Category Archives: Parties

The down-home campaign of Rick Santorum

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The only local campaign event in these parts today so far was held at Hudson’s Smokehouse out toward Lexington. It was for Rick Santorum, and it bore all the earmarks, mainly a crowd liberally (is it OK if I use that word?) sprinkled with small children, strollers, a grandma or grandpa here and there, with everyone looking like they’d probably brought a covered dish.

The place was packed — almost as tightly as when I went to hear Mike Huckabee there four years ago. But this crowd was calmer, less electric.

Earlier, I had received a memo from a Santorum campaign worker that stood in contrast to the slick, professional media releases I get from the other campaigns:

His message was also homey, being based in a bedtime story — specifically, Goldilocks and the three bears. It was a tale of three candidates:

  1. One who is too hot (I wonder who that might be?).
  2. One who is too cold (which reminds me of a story I recently heard, second-hand, of a Massachusetts lawmaker who greeted Gov. Romney with a big bearhug at a public event in Boston — asked what it was like, he said, “I got frostbite.”).
  3. One who is just right. That, of course, was the one talking to us.

It’s not clear who Ron Paul is in this fable. Maybe Goldilocks, I don’t know.

I came away from the event convinced of something I had been halfway thinking ever since I saw him the middle of last week. Of the remaining candidates in tomorrow’s primary, he is the one I like the best, as a person. I didn’t expect to. I remembered him as that unrelenting culture warrior who got crushed by Bob Casey in his own state. And I don’t set much store by culture warriors, even when I agree with them. Not as people to lead our federal government. (You know how Mike Huckabee describes himself as a conservative who, unlike others, isn’t mad at anybody over it? I had assumed Santorum was the other kind.)

Which is not the same as saying I’m going to vote for him, by the way. More about that later.

The REAL media plot regarding Newt Gingrich

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Despite historic animosity toward the press in our state, I was still amazed that the audience in Charleston last night was simple enough to swallow Newt Gingrich’s claim that the ex-wife story was brought up by the media because, being the wicked liberals they are, they’re trying to hurt him because they want President Obama to be re-elected.

That was simple-minded on several levels. But let’s just consider one of them. Note my last post, which demonstrates conclusively that the Democratic Party has been and continues to devote all of its firepower attacking Mitt Romney, not Newt Gingrich. So if the media are in cahoots with the Dems, they must not have gotten the memo.

Here’s a modest proposal (meaning it the way Swift did, not the way Ron Paul does): Perhaps there is a deep, dark media plot regarding Gingrich. But if there is, there is only one credible motivation: The media would love, would absolutely adore, covering a campaign between Newt Gingrich and Barack Obama. Whereas they want to bang their hard little heads against a wall at the thought of months more of covering the astronomically boring Mitt Romney.

So it is that the media are working in cahoots with the Democratic Party and Gingrich himself (who would seem to a casual observer to have stolen the Democrats’ playbook on these issues) in covering the heck out of the “vulture capitalist” angle and Mitt’s invisible tax returns.

Under this supposition, rather than being a plot to deny him the nomination, that ex-wife story was just a case of one of the networks jumping the gun. The prospect of reporting on Newt’s history, not to mention all the wonderfully careless, explosive, politically suicidal things he will say several times a week on the trail, has the media hugging themselves in delightful anticipation.

But some idiot at ABC just couldn’t wait. The media have never been strong on delaying gratification.

Hey, Gingrich supporters: Whom do you suppose the Democrats really, really want to run against?

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In the past week alone, I have received 35 email releases from Democratic Party sources — the Obama re-election campaign, the DCCC, the state party — attacking Mitt Romney with everything the Dems can think of to throw at him. There have been videos, and ICYMI links to media stories, and — this is the biggest category — releases about press conferences being held by prominent Democrats to attack Romney. Some sample headlines from the releases:

  • ROMNEY’S RECORD IS HARMFUL TO THE MIDDLE CLASS
  • The Truth About Mitt Romney and Bain Capital
  • Mitt Romney no job creator, says a man who knows
  • Statement by South Carolina State Representative Bakari Sellers on Mitt Romney’s Vision of Free Enterprise
  • TODAY: Democratic National Committee Southern Caucus Chair Gilda Cobb-Hunter Holds a Media Availability on Mitt Romney’s campaign through South Carolina
  • TOMORROW: Maryland Governor and DGA Chairman Martin O’Malley and SC State Rep. Terry Alexander to Hold Press Conference on Mitt Romney’s Real Record in South Carolina
  • ICYMI: JON HUNTSMAN ON MITT ROMNEY
  • NYT Editorial: Taxes and Transparency
  • ROMNEY’S REASON FOR OPPOSING THE BUFFET RULE AND CLOSING TAX LOOPHOLES IS FINALLY CLEAR – HE’S BENEFITING FROM THEM
  • WHAT TAX EXPERTS ARE SAYING ON ROMNEY’S CAYMAN ISLANDS INVESTMENTS
  • WaPo: Romney’s tax problems just won’t go away
  • TODAY: Former South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges and DNC Executive Director Patrick Gaspard to talk about Mitt Romney’s Real Record in South Carolina

And so forth and so on.

