Rod Shealy, bare-knuckles political consultant and publisher, dies at 56 after battling cancer
By APWednesday, August 18, 2010
SC political consultant Rod Shealy dies at age 56
CHARLESTON, S.C. — South Carolina newspaper publisher and bare-knuckles political consultant Rod Shealy, who helped elect former and current Republican officeholders in his state, has died. He was 56.
Lori Unumb (YU’-num) said her brother died Wednesday at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, two years after undergoing surgery to remove a cancerous brain tumor.
“We’re deeply saddened and shocked. He’s been struggling with cancer, obviously, for a couple of years, but he was doing well and optimistic and happy and feeling like the treatments had been working,” she said.
Shealy published six small newspapers and operated a soda and ice cream shop. But he was best known as a hardball political consultant who helped catapult long-shot Republicans into office. His winning candidates included Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, former Treasurer Thomas Ravenel and Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom.
“He liked taking on uphill battles where nobody gave them a chance,” said Bauer, a longtime friend, noting the Statehouse was filled with people he helped put in office.
Shealy’s tactics sometimes got him into trouble. The protege of Lee Atwater, another take-no-prisoners consultant, gained national notoriety after he recruited an unemployed black fisherman to run against Arthur Ravenel for the U.S. House in 1990. The plan: Drive up local white voter turnout and help one of his sisters in a state primary the same day. In 1992, Shealy was fined $500 on a misdemeanor conviction for failing to report a $5,000 campaign contribution. The episode also brought changes in the state’s ethics laws.
“Those who didn’t know him missed out on a truly kind, compassionate, and caring man who would do anything he could for those he cared about. He was also a competitor of the highest order. He was a political innovator and an unconventional campaigner,” Bauer said. “Rod made an immeasurable imprint on South Carolina politics that will never be erased.”
