Baham said, “I am excited to be joining a team of well respected political professionals at FTS. In my career in South Carolina politics, I have learned to never take anything for granted and to always expect the unexpected. I first worked with this team during the 2006 Primaries and have been building on that experience ever since. Years later, I’m excited to rejoin the team and add to their stellar record of winning competitive races in the rough and tumble world of South Carolina politics.”

FTS has a record of success in state and national politics (Jim DeMint for US Senate; Trey Gowdy for Congress; and numerous State legislative campaigns) because they do not believe in cookie cutter campaigns. Instead, FTS offers fresh and illustrative design, communicative messaging and custom made campaign strategies that focus on the clients’ goals. The firm has extensive experience working with earned media, social media, new media, direct mail, marketing, television production, radio production, ad buying, web video production and, most notably, general campaign consulting. FTS specializes in grassroots campaigns by building strong issue based coalitions and then implementing an innovative and diverse communications strategy.

Katie Baham will serve as Vice President and Director of the firm’s campaigns and elections.
Previously, Baham served as one of the first women to be named Political Director at the South Carolina Republican Party. After her successes there and running a host of campaigns, Katie was named Political Director for the SC House Republican Caucus, organizing the House leadership’s statewide political operation. Baham has run both successful legislative and statewide Republican campaigns. She specializes in managing candidates through competitive primary elections.

As business partners, Warren Tompkins and Luke Byars have assembled a talented team of experienced political professionals including Becky Fleming, Director of FTS Grassroots Campaigns; Dianne Norton, FTS Design Director; Drea Byars, FTS Finance Director; Taylor Tompkins, FTS Online Operations Coordinator; and Rob Yerger, FTS Director of List Development.

“First Tuesday Strategies understands it takes a unique vision and determined attitude to be successful in politics. It can grind some folks down. But, Katie knows winning never comes easy or with short cuts or copy-cat campaigns. She has a hard charging work ethic and is known for energetic grassroots-driven game plans and her proven winning track record. We are thrilled to welcome Katie back on our team,” said Luke Byars, Managing Partner at FTS.

And a super PAC backing Romney’s presidential bid is now running television ads in the Palmetto State attacking the immigration stances of Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry, two candidates who hope their southern roots help them appeal to South Carolina voters.

In a sign of their increasing confidence across the early state playing field, the Romney campaign has signed up Warren Tompkins and Luke Byars to help run political operations in the state before the January 21 primary.

Tompkins told CNN Friday that they are both serving as advisers in a volunteer capacity.

“Right now I want to help, and they wanted our help, and we’re going to do whatever we can do to help them out,” said Tompkins, who said he traveled to Boston in November to meet with Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades.

Both Republicans worked for Romney’s fruitless 2008 effort in South Carolina. Byars is also a longtime adviser to Sen. Jim DeMint.

They join Romney’s South Carolina state director, David Raad.

The staff hires were first reported by The State newspaper in Columbia.

Unlike the vast and expensive campaign operation he ran in South Carolina in 2008, Romney currently has just four paid staffers and one office in the state, which holds the first southern primary and has a tradition of accurately picking Republican presidential nominees.

But Romney and his team are betting that momentum, a flurry of television ads and a recent endorsement from Gov. Nikki Haley might be enough for a South Carolina win in a fractured Republican field.

The Romney campaign is currently running television ads in some of the state’s media markets.

They were joined this week by the super PAC, Restore Our Future, which is now airing a television ad in the state called “Too Much.” The ad is already running in Iowa.

The 30-second spot accuses Perry and Gingrich of favoring lenient policies for illegal immigrants and claims both candidates have “too much baggage on ethics.”

CNN.com
Peter Hamby & Shawna Shepherd
December 30, 2011

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has hired veteran S.C. political consultants Warren Tompkins and Luke Byars to help boost his presence in South Carolina in the three weeks leading up to the state’s pivotal primary.

Tompkins has guided four candidates to wins in South Carolina’s Republican primary, including Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole and George W. Bush. Byars is a former executive director of the S.C. Republican Party and a state director for U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint.

Tompkins and Byars, known as First Tuesday Strategies, say they will not be paid for their work. Both of them worked for Romney in the 2008 election, when the former governor of Massachusetts finished a disappointing fourth after spending millions of dollars campaigning in South Carolina.

The two flirted with several presidential campaigns early in the election cycle, but did not sign on with anyone. They followed the example of DeMint, their biggest client, who said he does not plan to endorse a candidate.

“Sometimes it’s not always about money, but doing what you think is right and what is best for the things you believe in,” Tompkins said.