At the outset of all that, I received a release telling me it was coming:

DEMOCRATIC COUNTER-PROGRAMMING.  Democrats plan what they are calling a “full-time presence” in the Palmetto State this week, starting today. Democratic Governors Association Chairman Martin O’Malley and Democratic National Committee Communications Director Brad Woodhouse will react to the GOP/FOX News Debate on Monday in Myrtle Beach with a 2:00 PM press conference at the Breakers, one on one interviews with national cable outlets and local and national newspapers before and after the debate.  DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC Vice Chair and Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak and DNC Executive Director Patrick Gaspard will all be in the state later in the week to offer their perspective on the GOP race.
The DNC says it will be “using a new visual to tell the story of Mitt Romney as the incredible shrinking job creator.” View it here: http://bit.ly/x9nvFZ

That sort of made it sound like the Dems would be commenting on the whole GOP field. But it’s been pretty much all Mitt, all the time.

Occasionally, there’s a Democratic Party release about something else — maybe two or three in the whole week. But of those, only one is even indirectly about Newt Gingrich: A release from Dick Harpootlian demanding that Attorney General Alan Wilson investigate Lt. Gov. Ken Ard for writing an endorsement of Gingrich on official stationery (except that Dick spelled it “stationary”) “with his seal attached.”

And I think you can fairly say that that one was about Ard, not about Gingrich. There has not been a single Democratic press release, that I’ve seen, that directly attacks Gingrich the way all of those others attack Romney.

The unrelenting hammering on Romney has continued yesterday and today, even as it has become increasingly clear that Newt Gingrich has pulled ahead of him, and has the momentum going into Saturday.

A week ago, or a little earlier, this campaign made all the sense in the world. It seemed obvious that, having won in Iowa (as was then thought) and New Hampshire and comfortably leading in the polls in South Carolina, Mitt Romney was definitely going to be the guy that Barack Obama would face in the fall.

But the situation is very different today.

Now… I can think of four possible explanations for Democrats continuing to pursue this course:

  1. The Democrats are too stupid to figure out that not only did Romney not win Iowa, all the signs now point to Gingrich winning in South Carolina.
  2. They’ve figured it out, but they’re just not nimble enough to change directions on the fly, and don’t want to waste all those nonrefundable plane tickets or write new scripts for the press availabilities.
  3. They know Gingrich has the momentum in South Carolina now, but they are convinced that whatever happens here, Romney will still be the nominee.
  4. They really, really want Newt Gingrich to be the guy they face in the fall, so they’re continuing to hammer the only guy who can deny him the nomination.

What do you think it is?

SC and the media: They shoot editors, don’t they?

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This morning I was on Tom Finneran’s Boston radio show for the second time this week (Tom is the former speaker of the Massachusetts House; I met him in Key West last week), and was asked what the nation should make of the roar of approval that Newt Gingrich got last night when he blamed the media for bringing to light his second ex-wife’s allegations.

I explained that historically, the media got off light on that one. Playing to resentment to those “nattering nabobs of negativism” in the media is of course an old Republican pasttime across the country. But in South Carolina, it can get you everywhere.

Getting away with asking for an open marriage is nothing. This is a ploy that will enable you to get away with murder.

Literally.

So I regaled the Boston audience with the tale of N.G. Gonzales and James H. Tillman. Most of you know the story, but for those who don’t…

N.G. and his brother founded The State in 1891 for a specific purpose: to oppose the Ben Tillman machine. N.G. wrote the editorials, which lambasted the Tillmanites with a vehemence that would shock most newspaper readers in my lifetime, but which was par for the course in those days.

One of the targets of editorial vitriol was James H. Tillman, Ben’s nephew. James was the lieutenant governor, and aspired to be governor. N.G. wasn’t having it, and criticized him heavily during the 1902 campaign. Tillman lost. Not long after that, on January 15, 1903, N.G. was walking home for lunch. The newspaper office then was on Main St., and Gonzales had to turn the corner of Main and Gervais to get home. As he approached the corner, Tillman headed his way, coming from the Senate side of the State House with a couple of senators.

