Presidential candidates have connections to the Carolinas

For at least some presidential hopefuls, the road to the White House passed through the Carolinas.

Two went to school here. One made it a regular New Year’s destination. One invested.

And one might have saved the life of a future congressman.

Here’s a look at some of the Carolina connections among the presidential candidates.

1. Republican Rand Paul graduated from Duke Medical School in 1988. Three years later, as he was doing his residency in Durham, the son of a Texas congressman started a group called the North Carolina Taxpayers Union.

That’s how he came to the attention of David Miner, a young Republican from Cary who was running for the state legislature. The two met at a Chapel Hill sports bar and plotted out Miner’s campaign. Paul agreed to help the campaign use the Taxpayers’ Union to boost Miner.

“He had a lot of politics in his blood, but he was also focused on finishing the residency requirements,” Miner recalls. “He was intense. He had a competitive nature about him.”

Miner went on to win that election.

2. Republican Carly Fiorina was known as Cara Carleton Sneed when she graduated from Durham’s Jordan High School in 1972.

Her father, Joseph Sneed, was a law professor who’d become dean of Duke University School of Law.

Fiorina, who once told a reporter that she’d dreamed of becoming a classical pianist, also tutored football players. She described that in her memoir, “Tough Choices.”

“In North Carolina, I understood for the first time what football meant to high school in some parts of the country,” she wrote. “I taught remedial reading to several of the football players … They were stars of the football team, but they literally couldn’t read. It was heart-breaking and frightening … but together we were able to make progress.”

3. In 2008, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was the keynote speaker at a luncheon at the N.C. Republican convention in Greensboro. He was sitting across the dais from U.S. Rep. Howard Coble and Charlotte’s Robert Pittenger, then running for lieutenant governor.

Coble cracked a joke and Pittenger started laughing, so hard that part of his lunch lodged in his throat. Huckabee heard the commotion and rushed over.

Huckabee wrapped Pittenger in a bear hug and performed a Heimlich maneuver, clearing Pittenger’s throat.

“To me this is just typical Mike Huckabee,” Pittenger would say later. “He’s just a decent fun guy who cares about people.” Pittenger went on to be elected to Congress in 2012.

4. Democrat Hillary Clinton, along with her husband Bill, made their first trip to Hilton Head Island for Renaissance Weekend in 1980. That’s when they met Phil Lader, the organizer of the celebrated New Year’s gathering of influential leaders from business, politics and the arts.

Lader went on to become president of Rock Hill’s Winthrop University. Later, as president, Bill Clinton appointed him ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, kept in touch with her Wellesley College classmate, Crandall Bowles, a former textile executive from Charlotte.

5. Republican Donald Trump became an N.C. landowner in 2012 when he bought The Point Lake and Golf Club in Mooresville and renamed it The Village at Trump National Golf Club, Charlotte.

“It’s got to be one of the hottest places around,” Trump told a reporter. “I think we have the best golf club in North Carolina. I don’t think there’s anything as good.”

6. Other candidates have their own Carolina connections.

Republican Marco Rubio’s campaign is run by Terry Sullivan, an S.C. consultant who has worked for former U.S. Sens. Jesse Helms and Jim DeMint. Sullivan’s business partner, veteran S.C. operative Warren Tompkins, runs Rubio’s super PAC.

Republican Ben Carson’s deputy strategist and grassroots director is Vernon Robinson of Winston-Salem, a former N.C. congressional candidate.

Russell Peck worked on the grassroots portion of Republican Chris Christie’s first campaign for governor of New Jersey in 2009. Peck is now campaign manager for GOP Gov. Pat McCrory.

And then there’s U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a now-former Republican candidate from South Carolina. He was born at Seneca’s Oconee County Memorial Hospital, two years after former U.S. Sen. – and two-time presidential candidate – John Edwards of North Carolina.

This story was originally published January 15, 2016 at 6:18 PM with the headline "Presidential candidates have connections to the Carolinas."