Full Interview with Phil Noble

Phil Noble is currently running for governor as a Democrat. He is a successful businessman and has been involved in the Democratic Party since he was a kid. Noble has helped create nonprofits such as the Palmetto Project and worked on the One Laptop Per Child initiative. I got a chance to meet with him on Saturday to discuss his policy, the race, and his past meetings with President Obama.

You are a successful businessman. What caused you to leave that and run for governor?

Well, I�ve been involved in politics in one way or another all my life. When I was a nine-year old kid and I was walking through my living room my dad said to me, �Boy come sit down and watch this.� And I watched the Kennedy-Nixon debate. And after it was over he said, �What do you think?�

            And I said, �Well, I kind of like that Kennedy guy.�

            So, he said, �Why don�t you go help him in his campaign?�

So, the next day I got on my little red bicycle and rode down to the Democratic Party headquarters and walked in the door, fulling expecting to see John Kennedy at the desk. He wasn�t there. But it was exciting. There were posters on the wall and there were phone calls and they were banging signs together and a little old lady came up and said, �Can I help you?�

            And I said, �Sure. I want to help him get elected.�

She laughed and handed me a sack of brochures and said, �Here go hand these out.� I�m sure she never expected to see me again. I gave them out and came back and said, �Now what?�

            And now I�ve been wandering into campaign headquarters every two years for the rest of my life. In some way, shape, or form I�ve been involved in politics.

One of those people you helped out was Barack Obama in 2008. Did you ever get to meet him?

Oh yeah. I met him when he came to South Carolina for the first time. I was standing at the bottom of the steps and I told him, �Welcome to South Carolina.� And I spent a little while with him riding around on his various trips whenever he came here.

What�s he like?

He was just, he struck me as, well, what you see is what you get. I mean, I�m sure there�s a private side to him and there ought to be. I saw an interview today of the guy who was the White House photographer for the whole eight years and he said the same thing. He said that he captured lots of different sides of Obama but he didn�t change, his basic core did not change.

You said that on your first day in office that you will fire the entire board at Santee-Cooper and you will find a way to force the board and executives of SCE&G to resign. How do you plan to do such a thing?

Well, in some way, shape, or form there is going to be a final resolution of this deal and part of it is Santee-Cooper, which is state-owned, which the governor has an enormous part in. And part of it is trying to deal with SCE&G, part of it is going to be dealing with the regulatory agencies, and I don�t believe that when I�m governor there will not be a final deal that I will sign that will not be in the best interest of the people of South Carolina. And if we have to sell Santee-Cooper, then we�ll sell it. If SCE&G has to be sold to somebody, then it ought to be sold. Ultimately the governor is supposed to look out for all of the people of South Carolina and that�s what I�ll do. I don�t care if the board or the senior management lose their jobs because they ought to lose their jobs. I�ve said that we ought to have a special prosecutor to see if somebody broke the law. I have no interest in it. None of those guys have given me money and I am not going to take their money. I don�t want their money.

What�s the greatest issue facing our state?

I think there�s two issues, and they�re related. One is the corruption and broken government. That�s what keeps us from doing anything else. The second big issue is education. Because if we don�t fix education in this state then nothing else really matters. We ain�t even close to fixing it. You know, the other day the State Department of Education said that our graduation rate went up four points. Wonderful. Wonderful. But what they don�t tell you is that they have lowered the standards to now we have the 48^th lowest standards in the country.

That is true. At my school you can fail a class for the quarter and end up passing by doing credit recovery. They find a way to get you to graduate.

Exactly right. And that�s a fraud on the students because they get out of high school and they think it means something. But it doesn�t. And the ACT measures across the board college readiness. In South Carolina the rate of passage for all four ACT provisions is 16%. For African-Americans it�s under two. That�s a fraud to hand these kids a piece of paper and say you�re educated to join the workplace. Because they�re not.

Your opponent James Smith is a very well-known Democrat in our state. He has a lot of endorsements. Is that a big blow to your campaign?

No. You know, good for him. I�m glad that he�s getting endorsements. Everybody wants everybody to be for them. I want everybody to be for me. But politicians getting together and endorsing other politicians is not exactly news. And endorsements are sort of a relic of a dying political system of the past. People make up their own minds. They read the newspaper, they listen to blogs and I don�t think that when voters go to vote eight months from now they won�t remember or care who endorsed who for office. Sure, I�ll have endorsements from people who support me and I�m glad and it�s good. And I�m sure he�s glad and he ought to be. But elections aren�t about endorsements. Elections are about ideas. It�s about who�s going to make a difference in people�s lives in South Carolina.

I get a Bernie Sanders vibe from how you say that you don�t care about endorsements very much. Is that a reasonable comparison?

Well, I think Bernie energized a lot of new people to come into the party with big and bold ideas. I think that was a wonderful thing. I�ve got my differences with Bernie, but the reality is that Bernie was about big change and big reform and doing it now. And that�s what we need. Hillary had some interesting ideas and did some things that I thought were positive as well. But the reality is that if we, as the Democratic Party, don�t embrace change we will get run over by those who do. And we should. And we have been.

If you get this nomination, the Democrats look like they have a decent chance of winning the election for the first time since before I�ve been alive. What will you do to attract the independent voters?

Well, I don�t think this election is about left, right, liberal, or conservative. It�s about reform and change versus more of the same. It�s about corruption versus openness and transparency. And I think that those issues are far more important than the traditional Democrat-Republican mindset. There�s 30% of Republicans who wouldn�t vote for anybody who isn�t a Republican and the same for the Democrats. Fine. But there�s still 30% in the middle. And there are open, fair-minded people who make their decisions not based on some ideological calculation.

There�s a lot of dissatisfied GOP voters right now following the corruption scandal at the State House. Will that help you out?

Sure, absolutely. When you ask somebody, �Are you prepared to write a check for $9,000 to the utility companies?� and he goes, �Hell no,� then he doesn�t really care who�s going to make that work for him to get his $9,000 back.

My last question for you is more of a national issue right now. Do you think Senator Al Franken should resign?

You know, I leave that to him to decide. God knows we�ve all done stupid things. And I�ve done more than my share of stupid things in my life, and I leave it up to him. That�s between him and his voters. He�s an elected official. He has to make that choice. I don�t put him in the same category as Roy Moore, who�s a pedophile essentially. There�s a difference between occasional stupidity and deliberate immorality.

You can check out Mr. Noble�s campaign at philnoble2018.com.