Tillman went straight up to Gonzales, drew a gun, and shot him in cold blood. He did this in the presence of many witnesses, including a policeman.

As N.G. fell, he cried, “Shoot again, you coward!” As one who inherited his mission of writing editorials for The State, I’ve always been proud of him for that.

He died four days later.

Tillman was arrested and charged with the murder, of course, but the defense obtained a change of venue to the friendlier Lexington County. A strategy of self-defense was attempted, but didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Then,  the defense entered N.G.’s editorials into evidence.

The jury acquitted Tillman. The ostensible reason was self-defense, but since there was nothing to support that — Gonzales was unarmed and not threatening Tillman in any way — it has always been assumed that the jury let him off because the son-of-a-bitch editor had it comin’.

A postscript:

Early in 2003, a number of events were held to mark the centennial of Gonzales’ murder. At one point, Solicitor Donnie Myers, an avid student of the case, was asked to present his popular lecture on the subject to employees of The State. I introduced him, and stood to the side as he enthusiastically launched into it.

At the critical point in the narrative, channeling Tillman, Donnie reached dramatically into his briefcase and, pulling out a .45 automatic pistol, brandished it menacingly in my direction. Me being the editor.

I grinned at him, enjoying his act (I had seen it before). But our then-publisher, Ann Caulkins, who admitted to a greater-than-usual fear of firearms of all sorts, practically gasped aloud. She later admitted that for a split second there, she actually feared the solicitor was going to shoot me.

If that had happened, it wouldn’t have been the first time.

Well, there’s ONE Republican woman out there who’s crossed Newt off her list: Jenny Sanford

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OK, I pretty much said my intro in the headline. Here’s an excerpt from the story:

Former S.C. First Lady Jenny Sanford is not a Newt Gingrich fan…

(Mrs.) Sanford said voters need to consider at Gingrich’s personal history that includes three marriages with his last one ending after he was having an affair with his current wife, Callista. Gingrich’s poll numbers have spiked after a strong showing in Monday’s debate in Myrtle Beach.

“It does call into question his character on a personal side,” (Mrs.) Sanford said. “As a voter, I encourage people to look at both sides, the personal side, and if you’re going to overcome somebody’s moral failings or infidelities, you also have to see where they fit ideologically, and how much their rhetoric meets their reality and in my mind, Gingrich falls short on both fronts. So he wouldn’t get my vote.”

She said a candidates personal history has an impact on the job they can do in office.

“I think it comes down to the simple question of character,” she said.

And that’s something she knows about. Hear her.

How do you think the debate went?

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I think that if people were waiting to make up their minds tonight, Newt just won the primary.

What do y’all think?

And why do you think Romney can’t just go ahead and release his stupid tax returns? All his responses on that are so lame.

Mind you, I don’t think Gingrich should win this. It’s just looking more like he might…

Energy Party position on Keystone pipeline

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Meant to post about this yesterday, but there’s just so much going on…

You know the Democratic position on the Obama Administration’s rejection of a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. And you know the Republican position.

But what, I’m sure you’re wondering, is the Energy Party position? It’s not all that complicated. You can break it down into three elements. The Energy Party:

  1. Wants this project to happen. Not for the jobs everybody is talking about, although the jobs are great. Encouraging the development of domestic, or at least friendly, sources of energy is key to the nation’s strategic security, and therefore of the highest priority to the Energy Party.
  2. Is deeply disappointed that the permit has been rejected at this time. Were this decision to stand, it would be bad for the nation. Fortunately, there appears to be time to reconsider, as there are other obstacles to the project that will take time to work out.
  3. Is much encouraged that the permit was not rejected on the merits. The fact that the president cited a technicality — Congress not giving enough time to properly consider the permit — is highly encouraging. Maybe he can turn this around and get it right.

See how matter-of-fact things can be when you’re not blinded by the ideology of either the left or the right, and you don’t care whether Democrats or Republicans have the upper hand?

Newt picks up a couple of prominent helpers

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The Perry team is apparently going along with him in backing Newt Gingrich now. The Gingrich campaign is touting this new endorsement, from SC House Speaker Bobby Harrell. Harrell said:

“Cathy and I make these decisions together.  We believe Newt Gingrich is the right choice for South Carolina, and for the United States. His commitment to the conservative principles of lower taxes, smaller government, and economic development are key to restoring America to greatness. Speaker Gingrich is the only candidate with proven leadership experience, which is what we need to effect real change in Washington.”

