Perspectives on Palmetto politics

South Carolina has been in the national political spotlight for the past 1.5 weeks, since the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 8. Here is a sampling of what national reporters and columnists have said about the Palmetto State.

Race, as always, is the dividing line

“This is absolutely nothing to do with race,” says Ray, a Tea Party activist explaining why he still resents Gov. Nikki Haley’s decision to remove the Confederate flag from the State Capitol grounds. One thing I learned early growing up in the South is that it is always about race. So I was not at all surprised when Ray, lest anyone misconstrue his concern with governmental overreach, elaborates: “If they can make us take down the Confederate flag today, they can make us take down all those statues of Martin Luther King tomorrow.”

I spent a week in South Carolina in January, driving from the north coast to the Georgia border, and while I saw statues of John C. Calhoun (secessionist and slave owner), Wade Hampton (secessionist and slave owner), Ben Tillman (ardent segregationist), and Strom Thurmond (ditto), as well as memorials to Robert E. Lee and the Confederate war dead, I didn’t see a single statue of King. So in reading what follows, the safest policy is to assume that whatever the topic, it is also, always, about race — especially when it isn’t supposed to be.

South Carolina is a state built on denial and silence. Nobody tells you that the pristine wildlife sanctuaries scattered throughout the Lowcountry were once rice plantations whose earthen dikes and sluice gates were constructed using slave labor. Or that the Citadel — the state-funded military academy in Charleston, which boasts that its cadets “fired the first hostile shots of the Civil War” — gets its name from an arsenal built in response to a slave revolt led by Denmark Vesey, a carpenter who’d purchased his freedom after winning the lottery. Or that in 2015, more than 60 years after the Brown decision (which included a South Carolina case), segregation in the state’s schools remains the rule rather than the exception. . . .

Yet in the cracked mirror of race, it is whites in South Carolina who say they are oppressed — beaten down by political correctness and the heavy hand of Washington. Only in a state where everyday reality remains separate and unequal would the refusal to expand Medicaid make political — if not economic or moral — sense. While the days of “colored” and “white” drinking fountains may be long gone, political party has become such a reliable proxy for race here that it may come as a shock to learn that the state’s Republican junior senator, Tim Scott, is black. In 2013, Scott came to Myrtle Beach and told the Tea Partiers, “I know you’re not racist…. It’s the other side that plays favorites.”

A state of ‘rough-and-tumble politics’

South Carolina is famous for its rough-and-tumble politics — in 2000, for example, there was a whisper campaign that John McCain had fathered a black child. He wound up losing to eventual President George W. Bush. It derailed his candidacy. With as wide a field as this one, and the stakes being so high, watch out for more dirty tricks. . . . .

Iowa was tailored for a Christian-conservative candidate, like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and New Hampshire gave a jolt to centrist, establishment figures like Kasich, the Ohio governor, and it solidified Trump's dominance across the board. In South Carolina, all of those elements combine.

In 2012, two-thirds (65 percent) of GOP primary voters described themselves as born-again, evangelical Christians. But almost one-third also described themselves as moderate. In Iowa this year, a similar 64 percent of caucus-goers were evangelical, but only 14 percent were self-described moderates. . . . .

As NPR’s Sarah McCammon has explained, there are clear, regional splits in the Palmetto State:

▪ The Upstate: The most socially conservative, religious voters are clustered in the Upstate, anchored by Greenville and Spartanburg and home to fundamentalist Bob Jones University. On Friday (Feb. 12), most GOP candidates were at the famed college for a Faith and Family Presidential Forum, talking up their socially conservative values on abortion and same-sex marriage. Only Trump, who's come under fire for his obscenities and previous support of same-sex marriage, didn't attend.

▪ Lowcountry: The more moderate, heavily military and veteran Lowcountry is where Bush, the former Florida governor, is focusing most of his attention. It's where strategists in the state say he could be surprisingly strong.

▪ Midlands: In 2008, conservative candidates split support in the Upstate, and Arizona Sen. John McCain ran strong in the establishment-minded Midlands and Lowcountry for a win. In 2000, McCain was also strong in the Lowcountry, which includes Charleston and Hilton Head, but George W. Bush beat him out in the rest of the state to claim victory.

State expects public professions of faith

Two-thirds of South Carolina residents say they pray daily and half say they read the Bible at least once a week. In 2012’s primary, 65 percent of Republicans said they were evangelicals or born-again Christians. It’s tough to win in South Carolina with only a cursory nod to faith; the faithful want one of their own to win, and South Carolina demands public professions of faith.

S.C. politics: A savage, gladiatorial spectacle

South Carolina, the nation turns its troubled heart to you. And we expect you will rip it apart.

In Texas, they say, politics is a contact sport. In South Carolina, it is a savage, gladiatorial spectacle. Case in point: The George W. Bush forces who ran the John McCain Straight Talk Express off the road in South Carolina and then pulverized it. McCain didn’t know what hit him.

This story was originally published February 19, 2016 at 1:55 PM with the headline "Perspectives on Palmetto politics."