John Warren: Deep pockets and the call to serve thrust businessman into SC governor's race

John Warren starts every stump speech with the same well-rehearsed lines.

"I'm a businessman. I'm a conservative and a Marine. And what I am not is a career politician, a government insider or a lawyer."

The Greenville native and first-time candidate believes those attributes — along with $3 million of his own money — will enable him to become South Carolina's next governor.

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None of the state's other gubernatorial hopefuls has come close to matching Warren's personal contribution in the campaign. Lt. Gov. Kevin Bryant of Anderson is a distant second at nearly $740,000.

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Warren, 39, and his wife insist he was a reluctant candidate. He was the last person to join the Republican race in February, less than three weeks after the couple had their second son and a newly hired CEO started work at Warren's real estate investment company, Lima One Capital. 

More:Greenville businessman John Warren joins Republican race for governor

"We prayed a lot: 'Lord close these doors,'" Courtney Warren said.

John Warren said he would have preferred to see U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, former U.S. Rep. Mick Mulvaney or former state Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor run for governor.

After they each passed up the opportunity, Warren said he hoped Charleston attorney Catherine Templeton "was going to be the solution."

Now he and Templeton have become fierce foes. As they jockey for a spot in a likely runoff against Gov. Henry McMaster, they have questioned each other's credibility.

More:Catherine Templeton vs John Warren: Tensions rise in competition for possible runoff spot

"Catherine Templeton is defrauding the voters by saying she is a conservative outsider and she's not," Warren said in an interview after last week's televised debate. "We don't need another lawyer down there who has never created a job."

Templeton's campaign spokesman Mark Powell said, "Catherine will always press the conservative envelope."

Warren has no qualms with the qualifications of Bryant, the other Upstate Republican running for governor. But he said fundraising woes for Bryant rule him out as a viable contender.

"Kevin Bryant is a strong conservative, but he was having problems raising capital and you've got to have capital to run statewide," he said.

And Warren said allowing McMaster to waltz into a full four-year term was an unacceptable option. McMaster replaced former Gov. Nikki Haley last year after she became U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

"We'd made great strides with (former Gov.) Mark Sanford and Nikki Haley, and over the past year we've gone backwards," Warren said.

McMaster's campaign spokeswoman, Caroline Anderegg, disputed that view.

"I don't know what South Carolina John Warren is living in, because under Governor McMaster's leadership South Carolina is stronger than ever before," said Anderegg, citing 20,000 new jobs and $6 billion in business investments. "There's only one candidate with a proven conservative track record, and that's Henry McMaster."

In campaign speeches, Warren tells audiences he decided to run "because I love my state and want to go down to Columbia to fight for the taxpayers."

If elected, Warren says, he will seek to oust GOP lawmakers who don't go along with his agenda of lowering taxes, fixing roads, eliminating state funding for Planned Parenthood, promoting school choice and making sure more of the state's education money finds its way into classrooms.

9/11 'changed the trajectory of my life'

When he was a child, Warren's family lived on North Main Street in Greenville. His parents, Steve and Geri Warren, met as students at Furman University. His father went on to become an attorney, and his mother was a teacher who also has had a long involvement in conservative politics.

“It was a great place to grow up, tons of kids in the neighborhood," John Warren said. "It was a safe environment. We just went from house to house playing sports and playing army.”

Speaking at a recent campaign event, Warren recalled that he was "very entrepreneurial as a kid."

He said he was 8 years old when he took his father's shoe polish from a closet and started going door-to-door in the neighborhood shining shoes for 50 cents a pair.

"I remember thinking, 'Wow, I am racking in the money,'" Warren said. "For an 8-year-old, it doesn't take many pairs of shoes before you're rich.

"But then Dad taught me the very important and tough lesson — the difference between revenue and profit," said Warren, explaining that his father made him pay for replacing his polish.

Warren had a younger brother, David, who was killed when he was hit on Interstate 85 in Atlanta in 2016 after his car broke down. David Warren was running a nonprofit called TaketheFight that was dedicated to training top college students to help support cancer patients as they battle the disease. The organization was formed after Steve Warren was stricken with fatal brain cancer.

John Warren graduated from Wade Hampton High School and went to Washington and Lee University in Virginia, where he majored in political science and played on the basketball team.

During his junior year, he left a morning class on Sept. 11, 2001, and read on the Drudge Report website about the hijacked jetliners that had crashed into the World Trade Center's twin towers in Manhattan.

"It changed the trajectory of my life," Warren said.

He said he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his two grandfathers who had served in the Pacific theater during World War II.

"When we were attacked, I felt called to go and serve the country as they had, and I wanted to fight," Warren said. "I wanted to lead Marines in combat."

Because of a "logjam" of applicants seeking to join to the Marines, Warren said, he had to wait a year after graduation before he could start training as a Marine infantry officer.

He left on a seven-month deployment to Ramadi, Iraq, as a platoon commander with Lima Company in September 2005.

"It was a very dangerous environment. It was known as the most dangerous city on Earth and the graveyard to Marines,” Warren said.  “You could literally be handing out school supplies and start getting attacked by sniper fire or RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and then immediately have to switch into attack mode.”

Warren said 18 Marines in the battalion that he was part of died during the deployment. He said about a third of the 40 Marines in his platoon received Purple Hearts. None were killed during 300 combat missions led by Warren.

A review of Warren's military records provided by his campaign showed that his commanding officer praised him as a "dynamic leader."

"He thrives in the combat environment driving his Marines to win on the battle field and endearing him to the population he has protected," states an officer's evaluation of Warren. His platoon was credited with capturing 35 insurgents and improving the safety of a main supply route.

Warren, who received an achievement medal and combat action ribbon, said he learned during his deployment that "I could endure a lot, both mentally and physically."