And the SC Democrats were the ones who brought it to my attention that Katon Dawson was now pressuring Mitt Romney — in a sort of passive-aggressive manner:

At Perry’s announcement here, former South Carolina GOP Chair Katon Dawson, who had endorsed Perry, also called on Romney to “do the right thing” and make his tax returns public:

KEYES: He’s been pretty vocal about calling on Mitt Romney to release his tax returns.

DAWSON: All us politicians have to do it and eventually you do. It’s either pay me now or pay me later. That’s what’s going to happen.

KEYES: So you think Romney is going to have to release them?

DAWSON: You’re not going to run a race without having to do it. It’s going to be a continued question mark. I’m sure that Governor Romney will do the right thing.

Of course, the Democrats have been all over Romney in recent weeks, convinced he will be the nominee. If Newt pulls off an upset, he can expect to have a lot of attention lavished on him.

The State’s endorsement of 2nd choice Romney

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I think history was made today. In my memory, anyway, The State has never had occasion to endorse a second choice, in a second editorial, before the actual vote. That’s because an endorsed candidate has never dropped out between the endorsement and the vote.

(We had one or two occasions over the years when a state primary candidate didn’t make it into a runoff, but that was very rare, and in any case is entirely different, since that happened after a public vote.)

Fortunately for The State, the second editorial was easier to arrive at, since the editors had already clearly said in their Jon Huntsman endorsement that Mitt Romney was their second choice — in fact, the only other choice to be seriously considered.

And so it was that the paper endorsed Gov. Romney today. Here’s the critical point in the piece:

But we take comfort in the fact that Mr. Romney always has been less interested in philosophy than in problem-solving. As The Washington Post summarized the views of his friends: “obeisance to ideology would impose a rigidity that would inhibit Romney’s real talent, which is forging new ways to fix old problems.”

In other words, the thing that makes the most extreme Republicans despise him is the one characteristic the editorial board values most.

The endorsement went on to express the hope that Romney would start acting more like that on the campaign trail sooner, rather than waiting for the fall campaign. The paper’s main beef with him, and the reason it preferred Huntsman, was his penchant for stooping to conquer and pandering to ideology.

My favorite part of the endorsement, though, wasn’t the endorsement. It was Cindi’s accompanying column. In it, she did something I’ve done a lot over the years — provide insight into how endorsements are arrived at. While questions about some burning issues of the day are asked, they are only sometimes the core of the process. The really critical questions tend to be the ones meant to discern how the candidate understands the job, and would approach decision-making. You can pick up on that in the column.

But here’s my favorite passage:

Finally, I got this: “It’s not a change, but there are positions I have that are not popular with the conservative base in our party. The most obvious is the health-care plan in Massachusetts. Many advisors told me I needed to abandon my conviction that it was the right thing … and that I should say it was a mistake. … Like you, I’m willing to change my mind if presented with facts that show I’m wrong, but with regard to the health-care plan, I’m steadfast.”

I’d like to hear him stand fast behind what he did for healthcare a bit more boldly. To me, it’s his main relevant accomplishment. His work at Bain, and salvaging a sporting event, seem far less relevant to me.

Too bad that the portion of the electorate that he’s trying hardest to appeal to hates Obamacare too much. It prevents him from putting his best foot forward.

Video: 2nd ex-wife drops the Big One on Newt

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Man-oh-man — has a woman scorned EVER had an opportunity like this?

Just as he’s picking up the Big Mo, she torpedoes him by the simple expedient of telling what she knows about what he’s really like.

And there’s no defense against that, if you’re Newt Gingrich. I mean, when it comes to temperament and character, how many strikes does this guy already have against him? And how many does he get?

Then on the other hand, there’s the ex-wife

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OK, never mind that stuff about Gingrich’s big mo.

The ex-wife has dropped the big one:

Marianne Gingrich, Newt’s ex-wife, says he wanted ‘open marriage’

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich in 1999 asked his second wife for an “open marriage” or a divorce at the same time he was giving speeches around the country on family and religious values, his former wife, Marianne, told The Washington Post on Thursday.

Marianne Gingrich said she first heard from the former speaker about the divorce request as she was waiting in the home of her mother on May 11, 1999, her mother’s 84th birthday. Over the phone, as Marianne was having dinner with her mother, Gingrich said, “I want a divorce.”

