Ex-DNC leader, mainstay of S.C. politics Don Fowler dies

COLUMBIA, S.C. » Don Fowler, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee and mainstay of South Carolina and national politics for decades, has died. He was 85.

Trav Robertson, chairman of South Carolina’s Democratic Party, told The Associated Press that Fowler died Tuesday night, calling him “the Democrats’ Democrat.”

No cause was mentioned, but Fowler’s wife said on Facebook that he had been in the hospital this week. DNC Associate Chairman Jaime Harrison said Fowler had leukemia.

Fowler, a native of Spartanburg, attended Wofford College, where he played basketball and baseball, and earned master’s and doctorate degrees in political science from the University of Kentucky.

He led the state party from 1971 to 1980, overseeing the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta.

Fowler served as national chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1995 to 1997, running the party’s dayto-day operations and presiding over President Bill Clinton’s re-election. On Wednesday, Clinton called Fowler an “excellent” chairman who helped candidates win, “even in places that weren’t Democratic strongholds.”

Part of his DNC tenure also included defending an unsuccessful legal challenge from candidate Lyndon LaRouche, whom Fowler said was not a “bona fide Democrat” due to what he said were anti-Semitic expressions and other activities, instructing state parties not to vote for him.