopped gaveling open the Senate (one of his responsibilities as Senate president pro tem), the Republican leadership got nervous. Ditto when he didn’t show up for President Bush’s address to Congress. He had never missed that event before.

So it was reassuring to supporters when he polished off 30 oysters last month at a Virginia seafood house. And they were delighted when he approached Hillary Rodham Clinton at her swearing-in and hugged her. A legendary ladies’ man, Ol’ Strom still seems interested.

Throughout his life, Thurmond has shrugged off age. He volunteered for World War II at 41 and slipped behind enemy lines on D-day to fight the Nazis at Normandy. When he came home, he married a woman half his age.

On his 65th birthday, he proved his vigor to a reporter by dropping to the floor in suit and tie and squeezing off 100 push-ups.

Perhaps that’s why, while neighboring 79-year-old Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) uses a motorized cart to get around, Thurmond refuses walker, wheelchair and cane. He won’t wear a hearing aid either, although he needs one.

Even today, Thurmond’s in better shape than some of his predecessors. In the 1940s, octogenarian Sen. Carter Glass (D-Va.) wasn’t seen in the Capitol the last four years of his term. In 1969, South Dakota Republican Karl Mundt was incapacitated by a stroke but remained a senator for three more years.

Of course, there are a few people who quietly whisper they wish Thurmond hadn’t run for reelection in 1996.

“But after all Strom’s done, how could I not vote for him?” asked Carolyn Holson, one of the shoppers at Mims’ in Edgefield, Thurmond’s birthplace.

He ended up winning by 53%, his lowest margin of victory in decades.

Pushed His Son for U.S. Attorney

In January, Thurmond again tested the limits of loyalty. He recommended President Bush nominate his 28-year-old son, Strom Jr., as U.S. attorney. Li’l Strom, as they call him, is an assistant county prosecutor with no management experience. But in a sign of Thurmond’s unique position among his colleagues, the nomination is expected to sail through the Senate.

The affection for Thurmond transcends party lines, just as he has: The former ardent segregationist started his career as a Democrat, ran for president in 1948 as leader of the doomed racist Dixiecrat party and turned Republican in 1964. As the years passed he softened his segregationist views, eventually hiring blacks on his staff and supporting better education for minorities.

In a region that reveres its past, Thurmond is living history. His name is bolted to more bridges, more highways and more schools in South Carolina than anyone else’s.

If anything keeps him going, it will be that, said Bass, the biographer.

“Every morning Strom gets up and looks in the mirror and says to himself: ‘I’m making history today. I’m the oldest man in the Yew-Ess Sen-nit,’ ” Bass said, imitating Thurmond’s drawl. “And that gives him just enough adrenaline to get to work, through the day and up the next morning to look in the mirror and do it all over again.”

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Times researcher Edith Stanley contributed to this story.