COLUMBIA — South Carolina Democrats on Saturday elected tart-tongued Columbia lawyer Dick Harpootlian as their chairman, following his promise to remind voters who are unhappy with current conditions in the state have Republicans to blame.

Harpootlian won the race with 624 votes. Charleston businessman Phil Noble had 331 votes and Marion County Democratic Party Chairman Lee Jenkins 68.

Harpootlian’s now back in the post he held from 1998 to 2003, ready to rumble as he replaces Carol Fowler who was not seeking a third term. The Columbia lawyer has a colorful past marked by words that went too far.

Last week, for instance, Harpootlian apologized for saying the sponsors of a bill that would yank driver’s license for high school dropouts were “retards.” He’s best known for a remark in 1986 as he ran for county council: “I don’t want to buy the black vote. I just want to rent it for a day.” In 1994, Harpootlian lost a race for attorney general to a Republican opponent, deadpanning that “The people have spoken. The bastards.”

Harpootlian’s election at the state party’s convention puts him back in the role he left after Dems lost the governor’s mansion in 2002, something he blamed on complacency at the party he ran. Democrats lost a bid to take that office back last year as Republican Nikki Haley became the state’s first woman governor.

“I think that Nikki Haley better get a good night’s sleep because it will be the last one she has for the next 18 months,” Harpootlian said.

He said it’s his job to remind South Carolina that Republicans control the state and shoulder the blame for everything that’s wrong.

Harpootlian concedes it’s old news since the GOP has controlled the Legislature and governor’s office for the past eight years and in November completed a sweep of the last of nine statewide constitutional offices. But Harpootlian said the message has “not been delivered on the point of a spear. It’s got to be sharp and it’s got to hurt.”

The party will begin airing TV ads beginning next week as Republicans gather for the nation’s first GOP presidential debate and elect their own chairman.

“I’m tired of being the doormat of the United States for Republicans. I’m tired of watching the news, where they’ve got us colored red. I’m tired of having to put up with the national humiliation that our Republican leaders have brought us time and time and time in the last eight years,” Harpootlian told the convention before the vote. “I will work for the next 18 months to torment, torture and drive Republicans out of this state.”

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