Shocked, Marianne replied: “Is there anybody else?” she recalled. “He was quiet. Within two seconds, when he didn’t immediately answer, I knew.”

The next day, Gingrich gave a speech titled “The Demise of American Culture” to the Republican Women Leaders Forum in Erie, Pa., extolling the virtues of the founding fathers and criticizing liberal politicians for supporting tax increases, saying that they hurt families and children….

I don’t care how many endorsements he gets. South Carolina’s not going with this guy. But hey, the way things are swinging back and forth, check with me again in five minutes.

And oh, yeah — Romney didn’t win Iowa…

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It shouldn’t be a big deal — we all know that Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum basically tied in Iowa.

But now we know that technically, Santorum won.

Why is this meaningful? Because it changes the narrative.

Before, Romney was the guy who’d won both Iowa and New Hampshire, and was inevitable in South Carolina.

Now, he’s the guy who only won in the state next to his home state (and one dominated by Boston media), and looks like he’s being overtaken by Gingrich in South Carolina.

Makes him look like a whole other guy, doesn’t it?

Gingrich comes on like ‘Gangbusters’!

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Whoa. Wow. Everything’s shifting on us. Boy, am I glad I started hedging my predictions in recent media interviews. (And I wish I’d hedged them even more during an interview with a Virginia radio station at 7:30 this morning.)

Newt Gingrich has major mo in South Carolina, just hours away from a debate that may be the highest-stakes encounter we’ve seen here in many a year.

This morning’s developments:

OK, that last one’s weak, but in light of the first two — wow. This is happening fast.

He’s turning us into a Newt! The question is, will we get better?

Will the Gingrich mo subside sufficiently for South Carolinians to do what they’ve always done since 1980 — settle down and go with the eventual nominee? Because even if history is made and South Carolina goes with an insurgent, Romney still seems almost certain to be that nominee. Gingrich creating some last minute excitement with a touchdown in SC doesn’t mean that over the coming weeks and months, when they sober up, Republicans won’t go, “Whoa! Wait a second! This is Newt Gingrich we’re talking here…”

Which one’s ‘desperate,’ and which ‘unreliable’?

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Here’s an ad the Gingrich campaign unleashed after midnight. The release that went with it:

Atlanta, GA – The polls in South Carolina are tightening and Mitt Romney’s attacks against Newt Gingrich are getting more desperate and more dishonest.

We’ve seen this play out before.  The last time Mitt Romney ran for president, he ran equally dishonest and desperate attacks against John McCain and Mike Huckabee when he fell behind in the polls.

To remind voters of Mitt Romney’s history of launching desperate and dishonest attacks against his rivals, Newt 2012 released a new web ad, “Desperate.”

The ad features clips of John McCain, Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson remarking on Mitt Romney’s desperate attacks against them as well as his multiple positions on multiple issues.

Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHapuEmt2xw

And turn about being fair play, below is an ad that Romney put out yesterday.

Wait! I forget — which one’s desperate, and which one’s unreliable?

Do what Cindi Scoppe says, or I’ll tell her to gossip about you to The Guardian

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When Cindi Scoppe joined the editorial board in 1997, I discovered that all of a sudden I didn’t have to write a lot of the state politics editorials that I would have written in the past — because, after the briefest of conversations, she wrote them they way I would have. This freed me up for important stuff — like blogging.

That did not change when I left the paper. I don’t have to write yet another piece urging every thoughtful, conscientious South Carolinian to vote in Saturday’s primary, because she’s already done it, using more or less the very words I would have used. Excerpts:

If you care who our next president is, vote Saturday

Saturday’s Republican presidential primary is our speak-now-or-forever-hold-your-peace moment.

Sure, we get to vote in November. But, at the risk of committing civic heresy, how you and I vote then isn’t going to matter. Yes, yes, everyone who’s paying attention and cares about our republic needs to vote, simply because it’s our duty to do so. But we all know that the Republican candidate is going to carry our state. And all of our Electoral College votes are going to him, whether he wins by a landslide or just eight votes.

So if our vote in November isn’t going to make any difference, and the Democratic nominee already has been chosen by default, then our only opportunity to participate in the election of the next president is to vote on Saturday.

This idea makes some partisans nervous. Indignant, even.

