After stumping recently at a private gathering, the busy Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Alan Wilson graciously gave the Times Examiner a couple of minutes before rushing off to his next appointment of the day.
Wilson said of Jordan, the famous basketball player, “What made him so good is he was always taking the shots.” He told of how basketball fans remember all the “buzzer-beater” shots that Jordan took during his career that won the game but that what is not remembered is the multitude of shots he took that did not swoosh through the net.
Wilson, who said he plans to play to win, wants to be like Jordan. “We're going to take chances. We're going to be aggressive in our policies and we're going to do things the state hasn't seen before. We're going to be like Michael Jordan. We;re going to take so many shots and we're going to win so many games.”
If elected governor, Wilson plans to tackle a number of issues, including the elimination of the state income tax and radically reducing property taxes. He would also work to improve infrastructure and lower utility rates. He also said that he would make public safety a number onhe priority, “which is what I have done as Attorney General.”
“I want to DOGE fraud, waste and abuse out of South Carolina government from the state all the way down to local government,” he continued.
Concerning education, the gubernatorial hopeful said that he wants to have an education agenda that promotes families first. He wants to expand access to colleges, including technical colleges and wants to expand dual enrollment programs, which are designed to allow high school students to earn college credit while simultaneously taking their high school classes.
Wilson also plans to address judicial reform if he is elected to reside in the governor's mansion. “I have been advocating for judicial reform for 15 years. I want to bring the JMSC (Judicial Merit Selection Commission) completely up under the office of governor, giving the executive branch control of how judicial candidates are nominated but allowing the legislature to have the up or down vote on it.”
Wilson added that the legislative branch has too much say in judicial selection and the executive branch has too little. He wants to bring parity to the process between the two branches. “That way there's more accountability,” he said.
A recent proposal to build a casino in the Palmetto State appears to be dead. When asked if he would support any such ventures, Wilson replied, “I could never support something without buy-in from the law enforcement and faith communities.”
Wilson, as governor, would be working closely with the legislature for at least four if not eight years. What is his take on the Freedom Caucus, a minority group of Republicans who are generally more conservative than the rest of the Republican caucus and who have refused to sign a restrictive 'loyalty oath' to the larger Republican caucus?
“I think a lot of times what separates the Freedom Caucus from the regular caucus is personality-driven. . . I think I could work ideologically with either faction of the Fepuclican Party,” adding, ““All the things that I have fought for are the things that the Freedom Caucus seems to be advocating for.”
Although he admits that there are no doubt some RINO's (Republicans in Name Only) and moderates in the larger Republican caucus, he believes that a vast majority of the Republicans in the statehouse agree on the end results. “Maybe they just disagree on how to get to the end results,” he said.
Whom does Wilson support to replace him as Attorney General? “I'm going to let the people sort that out. I'm going to let that race play out,” he said, noting that he is staying focused on his own race.
Although naturally everyone would like to win outright, with five candidates vying for the governor's seat Wilson believes that there will be a runoff and he believes that he is in a good position to make it into that runoff. He says that if he is not a voter's first choice for governor he wants to be their second choice in case their first choice does not get into the runoff and he does.