Warren cites Cpl. Michael "Mickey" Ouellette as one of the Marines who continues to provide him with inspiration. Ouellette served with him in Iraq before being deployed to Afghanistan in 2009.

After being gravely wounded during a Taliban ambush, Ouellette continued to lead his squad, Warren said, instead of requesting a medical evacuation. He eventually called in attack helicopters that provided an air strike on the enemy force that was only about 20 yards away.

“When it came in the worst situation — when he is missing a leg, his leg had been blown off, he is bleeding out from shrapnel peppering his body — he chose his Marines over everything else.”

Ouellette died of his injuries and was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross.

During a Memorial Day event in Anderson, Warren spoke about Ouellette.

"When I am in the governor's office and have hard choices to make, I will always have Mickey Ouellette in the front of my mind," he said. "And I will say, 'What would Mickey do on this issue?'"

Mark Kirby, a commercial real estate broker who has known Warren since they were both toddlers, said he didn't notice any changes in his friend after he returned from Iraq.

"One of John's strengths is his consistency of character," Kirby said. "He is a strong man of faith in God. He is a compassionate person who really puts other people first."

Kirby also said Warren is a "good listener."

"He really values other people's opinions as he is formulating a plan," he said. "After he listens, he calls it like he sees it and puts the plan into motion, and he is committed to that plan to see it through, and nothing is going to stop him."

A blind date and a new company

Warren met his wife, Courtney, on a blind date in Atlanta that was arranged by Kirby and his wife.

At the time, Warren was preparing for his second deployment and Courtney had just left her White House job in the Office of Presidential Correspondence so that she could travel to Argentina for a year on a Rotary Club scholarship.

After going on three dates in one week, Warren said he was certain that they would get married.

Courtney didn't share his belief.

"I wasn't there," she said in an interview.

Shortly after arriving in Argentina, she received a package from Warren.

"Inside were dozens of letters individually labeled for me to open at various intervals throughout the next six months," Courtney Warren said Monday during a speech about her husband to the Greenville County Republican Party. "During my time in a country where I didn't know a soul and his second deployment, I came to know this guy."

When Warren left the Marines and she returned from Argentina, they were engaged in September 2008 and married in March 2009.

"I had to wear her down," Warren said. "It was a battle of attrition, but I eventually won."

Warren started Lima One Capital in 2010 with the help of a $1 million loan from a wealthy Atlanta resident whom he refuses to identify. An effort to identify the investor through searches of state business records in Georgia and South Carolina and filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was unsuccessful.

The company's name was derived from Warren's primary Marine call sign in Iraq, he said.

"I really wanted to use my second call sign, which was 'nightmare,'" Warren told Greenville County Republicans this week. "But I didn't think Nightmare Capital had a great ring to it after the financial crisis."

Today the company has more than 80 employees at its headquarters in downtown Greenville, including chief operating officer John Thompson, a decorated Marine veteran who served with Warren in Iraq. Lima One provides loans to customers in 42 states, and its annual revenues exceed $1 billion.

"Every year we have either doubled or almost doubled," Warren said.

He said the company has succeeded because it has no "junk fees or hidden costs" and strives to provide "amazing customer service."

Warren and his wife have a 2-year-old son, Stevie, and his infant brother, Drew.

Courtney Warren said her husband is a "natural night owl" who now gets up at 4 a.m. every morning so he is able to be home by 5 p.m. to spend time with her and their children.

"He plays with a ton of dump trucks and diggers right now," she said.

'I am all about service'

Warren deposited $50,000 in a campaign bank account in December. But he didn't formally enter the governor's race until after the birth of his second son in late January and the arrival of Lima One's new CEO, Jeff Tennyson.

Drew was born a few hours after Courtney Warren had been power-walking through their neighborhood.

"The story on Drew is that Courtney had him seven minutes after we arrived at the hospital. So we cut it pretty close," Warren said in a recent campaign speech. "But she has challenged me to bring that type of efficiency to state government. So I have my work cut out for me."

In the weeks after announcing his candidacy, when polls were showing him in the low single digits, Warren contributed $500,000 to his own campaign. Last month he invested another $2.5 million.

More:John Warren to donate $2.5 million to his campaign for South Carolina governor

More:Candidates' tax filings: Warren gives big gifts to charity while Bryant has business loss

Warren and his wife reported a combined income totaling around $1.4 million between 2014 and 2016, according to tax returns released by his campaign earlier this year.

"The money has allowed him to become a player in the race," said Danielle Vinson, a politics and international affairs professor at Furman University.

Vinson said that many South Carolina voters will be receptive to Warren's military background and conservative views. Her prediction has been borne out by recent polls that show he is now running neck-and-neck with Templeton in second place behind McMaster.

If no candidate receives a majority of votes in GOP primary for governor, the top two vote-getters will advance to a June 26 runoff to select the party's nominee.

Warren's campaign held a watch party for the recent televised debate at the Blockhouse Restaurant on Augusta Road in Greenville.

The restaurant's owner, Charlie McMullen, said he got to know Warren while they worked out together at a gym.

"He is just a real strong patriot," McMullen said.

Warren arrived shortly after the debate. He worked the room, shaking hands and chatting with supporters before sitting down with a reporter.

Clearly weary from weeks of campaigning, Warren spoke about how he doesn't enjoy raising money or the "petty attacks" from other candidates.

But, he added, "I knew what I was getting into."

“If it was all about me and my needs, I could have retired from Lima One, built an amazing lake house and just ridden off into the sunset with my family," Warren said. "But that is not the person I am. I am all about service, so I enjoy meeting all of these people because ultimately we share the same message. I am just the messenger.”

Follow Kirk Brown on Twitter @KirkBrown_AIM  and email him at kirk.brown@independentmail.com