South Carolina is a heavily contested state because it is the first primary in the south, it represents the conservative base in the United States, and big money contributors emerge to support the winning candidate. The small number of delegates awarded from the state may not be significant, but they don’t hurt either. The manner in which the state has become such a vital stop on the road to the White House is convoluted. There are a few key people and factors that have cemented South Carolina as historically significant. One factor is the aggressive “Southern strategy” which exploits racism from Southern whites. This strategy was adopted by the Republican party and finds a receptive audience in South Carolina. A master of this strategy was the South Carolina native Lee Atwater who made his way in American politics by winning the primary with dirty tricks and false rumors. Although “whisper campaigns” date back to John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the rhetoric that develops in South Carolina during the primary is legendary. Unfortunately, the “wedge-issues” that develop in the state are becoming more banal.
History has proven that the logistical significance of the South Carolina Primary has often been overshadowed by the rhetorical one. Until 1980 South Carolina held a caucus much like most of the other southern states in order to decide the candidate. In September of 1979 GOP state chairman Dan Ross coordinated the effort for the primary to put South Carolina in a powerful position. By being first in the south and creating a firewall for the frontrunner to establish his base in the southern states, South Carolina would attract a lot of media attention. Meantime Lee Atwater, an energetic and scrappy young man was a consultant working on campaigns for state legislators. Atwater had a knack for creating “wedge-issues” that white southerners loved to buy in to. By getting the word out early and quick he could take an assumption or a whisper and leak it to the press, thus killing the opponents campaign for very little money. South Carolina was his stomping ground and he understood which issues would hit the nerves of the voters. In 1980 Ronald Reagan had been in a tight race with John Connally. Connally ran a 13-month campaign in South Carolina with the support and endorsement of popular Senator Strom Thurmond. Connally was blind-sided by the claim (put out by Atwater) that he had been trying to buy black votes and as a result lost all but one delegate. Ida Mills of Clarksville, Arkansas is now known as the 11 million dollar delegate. Connally quit the race after the devastating loss. After 1980 Republicans would hold the White House for the next 20 years. Some political insiders credit this to Atwater’s dirty tricks.
In 1988 South Carolina was a must-win state for all the candidates, Jack Kemp, Pat Robertson, Bob Dole, and George H.W. Bush. Dole had refrained from campaigning in the state and unlike the other candidates, did not see it as a must-win. Dole had won in Iowa and it was assumed that he would win in New Hampshire. He felt confident about seeing a second place finish in South Carolina. Bush had finished third in Iowa and won in New Hampshire, but he was under scrutiny going into South Carolina over a policy that had dismantled the textile industry in the state. During the primary in New Hampshire The Bush campaign released negative ads and began attacking Dole on his tax policy. This strategy led to his good standing going into South Carolina. Atwater was hired as campaign manager for Bush. If Bush were to lose South Carolina, then Atwater may have been fired from the campaign. Kemp was running out of money. Robertson, a beloved televangelist was not seeing good poll numbers. Negative press was circulated linking Robertson to the Jimmy Swaggart, a fellow evangelists sex scandals which successfully ridiculed him. The Bush campaign released negative ads calling Dole “Senator Straddle” for being on the fence about key issues. Although later breaking his promise, Bush ended up winning the primary and put Dole in a position of defending himself from the bottom on the new tax pledge that Dole refused to sign. Atwater stayed on as campaign manager. He and Bush had knocked out his opponents in South Carolina. They went on to use their tactics against Michael Dukakis in the general election such as the Willie Horton ads and accusations of flag burning by Dukasis’s wife Kitty. Atwater later died in 1991 from a brain tumor after serving as the head of the Republican National Committee.
South Carolina in 2000 was a nasty primary season for the Republicans. There was a fight between George W. Bush and John McCain for the nomination. While working on his father’s campaigns, Bush had been an understudy of Atwater. Karl Rove is Atwater’s protege who had hired Atwater as his campaign manager for his run as President of the Young Republicans. Bush hired Karl Rove to run his campaign. Instituted by Atwater and passed on to Rove, dirty tricks were back in play. A whisper campaign was started in South Carolina to put John McCain’s mental health into question calling him “unstable”. There was also a smear campaign against his wife for being a drug addict and another accusing him of fathering a black baby from a prostitute. Bush supporters had circulated fliers questioning McCain’s sexuality. Bush reinforced the rumors by commenting that if he were elected he would not consider any homosexual appointments to his administration. The sentiment the candidates had about South Carolina’s confederate flag was a hot issue during the primary as well. Bush was able to skirt the issue while McCain had a flip flop and gaffe related to his feelings about the flag. Bush succeeded in crossing the South Carolina firewall, and had a great deal of contemptuous rhetoric for McCain throughout the rest of the primary season.
The people of South Carolina love a political fight. The winners of the Republican primary in this state have always shown tenacity and aggression while campaigning. The campaign values of Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, and the white supremacy of Strom Thurmond have inundated the citizens of the state who feel it is their civic duty to choose the Republican candidate. In the week before the 2012 primary Newt Gingrich may have solidified his position to win South Carolina by calling President Obama “the food stamp president”. It is almost as if Lee Atwater coined the phrase himself. When asked how Reagan could get to the racist Democrat George Wallace voter by claiming to cut down on food stamps Lee Atwater said,
“You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."
With the success of the Gingrich win in the South Carolina primary of 2012 the legacy of Atwater lives. If nominated as the Republican candidate, Gingrich will likely continue to operate out of Atwater’s playbook and use the “Southern strategy” all the way to the general election
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