Romney has frustrated some conservatives for what they see as flip-flopping on key social issues, including abortion and gay marriage. Tompkins said there are other conservatives candidates, but Romney is the only candidate that can address the country’s troubled economy, which Tompkins said takes precedence.

“People need to vote with their head, not necessarily with their heart,” Tompkins said. “If we don’t straighten out America’s financial mess, all of the other stuff we care about on a social basis won’t matter.”

The move signals the start of Romney’s South Carolina attack, which has so far been quiet. Romney has just one office in the state, in West Columbia, and only three paid staffers. But his supporters, including state Rep. Phyllis Henderson, R-Greenville, have said Romney plans to pick up the pace in South Carolina following the Iowa caucuses. Restore Our Future, a super PAC that supports Romney, has already purchased $250,000 wroth of air time in South Carolina and Florida, according to reports.

The State Newspaper
Adam Beam
December 30, 2011

During a Tuesday debate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Rep. Ron Paul and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney all said they oppose using the Yucca Mountain storage site in Nevada.

The Savannah River Site in South Carolina has been temporarily storing and processing nuclear waste. State leaders fear that without the Yucca site, South Carolina will get stuck with the waste indefinitely. Republicans in early-voting South Carolina claim the Obama administration’s moves to scuttle the Yucca Mountain project are aimed at benefiting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat.

In the debate, Paul said the nuclear waste site was a state rights issue. “And then we get involved with which state’s going to get stuck with the garbage,” Paul said.

Romney agreed. “The idea that 49 states can tell Nevada, ‘We want to give you our nuclear waste,’ doesn’t make a lot of sense.” He said Nevadans should be offered a good deal on taking the waste “as opposed to having the federal government jam it down their throat.”

In a rough-and-tumble debate, it was one of the few points where Perry agreed with Romney. “But on this one, he’s hit it, the nail, right on the head,” Perry said.

Luke Byars, a Columbia political adviser unaffiliated with any presidential campaign, said those positions won’t go unnoticed and now will have to be explained. “In South Carolina, there may not be a whole lot we’re united on, but Yucca Mountain? That’s something we’re all united on,” Byars said.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said in a prepared statement that the “decision to close Yucca Mountain was a political, not a scientific, decision. … Failing to open Yucca Mountain creates real problems for states like South Carolina. I believe it’s a mistake for the Republican Party to buy into the political answer like President Obama did. We should stick to the science.”

South Carolina utility customers have put more than $1 billion into a trust fund to set up a permanent waste site, including decades of material generated at the Savannah River Site for the nation’s nuclear weapons. The Savannah River Site is nearly half way through turning 37 million gallons of waste in 49 tanks into a glass form that is encased in stainless steel. Those containers were supposed to be shipped to Yucca Mountain for long-term storage.

Freshman U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina released a statement Thursday that said he is disappointed “to hear that some of the GOP Presidential hopefuls share Senator Harry Reid’s views on Yucca Mountain. … I suspect many South Carolina voters, including myself, will expect to hear the presidential candidates’ solution to this problem during their next visit to the Palmetto State.”

Former Gov. Mark Sanford said the Obama administration reversed course on three decades of bipartisan work that would have relieved the Savannah River Site of some of its role. “It’s a mistake to drive national policy by the geography of a debate site or a campaign event,” Sanford said.

In 2010, Sanford held a news conference blistering the Obama administration on Yucca. He was flanked by GOP candidates vying to succeed him, including now-Gov. Nikki Haley

Haley stopped short of criticizing the candidates, but said the promise made to find a new home for the waste needs to be kept. “You can’t take our money and make us keep our waste. That’s just the worst of a bad deal,” Haley said. “It’s something that I’m going to continue to yell about until they either take it or give us our money back.”

If the candidates “are now going to make excuses about Yucca Mountain, it’s got to go somewhere and we can’t wait for them to figure out where it’s going to go,” Haley said. South Carolina voters “are going to want to know what their answers are to that.”

The State
Jim Davenport
October 20, 2011

FTS was hired by APP at Senator DeMint’s request to organize the event; create a unique format; negotiate with local, state and national television broadcasters; produce programs, invitations, teletownhalls, FACEBOOK pages, web ads and deal directly with the media. Luke Byars was asked to serve on the Forum’s Advisory Committee as their spokesperson to help promote this event.

FTS was responsible for contacting and working with all of the Republican Presidential Campaigns and their South Carolina staffs. All of the top 6 GOP candidates accepted our formal invitations to appear at the event and both SC Educational Television and CNN agreed to televise it live.

