From the campaign trail in the Low Country of South Carolina, a few observations.
None of the three candidates I have seen here are in any mood to get out of the race. On the contrary, they seem energetic and aggressive — but not inclined to launch anything like a frontal attack on the front-runner. They saw what Chris Christie’s debate assault on Marco Rubio did a week ago. It hurt Rubio, but it hurt Christie too, and even more: Rubio is still in the race, whereas Christie has quit.
John Kasich continues the idiosyncratic approach that endeared him to, or at least earned the votes of, 16 percent of New Hampshire Republicans, 1 percent less than voted for Jon Huntsman in 2012. In Charleston he appeared at an event at a firm called Auto-Ad, which leases cars, sells advertising on them and gives them to veterans who need them to get around. “A great idea,” Kasich said. Less than 50 people were there, most concerned with veterans’ issues — undoubtedly invited by the business owner. That suggests there’s not much of a Kasich organization in the state. Otherwise, the audience is atypical of the state: a well-dressed woman with (as Kasich notes) a copy of The Economist, another who asks about climate change; the same upscale demographic he appealed to in New Hampshire. But they’re scarcer on the ground in South Carolina.
Kasich made many points appealing to conservatives. He talks about privatization of Ohio’s liquor business and economic development efforts. He called for common sense regulations, lower taxes, a balanced budget. He wants veterans to be able to get health care anywhere they want — what Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton denounce as privatization. But he insisted on his moderate image. “They told me I had to go conservative in South Carolina,” he said. “Change my identity? No thank you.” He vowed to continue campaigning (unlike Huntsman, who quit before South Carolina voted), but seemed serene about not doing well here. “I’m looking forward to the Deep South, the Midwest,” he said. “You have a message, if people don’t like it, go home.”
Jeb Bush obviously has more organizers in a state where his father and brother won key victories in the 1988, 1992 and 2000 primaries. He was anything but low energy before a overflow crowd of 250 or so, with many standing, in Mount Pleasant, just east of Charleston. The crowd applauded (without prompting) and even cheered as he talked about his education record in Florida, and how the teacher unions hated him. He spoke movingly about the persecution and murder of Christians in Iraq and Syria, and noted that his daughter-in-law is from an Iraqi Christian family. He described in great detail what he considers to be American military unpreparedness and decried current rules of engagement.
Bush appealed more to cultural and religious even more than economic conservatives. He spoke of his conversion to Catholicism on Easter Sabbath in 1995 and argued that religious liberty means that florists and bakers can decline to actively participate in same-sex marriage ceremonies, adding that it would be wrong for them to discriminate against gays in everyday transactions not requiring such participation. And he made a point of noting that Donald Trump spoke out in favor of allowing partial-birth abortions in 1999.
Bush was clearly pumped up. He noted that 30 members of his extended family came to New Hampshire to campaign for him, and that his brother the former president will be stumping for him in South Carolina on Monday. Senator Lindsey Graham, who endorsed Bush after ending his own candidacy, made a point Bush undoubtedly believes: that he is better prepared to be commander in chief than any other candidate, including Marco Rubio, who was endorsed by Graham’s South Carolina colleague Tim Scott.
So don’t expect Bush to drop out any time soon, even after the first post-New Hampshire poll had him trailing Rubio. The interesting question is whether he will go after Trump in Saturday night’s debate.
That’s an interesting question for Marco Rubio as well, who attracted a crowd of about 500, with about half standing and just a smidgen of room in the back corners, in Myrtle Beach. He appeared not bothered at all about his fifth-place finish in New Hampshire or saddened that it wasn’t the second place he had hoped for. He introduced his family and asked for chairs so his 8- and 10-year-old sons could sit on the stage, then segued back to issues. His talk was full of apparent ad libs; when the overhead lights went off he said that either someone was leaning against the wall or they were “hacked by China” — a reminder, at least to those paying attention, of the lively possibility that Hillary Clinton’s home-brew email was hacked.
Rubio made multiple conservative points: the government doesn’t create jobs, the private sector does; the current president hasn’t been faithfully executing the law (“he violates the Constitution as often as he plays golf”); government’s most important job is “keeping you safe.” He called out Ted Cruz for voting against every defense authorization except Rand Paul’s — the one mention of a Republican opponent, aside from his mention that Jeb Bush raised more “Florida big money” than he did. He summoned up the nightmare, for conservatives anyway, of a President Bernie Sanders, and asserted repeatedly that he is the candidate best able to win in November.
There were repeated appeals to cultural conservatives, who are plentiful in South Carolina. “Sometime you feel like an outsider in your own country, that everything bad is now good. It’s not all the president’s fault, but a lot of it is.” On immigration, he talked about sad stories he had heard from his West Miami neighbors and about wealthy foreigners who have their babies in U.S. hospitals and “then don’t pay the bill.” He called for a 700-mile wall with Mexico, mandatory E-verify and visa entry-and-exit tracing, and “until this works nothing else” — presumably legalization or a path to citizenship — “happens.”
Rubio was plainly trying to show spontaneity — successfully in my view. Asked about legalizing video poker, not usually a subject in these events, he spoke movingly about how gambling addiction ruins families and said that in the Florida legislature he resisted pressure for slot machines at dog racing tracks. “The rich don’t do that.”
Altogether it was a spirited performance. If Jeb Bush sincerely believes he is the best qualified candidate, Marco Rubio sincerely believes he is the strongest general election candidate. But one thing he didn’t do, at least directly, was take on Donald Trump. It will be interesting to see whether he does so in Saturday night’s debate.
