Gray run for Senate is unlikely

A rumor that former White House counsel C. Boyden Gray was considering a U.S. Senate race made the rounds Wednesday but was quickly shot down by Republican sources in Washington and North Carolina.

The Hotline, a political Internet newsletter, quoted unnamed GOP sources as saying that Gray — who served in the first Bush administration — was considering entering next May’s Republican Senate primary. They said he would be a formidable candidate and quoted one source saying that “Boyden matches [Erskine] Bowles in money, skills and temperament.” Bowles, who was President Clinton’s White House chief of staff, is a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina.

The report caused quite a stir on the Republican grapevine. But Republicans quickly moved to puncture that trial balloon.

State Rep. Lyons Gray of Winston-Salem, cousin of the former White House counsel, said Gray visited his home Tuesday night after a speech in Winston-Salem.

“I have no indication from him that that is a current interest,” Lyons Gray said.

Calls to Boyden Gray were not immediately returned.

Boyden Gray apparently had been approached earlier this year about a possible Senate bid but had thrown cold water on it. Gray is a prominent Washington, D.C., attorney, former legal counsel to former President George Bush and chairman of Citizens for a Sound Economy, a conservative taxpayers group.

He is also a member of prominent North Carolina family that was connected to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. His father, Gordon, was secretary of the Army, president of the University of North Carolina and publisher of the Winston-Salem Journal.

There has been some talk in Washington that Gray might be considered by President George W. Bush for the U.S. Supreme Court.

A Gray candidacy would have caused indigestion in high Republican circles. Elizabeth Dole, the former Cabinet secretary, has been recruited by the White House and the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee to run for the seat held by Sen. Jesse Helms, who has announced that he will not seek re-election.

Other Republican candidates include former Charlotte mayor Richard Vinroot; Jim Parker, a radiologist from Lumberton; Jim Snyder, a Lexington attorney; and Ada Fisher, a member of the Rowan County school board.

Fisher, 54, a retired physician, was in Raleigh on Wednesday as part of a 100-county “shake, talk and walk” tour of the state.

Fisher said she was campaigning on a 13-point program that includes ensuring an enhanced national defense, protecting Social Security, switching to a flat tax, providing good constituent services, passing a patients’ bill of rights, ending human cloning and making English the nation’s official language.

As an African-American, Fisher said she was attracted to the Republican Party by its philosophy of protecting individual rights. She also cited advances for blacks during the administrations of Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, including affirmative action programs and court rulings outlawing school segregation.

A native of Durham, Fisher said her background and training in public health and emergency preparedness made her particularly qualified to serve in the Senate during the war on terrorism.

Fisher said she hoped to compensate for a low-budget campaign, with a strong grass roots effort.

“I believe elections should not be for sale,” she said. “We should do elections differently.”