Townhall.com agreed to stream the event live on their site and carry a special post Forum show highlighting Senator DeMint and the special guests who were there including every GOP Congressman from South Carolina, The SC Speaker of the House, The Attorney General of SC, The Treasurer of SC, The Supt. Of Education of SC and The Commissioner of Agriculture of SC. Also in attendance was the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia Ken Cuccinelli, the Speaker of the House of Virginia and the Speaker of the House of New Hampshire. Also there were the top political activists from across South Carolina, 586 all- together.

The event was hailed as a huge success and groundbreaking in scope. Presidential candidates were given 21 minutes apiece to answer direct questions from Senator Jim DeMint, Congressman Steve King from Iowa and APP Founder Dr. Robert George. FTS credentialed over 250 state and national reporters for this event. Directing this event from idea to reality highlights our firm’s ability to accomplish big projects in a short time span by continuing to rely on our extensive statewide grassroots network of volunteers and activists.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who as Massachusetts governor ushered in a state health care system that required residents to have insurance coverage, says his first task if elected would be to let states opt out of President Barack Obama’s health care reform plan.

“That’ll be one of my best assets if I get to debate President Obama,” Romney said of his stance on health care during a GOP presidential forum Monday in Columbia. He said his plan impacted only 8 percent of people in his home state, not all Americans as Obama’s plan eventually would do.

“(Obama health care reform) has got to be stopped,” he added, “and I know it better than most.”

Vying to be the Tea Party favorite in a state increasingly known for its limited government/less taxes fervor, five leading GOP presidential contenders took to the stage, fielding questions from popular conservative U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint and the American Principles Project, a nonprofit encouraging a political return to constitutional principles.

Of the five candidates at the forum — Romney, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Godfather’s Pizza chief executive Herman Cain — Romney received the highest approval ratings in the most recent poll of likely GOP primary voters in South Carolina.

But the top vote-getter in that same poll, Texas Gov. Rick Perry — who is leading in South Carolina by 20 percentage points — withdrew plans to attend Monday’s forum to return to Texas to deal with wildfires there, after attending an event earlier in the day in Myrtle Beach.

“He felt he needed to be back in Texas, but he promised me he would double his time commitment in South Carolina,” DeMint said.

Still, the state’s first-in-the-South primary is months away, in February, with big names like DeMint yet to endorse.

U.S. Rep. Tim Scott of Charleston said Monday he was pleased to see Romney engaging with the state’s voters. With few visits to the state thus far, many politicos speculate Romney, who initially declined an invitation to the event, will not aggressively campaign in South Carolina, where he finished fourth in the 2008 primary. DeMint endorsed Romney in 2008.

“A), he showed up, which is really good; and B), he did really well,” Scott said of Romney’s performance Monday.

In conversations full of quotes from Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, candidates worked to distinguish themselves from the pack and prove their salt as strict adherers to the U.S. Constitution and the ideology of the nation’s founding fathers.

During the first 22-minute grilling, Bachmann took a subtle stab at Romney, saying states cannot constitutionally enact health care reform. She also continued her opposition to labor unions.

“They have denied the people of South Carolina literally thousands of high-paying jobs,” Bachmann said of the National Labor Relations Board fighting a decision by Boeing to move one of its airplane production lines to a North Charleston site from a unionized Washington state site.

Bachmann added she has spoken with Gov. Nikki Haley, who has said companies in Japan, Canada and Germany are interested in relocating to South Carolina “but they’re wondering what the ruling of the NLRB would be,” Bachmann said. “As president of the United States, I would not appoint anyone to the NLRB who does not support the right to work (states).”

Meanwhile, Georgia businessman Cain said that national security would be his top priority, and that he would oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants in all forms.

When it comes to legal immigrants, Cain said caps may be appropriate in certain communities. “In some communities, there might be a number where we don’t want to overwhelm the system,” he said.

Cain also said he would tackle the national debt with an across-the-board cut on all federal spending, the elimination of inefficient and duplicative programs, and a restructuring of expensive programs such as Social Security, possibly with individual retirement accounts.

Several in the audience, including Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, and Tea Party members, said they were impressed by Gingrich.Gingrich is pushing no tax increases in 2013, zero capital-gains taxes, abolishing the death tax permanently and taking the corporate tax rate to 12.5 percent.

“He really knows the issues,” said Laurie Papotto of Pelzer, who attended Monday’s event. “I wish he could overcome the other things (in his personal life) to stand a chance.”

