SPARTANBURG REPUBLICAN LEADER TALKS CANDIDLY WITH TPS ABOUT RUNNING FOR SCGOP CHAIR

Not too long ago, I heard that Spartanburg GOP Chair Rick Beltram was pondering a run at state chairman should Katon Dawson be elected to head the Republican National Committee. Then I heard Beltram had “reinvented himself,” and I absolutely had to investigate.

I know I have picked on Beltram before. A lot. So much so that it would take way too much time to link to everything, so I won’t.

But when I spoke with him today for a 15 minute interview, and I must say, he truly seemed as if he had changed his ways. You can listen to the complete interview here:

Beltram told me that he is definitely running for South Carolina GOP chairman if Dawson does win — or if he loses and decides not to seek re-election in May — and that much of his platform would be based on outreach.

Specifically, Beltram said he would be focused on reaching out to young folks and minorities. That would happen through technology and new ideas, Beltram said.

And he is wasting no time in doing so. The Spartanburg chair said he will be taking a bus load of folks — two-thirds of whom are African Americans — to Washington, D.C. next week for the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama to “be shoulder to should with a very diverse group of people.”

The bus tour has received attention from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The State newspaper, the Charleston Post and Courier, the Myrtle Beach Sun News, and Ebony Magazine, Beltram noted.

The 15-year veteran of Spartanburg politics added that he believes voters in South Carolina should register by party, but that independents should be welcome to vote in the primary of their choice.

And the primary system is something Beltram wants to keep in place.

“After much examination and discussion with others, that would not be a good idea,” Beltram said when asked if he endorsed nominating candidates by convention rather than party primary. “It has too much of a feeling that a small group of people in a closed room would make certain decisions that really should be open to people who are willing to vote in a primary.”

But the state GOP need not have a Republican running in every primary.

“In certain cases where there are Democrats who are supportive of the Republican agenda for the most part I would want to preserve them,” Beltram said. “In the same way, when there are Republicans who are always against us, I would want to remove them through a traditional primary process.”

That may sound a little like the old Beltram, but he assured me that the new version is here to stay.