Spartanburg, S.C.
JOHN MCCAIN’S THEORY of the Republican presidential campaign is elegantly simple. “It’s on one page — win New Hampshire, win South Carolina,” he says. After that, the McCain juggernaut prevails. The idea is that national polls showing George W. Bush with an enormous lead over McCain mean zilch now. A first-place finish in the New Hampshire primary on February 1 would change everything, giving McCain a 15 or 20 percentage point surge in support, a jolt of political momentum, and a chance to win the South Carolina primary on February 19. A victory in South Carolina would further transform the national polls in McCain’s favor and make him viable in Michigan, Virginia, Washington, and everywhere else. As for Bush, whose nomination was supposedly inevitable, a series of losses would force him to drop out. Result: McCain is the GOP nominee.
That’s the momentum theory, anyway. There are two big problems with it. The first is history, which hasn’t treated the theory kindly in South Carolina. In 1996, Patrick Buchanan won in New Hampshire only to be clobbered by Bob Dole here. Ronald Reagan in 1980 and George Bush (the father) in 1988 got small boosts from winning the New Hampshire primary. But they were already far ahead in South Carolina and won easily. Second, there’s the nature of the state’s Republicans. They tend to be institutional voters, going along with the party’s top leaders, who are mostly for George W. And nearly half of the GOP electorate consists of evangelical Christians. The pastors at least, if not the members, of many large Baptist and charismatic churches are pro-Bush, having been recruited by Ralph Reed, the ex-Christian Coalition official. No “significant evangelical leader” is supporting McCain, Reed says. Result: McCain will be hard pressed to pull off an upset in South Carolina.
Yet McCain does have a shot here, and that’s amazing in itself. South Carolina is not New Hampshire, where McCain expects to attract a slew of independents to the Republican primary. In South Carolina, there’s no tradition of cross-party voting in primaries. The state is also far more conservative than New Hampshire, and McCain appeals especially to moderate Republicans and those whose identification with the party is soft. South Carolina is not moderate country. Moreover, McCain’s strategy of organizing military veterans into a force at the polls is dubious. South Carolina has more households with veterans — 38 percent — than any other state. But veterans have never voted as a bloc. Bob Dole, a war hero like McCain, tried to appeal to them in 1996 on veterans’ issues and got nowhere.
So what gives McCain a chance in South Carolina at all? “The fundamental underpinning of the campaign is he’s the anti-Clinton,” says John Weaver, McCain’s political director. That goes a long ways in South Carolina. If there’s a more anti-Clinton state, “I don’t want to go there,” says Rep. Lindsey Graham, a House impeachment manager and probably the state’s most popular politician. “I’ve got more Clinton fatigue than the average person,” he adds. Graham’s presence as an ardent McCain backer underscores the contrast with Clinton. So does McCain’s emphasis on his Vietnam war record and his integrity. “They’ve had a president for eight years they could never believe,” says McCain consultant Richard Quinn, “and now there’s a guy they can always believe.” Quinn, by the way, puts out a fiercely conservative magazine called the Southern Partisan. It recently featured an article with the headline: “10 Reasons Why George W. Bush Won’t Do.”
While McCain hasn’t changed any positions, he does play up his conservative side in South Carolina. At Converse College in Spartanburg, he gave a speech on the “conservative case for campaign finance reform.” (En route to the school, he jokingly told reporters, “It’s the place they make sneakers.”) In answering questions from voters, he endorsed Reagan’s view that the Panama Canal should never have been given up, strongly opposed gays in the military, called for tax reform and deep spending cuts, said Social Security should be partially privatized, and said Elian Gonzalez shouldn’t be sent back to Cuba. “I can assure you if I’m president, this young man would not have to go back to a life of slavery,” he told the Charleston Rotary Club.
All this has improved McCain’s standing in South Carolina. “Clearly it’s going to get closer,” says Heath Thompson, Bush’s campaign director for the state. McCain claims it already has. A Time/CNN poll last month found Bush ahead by 62-15 percent. A McCain poll, conducted in early December, pared Bush’s lead to roughly 52-26 percent, campaign aides said. And McCain says he’ll devote virtually his entire campaign schedule to South Carolina for the 18 days after the New Hampshire primary. He’s proven to be a formidable campaigner here. At Converse, his appearance was preceded by a powerful 9-minute video about his experience as a POW in North Vietnam. His speech was bland, but when McCain followed by taking questions from the audience, he was dazzling.
Bush strategists are hardly panicking. For one thing, Bush’s appearances in South Carolina have drawn huge and enthusiastic audiences. He’s lined up the support of the lieutenant governor, attorney general, state house speaker, adjutant general, three former governors, and two congressmen. And Sen. Strom Thurmond is on board. The McCain forces suggest the Bush team represents a fading GOP establishment soon to be replaced by Young Turks like Graham and Mark Sanford, the Charleston congressman who’s keeping his promise to retire in 2000 after three terms. Maybe, but many of the Bush backers are in their 40s and 50s and not about to retire. Former Gov. Carroll Campbell, for one, is making plans to run for governor again in 2002.
But it’s the momentum theory that draws the most scorn from the Bush camp. “Big mo, no go,” says Karl Rove, Bush’s chief strategist. He points out that the theory has worked only for political unknowns such as Jimmy Carter and Gary Hart who burst on to the national political scene with a New Hampshire breakthrough. McCain, in contrast, is already a national figure. Also, there are two other early events that aren’t likely to aid McCain. Bush is heavily favored to win the Iowa caucuses on January 24 and the Delaware primary on February 8. As pro-McCain as the national media are, they can’t ignore these contests.
McCain doesn’t minimize the role of South Carolina. “It’s of transcendent importance,” he told the Charleston Rotarians. He would have “an extremely difficult time winning the nomination without South Carolina,” he conceded. And he would have a hard time winning South Carolina without an unprecedented bounce from a win in New Hampshire. Forget history, says Trey Walker, McCain’s national field director. “I don’t think history repeats itself,” he says. “We’ll make our own history.” Stranger things have happened.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
