The Buzz

What’s the value of an endorsement? Not much

The Buzz is yet to be convinced the dead are voting in South Carolina. But last week’s GOP primary has convinced the Buzz that votes can’t be bequeathed, at least via political endorsement.

Flash back three weeks.

2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, who carried the state in that year’s GOP primary and the general election, and S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley, a rising national star in the GOP, have endorsed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romne y, who has a 10-plus-point lead heading into the state’s Jan. 21 Republican primary.

And what happens?

Romney gets massacred in the state’s primary by thrice-married Freddie Mac historian Newt Gingric h, the onetime Georgian who was fined $300,000 for ethics violations while speaker of the U.S. House.

What happened?

Three things:

• Gingrich whipped two S.C. debate audiences into a frenzy by tossing red meat to the party’s true believers, beating up the poor and the press.

• South Carolina proved to be just as dreadful a state in reality for Romney as it looked like on paper. (Too many evangelicals and social conservatives for the “moderate from Massachusetts,” as Gingrich intoned.)

• And, it turns out, endorsements really don’t matter.

At least not when voter turnout is epic, as it was last weekend.

Consider Lexington County.

In the 2008 GOP primary, McCain won Lexington with 11,450 votes. But Romney tallied another 5,648 votes for a McCain-Romney total of 17,098. In the GOP’s June 2010 four-candidate gubernatorial primary (not the runoff), Haley won the county with 18,275 votes.

And last weekend?

Romney came in second with 13,485 votes, or 3,613 votes fewer than the McCain-Romney total in 2008 and 4,790 votes fewer than Haley in June 2010.

Some coattails, huh? Clearly some former McCain and Haley supporters were unmoved by the endorsements.

Lexington wasn’t alone.

In Spartanburg County, Haley took 16,920 votes in 2010. Romney took 8,506 last weekend. In Greenville, Haley took 26,468 votes in 2010; Romney took 19,570 last weekend. In Berkeley, Haley 9,675, Romney’s 5,608. In Anderson County, Haley 8,356, Romney 5,918.

The Buzz looked at South Carolina’s 12 largest counties and the vote totals look something like this:

• McCain in 2008 -- 104,579

• Romney in 2008 -- 52,913

• McCain-Romney combined in 2008: 157,492

• Haley in 2010: 156,651

• Romney in 2012: 126,300, or roughly 20 percent lower than the mythical 2008 McCain-Romney ticket or Haley in the 2010 GOP Primary

Statewide, the picture is roughly the same:

• McCain in 2008 -- 147,686

• Romney in 2008 -- 68,142

• McCain-Romney combined in 2008: 215,828

• Haley in 2010: 206,326

• Romney in 2012: 167,279, or roughly 22 percent below McCain-Romney and 19 percent below Haley in 2010.

There were some interesting exceptions to the endorsements-underperformed hypothesis, however. They were found, interestingly, in the only three S.C. counties that Romney took last weekend.

• Beaufort County: Romney’s almost 12,000 votes far exceeded Haley’s 2010 primary total of about 7,500, though he trailed 2008’s McCain-Romney total by 1,500 votes.

• Richland County: Romney’s vote total — 12,982 — exceeded Haley’s 2010 total by 1,600 votes. (However, Romney trailed badly — by 5,000 votes — the 2008 McCain-Romney combination.)

• Charleston County: Romney’s vote total came within 2,000 votes of matching the McCain-Romney combination in 2008, but trailed Haley’s 2010 total badly — by 7,000 votes.

Of course, blaming McCain or Haley for Romney’s performance is unfair, even The Buzz acknowledges.

Blame him.

At the time that he was campaigning in South Carolina, Romney seemed incapable of defending himself from the attacks of Gingrich, et al. (Subsequently, he seems to have been shocked back to life in Florida.)

The only success Romney had in South Carolina was in increasing voter turnout — among the “Anybody But Romney” crowd intent on voting against him.

Proof?

In the 2008 GOP presidential primary, 446,000 voters cast ballots. In June 2010, the Republican gubernatorial primary drew 422,000 voters.

Last weekend’s primary? 600,000 voters.

Viers out, Prosser in; but is he there?

Even though state Rep. Thad Viers, R-Horry, bowed out of the race for the new 7th Congressional District seat — after being arrested for harassing a former girlfriend — the field is still super-crowded.

One of the bigger names on the list? Chad Prosser, former director of the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism.

In a press release sent out last week, Prosser said his time at PRT demonstrated “a no-nonsense approach to fiscal conservatism and public accountability” as he “reformed the agency, saving taxpayer dollars, increasing tourism and helping small businesses create private sector jobs.”

Prosser left out what many remember about his time at the agency — whether he was on the job very much.

Buzz was there during an S.C. House committee meeting when lawmakers grilled Prosser on the number of hours he spent on the job. They said chatter around the agency was that PRT actually stood for “Prosser rarely there.”

Prosser fired back that he was often on the road, visiting the state’s parks, which he oversaw.

The way Buzz sees it, Prosser will be perfect representing the 7th. Lots of land. Lots of people. Lots of time needed to see it all.