Some Upstate Republicans are so opposed to our open primaries that they sued their state in federal court, arguing that South Carolina is violating their right to freedom of assembly by allowing people who won’t take a blood oath to the party to sully their primary; they worry that independents will stymie their efforts to wrest party control from the reasonable officials they dismiss as Republicans in name only…

Such paranoia is not merely a Republican affliction. In 2004 the state Democratic Party announced it would require voters to sign a loyalty oath to vote in its presidential primary, but wisely backed down before primary day. The only reason we won’t hear from paranoid Democrats this year is that they don’t have a presidential primary to keep pure…

(T)he candidates who do better in open primaries tend to be the ones who can appeal to the sensible center of our nation — that is, the ones the partisans would be better off nominating if they want to win the general election. But the partisans are right about one thing: People who look at the world the way they do shouldn’t vote in the other party’s primary…

That’s all right, just as long as Nikki is enjoying herself

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And she is. She is having a high old time stumping for Mitt Romney. That’s because there are national news TV cameras on him all the time. And when she’s on the podium with him, guess what — she’s on national TV, too! Which is the end-all and be-all for her.

So let’s be happy for her.

Of course, it’s not doing Mitt Romney a bit of good. I wonder if he knows that? I wonder if he’s thinking, Here I am, stuck on the stage with her again, and she’s introducing me and introducing me and introducing me, and how much longer do I have to keep this phony grin on my face, the one I’ve patented, the one in which my teeth are smiling but my eyes look like I’m frightened?

Or, is he thinking, She’s the governor! Of this critical state! Her standing up with me here is good, right? Right!

Well, he doesn’t have to trust his gut any more, because the numbers are in:

The poll found 89 percent of likely primary voters knew Haley had endorsed Romney. Of those who did know of Haley’s endorsement, the overwhelming majority — 71 percent — said it made no difference in who they support. Of the rest, 21 percent said Haley’s endorsement made them less likely to vote for Romney; only 8 percent said it made them more likely to vote for the former Massachusetts governor…

So what’re you gonna do, Mitt? You’re kinda stuck, huh?

Here’s what he’s gonna do: Keep grinning that ungrin or his, and keep telling himself he’s far enough ahead in the polls that it doesn’t matter.

What “rights”? What is it that you’ve lost?

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It always stumps me when libertarians say things like this:

SPARTANBURG — Madison Evans cupped her cell phone with her sparkly blue fingernails and shot photos of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas during a campaign stop here Tuesday.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen him, and it’s awesome,” said Evans, a 20-year-old Greenville waitress, subtly bouncing on her tiptoes with excitement.

“We young people are awake,” said Evans, who posts articles about the long-shot Republican presidential candidate on Facebook daily. “We are all a big family when it comes to Paul. He’s talking about peace. He’s talking about giving us back our rights that have been stripped from us.”

Let’s run that last bit again:

He’s talking about giving us back our rights that have been stripped from us.

Say what? I have no idea what she’s talking about. What rights? What happened? Who’s bothering you now, dear?

This is why I’m not a libertarian. These things that bother them so much are not even visible to me. I don’t feel harried, picked on, bullied. Government in no way threatens me. I marvel at these people (the Paulistas) who think it threatens THEM. People who don’t get it that they are the government, who instead see as something OUT THERE menacing them.

I ask again, what rights that have been stripped from you? What is that you used to have, and don’t have now? To me, that sort of statement demands explication, but to Paulistas, it’s just an article of faith. They don’t have to explain, because they all FEEL it. They are put-upon, picked on, by the big, bad “they” out there.

And I don’t know what the stimulus is that provokes that response.

What I almost said in Key West

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Last night it occurred to me that I wrote out a lengthy opening statement for the panel discussion down in Key West over the weekend, and never used it. And I hate writing stuff without it going to some purpose…

As I told y’all previously, I had written out this whole argument about why Romney was inevitable in SC, and then got the jitters after seeing Gingrich gaining in the polls, and scrapped the whole thing. I decided to wing it instead, which in the end worked much better. I don’t speak well from notes.

So while I have no idea at this point what I actually said, I can at least share with you what I was gonna say. I still believe most of it, including the fact that Romney’s gonna win.

Here it is:

Senate Presidents’ Forum
January 14, 2012
Brad Warthen opening remarks

My home state, South Carolina, is an awkward size by comparison with its aspirations.

In 1860, hearing that his native state and mine had just seceded from the union, James L. Petigru famously said, “South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum.” Often in its history, including quite recently, the state has seemed to be trying to be one or the other, and sometimes both at the same time.

We are… interesting.

Jon Stewart adores us, and Stephen Colbert is very proud to be a native of the Palmetto State. But it’s not just that we’re funny. For my part, I started blogging six years ago because there just wasn’t room on a daily editorial page to say everything that needed to be said about our politics. Now that I’m not with the paper, I still blog, and the only challenge is that I never have enough time to write about it all.