Meanwhile Paul, of Texas, pushed for the elimination of most of the federal government, leaving a leaner system to oversee sound money, property rights, the judicial system, defense of the country “but not a heck of a lot else,” Paul said.

“Everything (else) should be up for grabs,” Paul said.

Paul also said he would also relieve all American troops from international duty no matter what country they’re stationed in.

“I’d bring them all home,” Paul said. “Besides, we’re bankrupt.”

On a few occasions, Romney’s more moderate appeal made him stick out, including a question on whether he would back legislation to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision and halt abortions under the 14th amendment.

While the other participants said they would, Romney said no.

“I would like to appoint to the Supreme Court justices that believe in following the Constitution instead of legislating from the bench,” Romney said. “I’m not looking to create a constitutional crisis. I would live within the law … but I do believe that Roe v. Wade should be reversed to let the states make those decisions.”

The State
Gina Smith
September 6, 2011

Before joining this firm, Byars served as Senator Jim DeMint’s state director and campaign manager for over 5 years. As the Senator’s top staffer in the state, Luke helped organize local business and political leaders to help build momentum for the Senator’s political initiatives. As DeMint’s right hand man in the state, Luke was able to develop strong working relationships with leaders throughout South Carolina’s state and local business community while specializing in communications and earned media for grassroots and political campaigns.

Prior to his work in the federal government, Luke was Executive Director for the South Carolina Republican Party during the highly successful 2004 Election cycle and amassed an impressive (85%) winning percentage.

Additionally, he has worked on a number of winning state legislative, gubernatorial and presidential campaigns. Selected as an Insider by National Journal Magazine, Luke offers his opinions and commentary weekly on national political news and current events.

He has also served at the top levels of South Carolina state government as Public Affairs Director for Lieutenant Governor Bob Peeler and as State Taxpayer Rights Advocate for the SC Department of Revenue. Prior to that, Luke worked at the Republican National Committee in Washington, DC as the Deputy Director of Voter Programs.

Luke was South Carolina campaign manager for the Bob Dole’s 1996 Presidential campaign and also worked at the Republican National Committee as their Deputy Director of Voter Programs in the early 1990’s. Luke has a twenty-year history working with SC reporters and editorial writers and this has helped him to wage many successful earned media campaigns.

Through it all Luke has built positive relationships and posted a proven record of creating innovative strategies to help clients achieve all of their public affairs objectives.

Warren’s first campaign was a 1974 magistrate’s race, but it was his volunteer work for Strom Thurmond’s 1978 Senate campaign that made people take notice. His tireless efforts on the campaign won him a position as Senator Thurmond’s Statewide Coordinator of Special Events. His advice was so valued by the Reagan/Bush Campaign during the first Republican primary in South Carolina in 1980, that he was named Executive Director for the South Carolina Reagan/Bush Campaign for the general election. He later served in the same capacity for the 1984 reelection effort and as a strategist for the 1988 Bush Presidential campaign. A seasoned veteran by the age of 29, Warren was appointed Executive Director of the South Carolina Republican Party in 1981.

In 1986, Congressman Carroll Campbell turned to Mr. Tompkins to help him become South Carolina’s second Republican governor. As Governor Campbell’s Chief of Staff, he was a catalyst in one of the most successful administrations in South Carolina history. Warren was the chief architect in developing the administration’s strategy for economic development, education reform, tax cuts, environmental protection, and government restructuring. His talent for crisis management was vital in South Carolina’s recovery efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo.

Warren began private practice in 1991, successfully providing government and legislative affairs guidance to public and private agencies, political organizations and candidates, corporations and individuals.

Warren served as the chief strategist for George W. Bush’s 2000 South Carolina presidential primary. In 2002, Warren was a general consultant to Lindsey Graham in his successful bid to fill the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Strom Thurmond.

In 2004, Warren served as an advisor to U.S. Representative Jim DeMint in his successful bid for U.S. Senate. He was also the Atlantic Region Chair of the successful Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign.

Some of her federal clients include United States Senator Jim DeMint, Congressmen Tim Scott (SC CD1), Jeff Duncan (SC CD3), Mick Mulvaney (SC CD5), and Trey Gowdy (SC CD 4).

She has also represented a number of State Senators and Representatives as well, including Senator Larry Grooms (Chairman of Senate Transportation Committee) and Senator Hugh Leatherman (Chairman of the Finance Committee).

Drea has worked in South Carolina for over 18 years and has built a wealth of positive relationships with the State’s top business and industry leaders.