This excellent article in the Washington Post on the changing dynamics in South Carolina – the first in the South primary State, following hard on New Hampshire’s contest – has a great quote that all should lay to heart:
…Sightings of potential front-runners, such as Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, have been scarce, while most of the newcomers are only just starting to tiptoe into the state.
“These candidates, it is their job to get people excited, it is their job to get people to care,” Haley said. “We have not seen that yet in South Carolina.”
Activists and party leaders have been no more impressed.
“I’ve got problems with Romney because of Obamacare,” said activist Pat Ryan, 65, a retired nurse who lives in Charleston. “Palin is good as a thorn in the side but not presidential material. Gingrich is philosophical, learned, but I don’t know if he can carry through. Huckabee has grown on me, but he is too conciliatory. But I can’t believe that the choices out there are the only ones. There have to be some more people out there. It’s going to take time to see who comes out of the woodwork.”…
Of course this is just one person’s opinion, but I think it is a rather telling one. There is a lot of doubt out there about the whole field of candidates – my feeling (and it really is just a gut thing) is that the folks are wary. They feel burned by the GOP establishment and are not about to lend their support to the first person who asks…and they are looking for someone who will fight. Fight a lot. Fight so hard that a second term is well nigh impossible. That is the sort of person who will win the GOP nomination. It, literally, could be any of them – from Giuliani to Bachmann and everyone in between, all have this chance: to convince the GOP base that they’ll go to DC to conduct a revolution.
Hatchets will be buried and noses held – social conservatives and fiscal conservatives and libertarians will all go for whomever shows the most will to fight against the regime, the corruption of our public life, the erosion of our constitutional liberties Just as the Democrat nomination in 2008 was sure to go to the man who was most entirely unlike Bush, the GOP nomination in 2012 will go the person who is most unlike an Establishment candidate – keeping in mind that even an Establishment candidate can manage this trick if they learn it early, learn it well and convincingly state that they are with the people.
As the linked article notes, South Carolina used to be the GOP Establishments fire wall…the place where insurgent candidacies go to die. Given what happened in SC last year – a genuine revolution in politics in that State – this is no longer the case. In 2012, SC is where the Establishment will go to die. But that will not mean the end of it – while SC might winnow the field a bit, I fully expect two or three strong candidates and a couple second-tier candidates to go forward from SC. I think we’re in for a long fight, and perhaps an open convention (which would be best…yes, I know we risk a fractured party heading in to the general, but the people want to believe that their man – or woman – is one of them…having it out in floor fights in an open convention right on television would make the victor the People’s Candidate, for real).
Just get ready for it – make no bets, make no predictions. I won’t. I’m just going to sit back, watch and I’ll choose my candidate at some point.
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