Now, all of that said and fully acknowledged, I want to say this: We’re not really as crazy as y’all think we are.

The last few days, I keep reading and hearing about how NOW it’s gonna get down and dirty and wild and woolly and all sorts of overdone hyperboles. Because supposedly, South Carolina is where civility and decorum and all rationality end. In the last few days, I’ve seen the word “dirty” used to describe South Carolina politics in website headlines from CNN, NPR, CBS, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Time magazine. Huffington Post, to be different, used the phrase “bloody mess.”

And indeed, it will be interesting. This is last-ditch time. The end of the line for the also-rans from Iowa and New Hampshire, if they can’t put a serious dent in the Romney juggernaut. If Romney wins in South Carolina as big as he did in New Hampshire, I’m going to feel sorry for the folks down here in Florida, spending all that money on a foregone conclusion.

And yes, it’s possible that something unseemly will happen. You know the stories. In 2000, someone accused John McCain of fathering an illegitimate child of mixed race (something Strom Thurmond actually did, by the way, but that was a long time ago). Then there were those Christmas cards that went out in 2007 with pictures of the Romney family and controversial quotations from the Book of Mormon. These things have a way of happening in South Carolina, even though Lee Atwater is long gone.

But… when all is said and done, when the last skull has been cracked and the barroom brawl is over, you know what you’re going to have? A coronation of the official, duly-appointed Establishment candidate.

That’s what we do in South Carolina. Very early in the process, and often with little regard to what has happened in Iowa and New Hampshire, South Carolina annoints a candidate, and then the Republican Party goes ahead and nominates that guy. It’s been happening ever since 1980. Ronald Reagan wasn’t the establishment candidate when the process started in Iowa – George H.W. Bush won, in fact. But it was his turn, after 1976. And ever since then, there has been this moment, every four years, when South Carolina Republicans all settle down and pick the most palatable, most presentable candidate. The one that other Republicans across the country will eventually embrace as inevitable.

The respectable candidate. The one whose turn it is.

This has happened every presidential election for that last 32 years. You can set your clock by it. Or your calendar, at least.

Now, that said, I was afraid that the pattern was going to be broken this year.

After the loss in 2008 – when many, such as our own Jim DeMint, were convinced that the GOP lost because it wasn’t conservative enough – South Carolina Republicans have spent some time wandering in the wilderness.

And the definition of conservative was rapidly changing. This had happened before. In 1992, Bob Inglis seemingly came out of nowhere to unseat incumbent congresswoman Liz Patterson, which marked the rise to power of religious conservatives in the state party. That marked a shift from the state GOP being dominated by economic-development types such as Carroll Campbell to the values faction.

Less than a generation later, in 2010, Bob Inglis would be CRUSHED by a Tea Party candidate, for the sin of not being conservative enough. Which, if you know Bob Inglis, is rather startling.

That wasn’t the most startling thing that happened that year. The most startling thing was that a little-known, untested legislative back-bencher won the Republican nomination for governor over several far more established candidates.

The nation is amazed that an Indian-American woman is South Carolina’s governor. South Carolina is more amazed that Nikki Haley came out of nowhere to run right over Henry McMaster and Gresham Barrett.

That Republicans would pick her so recently made it seem very difficult to predict what would happen next in Republican politics in South Carolina.

That uncertainty continued, with regard to the presidential primary, until a month ago. As late as Dec. 14, one month ago today, I wrote on my blog that I had no idea what was going to happen. There were a number of things that were odd about this year, aside from not being able to gauge what sort of sway the Tea Party still held:

—     As measured by traffic on my blog, interest in the primary had peaked in August, when I had more than a quarter of a million page views. That was the month when Rick Perry announced in Charleston, and initially there was a lot of excitement about him. But over the next couple of months, as he faded, my traffic dropped off. That was in contrast to what happened four years earlier, when blog traffic increased steadily leading up to the primary itself.

—    During the last few months, likely primary voters staggered in confusion from Perry to Herman Cain to Newt Gingrich, according to polls. There was such a lack of a discernible pattern that I began to think that maybe South Carolina was so unsettled that maybe it wasn’t going to go with the establishment candidate this time, the candidate whose turn it was. And if that happened, we probably weren’t going to pick the eventual nominee. And that meant that four years from now, the nation wasn’t going to be nearly as interested in South Carolina as it customarily is.

But then, over the holidays, things started to shift. It wasn’t a change in the polls that first made up my mind about what was going to happen. Nor was it the results in Iowa or New Hampshire.

