1988 Convention head will speak in Charlotte

Don Fowler, who ran the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, will be a featured speaker at a N.C. Democratic Party fundraiser in Charlotte next month.

Fowler, a Columbia businessman who teaches at the University of South Carolina, will join Democratic gubernatorial candidates at the St. Patrick's Day event at the Crown Plaza hotel.

Fowler, a former chair of the national and S.C. Democratic parties, was an adviser to Charlotte's effort to land the 2012 Democratic Convention, which kicks off Sept. 4.

In 1988 he was the man who ran the convention that nominated Michael Dukakis.

"You have to try to define what you think the party is," he said at the time, "and then devise what is basically a combination of theatrical and political techniques to convey that." Jim Morrill