Texas Gov. George W. Bush regained a fragile hold on the front-runner’s mantle Saturday by rallying party loyalists in this conservative state to overwhelm Sen. John McCain in the South Carolina Republican primary.
As it did for Bush’s father in 1988 and 1992, and for Bob Dole in 1996, South Carolina protected the party establishment’s choice in the contest for the GOP presidential nomination.
But the Texas governor was forced to change his political message from one of big-tent inclusion to sharp-tongued conservatism in order to derail the senator from Arizona, who failed to attract sufficient numbers of independents and Democrats in balloting that permits crossover votes.
A record number of votes were cast in the primary, and with 99 percent of them counted, Bush had 301,050, or 53 percent, to McCain’s 237,888, or 42 percent. Former Reagan aide and talk show host Alan Keyes ran a distant third with 5 percent.
Bush’s double-digit win was vitally important for a candidate who had been stunned earlier this month by McCain’s 19-point triumph in the New Hampshire primary.
Speaking to more than 1,000 supporters in a hotel ballroom in Columbia on Saturday evening, Bush declared, “I believe because of this vote today, I will be the next president of the United States.”
McCain told his supporters, “We have just begun to fight, and I cannot wait for the next round.”
“I want the presidency in the best way, not the worst way,” he said, pledging he would “never enhance myself by letting ambition overcome principle.”
The results in South Carolina clearly are not decisive in the fight for the Republican presidential nomination. Michigan, which along with Arizona holds its primary Tuesday, does not have South Carolina’s Deep South conservative heritage, and independents and Democrats can cross over there as well. In fact, independents and Democrats can vote in 16 of the next 24 GOP presidential primaries.
A traditional battleground in the general election, Michigan also has more delegates at stake than South Carolina and New Hampshire combined.
Bush sounded ready for the next fight.
“We come roaring out of South Carolina with a new energy in this campaign,” he said. “We’re on our way to Michigan and Arizona, and you can bet I’m going to battle for the vote in those two states.”
In South Carolina, Bush’s attacks on McCain as a man “who says one thing and does another” and as a virtual Democrat in disguise fundamentally altered the tone of the campaign. But Bush’s newly found negative fire clearly rallied the party’s conservative base.
Bush carried those voters who considered themselves conservative or affiliated with the religious right by a ratio of greater than 3 to 1, according to exit polls. He had similar backing from those who favor flying the Confederate flag over the state Capitol.
Significantly, he also convinced voters in South Carolina that he was the “real reformer,” reversing the voter sentiment evident in New Hampshire.
McCain held a runaway advantage among independents and Democrats who voted, but their turnout was insufficient. Somewhat surprisingly, McCain only narrowly carried the veterans’ vote, an important component of the Palmetto State voting population. Bush won an emphatic majority of GOP regulars who cast ballots.
Speaking to his supporters, Bush said, “Tonight in this great state of South Carolina, we have ignited our cause and united our party.
” We ignited a record turnout from Republicans all across the political spectrum. We have reached out to independents and conservative Democrats who embraced our principles. And we have ignited young voters.”
Even with its changing economy and demographics, the state set up well for him politically in a primary. South Carolina remains one of the more conservative states in the nation, and its Republican leaders have a record of being able to deliver for their candidate.
Bush implored GOP voters not to let Democrats decide the Republican nominee. He also outspent McCain handily in all aspects of the campaign. Unlike in New Hampshire, Bush’s advantage in money and institutional support paid off.
Both candidates were scheduled to land in Michigan early Sunday morning for a 48-hour blitz of the state. Bush is counting on the support of Michigan Gov. John Engler, who has vowed to deliver the state for him. McCain, meanwhile, will be making appeals to so-called Reagan Democrats to blunt the strength of Englern’s organization.
The intimate phase of the 2000 presidential campaign came to an unofficial end Saturday. Candidates spent more than a week here, almost non-stop, barnstorming the state with dozens of appearances before thousands of voters.
The heat and passion that McCain and Bush generated in South Carolina is likely to give way to a more sterile effort where candidates make every effort to be seen on television news through live interviews and satellite feeds to distant states.
After the contests Tuesday, the GOP race moves to Virginia the next week. Then, on March 7, California and New York headline a Super Tuesday primary and caucus binge that likely will effectively decide the Republican and Democratic nominations.
The Democratic race, with Vice President Al Gore holding a commanding lead in opinion polls in the upcoming states, has been virtually eclipsed by the close GOP contest. That could change Monday when Gore and former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey debate Monday in New York.
In both parties, the nature of campaigning on such broad terrain almost certainly means a much heavier than usual reliance on television and more impersonal direct mail and telephone contact with voters.
Instead of state highways, the campaign now increasingly travels airport runways. Instead of town meetings, there will be tarmac press conferences. Some states might not receive a single candidate visit before their primaries.
For McCain, that represents a profound switch from the tactics he used to capture voters in South Carolina and in New Hampshire. Bush, trailing McCain here after the senator’s strong New Hampshire victory, responded by adopting McCain’s approach of answering voter questions and making himself more readily available to the media.
But it was his substantive shift that prompted a surge in the closing days. Much like Gore has done in the Democratic race, Bush emphasized issues to stir his party’s faithful, from tax cuts to local control of schools.
Bush had begun his campaign by trying a more McCain-like appeal to voters. He called himself a “compassionate conservative” and a “uniter, not a divider” who often talked of his ability to attract votes from Democrats in Texas.
But the word Democrat rarely passed his lips in South Carolina unless it was in reference to McCain.
There also were allegations of vote fraud after voters discovered that some polling places in the state had been closed. McCain called immediately for an investigation into the closing of those polling places Saturday, charging that a Bush supporter might have been responsible for it, limiting voter participation that might have helped the senator.
“We all know that I was appealing to Republicans, independents and Democrats,” McCain said. “If there are allegations of (impropriety) I think they should be fully investigated.”
In a settlement reached with the U.S. Justice Department five days before the primary, the state Republican Party agreed to seek additional volunteers or paid workers needed to keep all polling places open. If the party failed to open a polling place, it had to find a suitable alternative and to publicize the new location.
McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, said the senator lost because of a “massive negative campaign run against us, primarily in the religious conservative community. . . .”
John Weaver, the McCain campaign’s political director said sarcastically: “I have to hand it to Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed. They turned Gov. Bush into the kind of candidate they could like.”