I had been getting a feeling, nothing more, that the stars were lining up for Romney. But I really figured out what was going to happen on Dec. 31, when I read that Warren Tompkins had decided to support Romney – for free. Warren is sort of the gold standard of political consultants in South Carolina. All the other politicos who usually pick the winner had committed to other candidates early on – a surprising number of them [McMaster, Courson, Campbell, Alan Wilson] for Huntsman, and some [Harrell, Wilkins] for Perry.

But Warren waited until he was sure. Until he was seeing what I was seeing, and a lot of stuff that would be invisible to me. That was it. What happened over the next couple of weeks in polls, and in Iowa and New Hampshire, just confirmed what I already knew, which is that Warren had called it.

Nothing this side of the grave is certain. And in fact, Newt Gingrich has been rising fairly quickly in polls released the last couple of days. American Research Group has him within striking distance, and Rasmussen not far behind that. So maybe all that superPAC money is paying off.

But I think Romney pretty much has it sewn up. Maybe Gingrich will win the coveted second spot. Or maybe someone else will.

But you know what? I don’t think it matters much who’s in second. Because after South Carolina, Romney will have it sewn up.

What would surprise you most on Saturday?

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I’m doing a number of interviews these days. I was interviewed by Canadian public radio yesterday, and taped a segment for Jeff Greenfield’s show on PBS (to air Friday). Then I had a couple of beers last night with E.J. Dionne. This morning, before I left the house, I spoke with Tom Finneran (former speaker of the Massachusetts House) on his Boston radio show.

When I got in, I was interviewed by email, which is a twist. Karin Henriksson of the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet asked me two questions:

– how has the dynamics in the state changed compared to four years ago (I was here then, too)?
– what would surprise you the most on Saturday night after the votes are counted?

Here’s how I answered:

Question 1: This is the complicated one. After 2008, the GOP in South Carolina — and elsewhere as well, but I know SC best — was traumatized. Sen. Jim DeMint and others on the right said the party had lost the White House because, in nominating McCain, it had failed to be right-wing enough. This was the start of DeMint’s rise as a national power on the far right of the party. Then, in 2010, Nikki Haley — a small-time back-bencher — rode a populist, Tea Party, Sarah Palin-flavored tsunami right over more establishment Republicans to become governor. Ever since then, observers — and the GOP itself — have been left to wonder what it means to be Republican in this state. As 2011 arrived, many of the Republicans who usually backed the winner in SC lined up behind Jon Huntsman, while others went to Rick Perry. Almost none of them backed Romney. And throughout the last few months, we saw the GOP electorate bounce from Perry to Cain to Gingrich, and then, reluctantly, start to settle for Romney.

So… while the electorate that will vote Saturday is different from four years ago, it is expected to do what it usually does: Back the closest thing to an Establishment candidate, the candidate whose turn it is.

Question 2: What would surprise me most? A win by Rick Perry. Which is ironic, since several months ago he looked like the perfect candidate for South Carolina, like he was assembled according to a South Carolina recipe. But now he’s farther from the nomination than anyone still in it.

So what do y’all think? What would surprise you the most?

What’s up between Jim DeMint and Ron Paul?

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A normally very knowledgeable Republican told me recently that Warren Tompkins’ decision to back Mitt Romney was a signal to the base that Jim DeMint, despite his public neutrality, was really for Romney.

Why, I asked, didn’t DeMint just come out for Romney the way he did four years ago? The answer: It was OK four years ago to support the author of Romneycare. But not now, when the GOP is defining itself in terms of its staunch belief that Obamacare — which was based on Romneycare — is the end of the world as we know it.

Interesting thesis.

But if it’s true, how come DeMint keeps saying all these nice things about Ron Paul? Check out the video above, or this from earlier this month:

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said Wednesday the Republican presidential candidates need to listen to Ron Paul and would benefit from integrating some of his libertarian ideas into their platform.

“One of the things that’s hurt the so-called conservative alternative is saying negative things about Ron Paul,” DeMint told conservative radio host Laura Ingraham. “I’d like to see a Republican Party that embraces a lot of the libertarian ideas.”…

DeMint said he does not agree with the Texas congressman on everything but that the rest of the GOP presidential field should capture some of what Paul’s been talking about for years because the Republican Party “needs” the libertarian movement.

“You don’t have to agree with everything he’s saying, but if the other candidates miss some of the wisdom about what he’s saying about monetary policy … that will be to our detriment,” DeMint said…

So what’s up with that?