GREENVILLE, S.C. — With one well-timed nationally televised outburst, Newt Gingrich upended South Carolina’s 2012 Republican presidential primary, effectively breaking the state’s long streak of picking GOP presidential nominees.
The Republican intelligentsia here is determined not to let something like that happen again in 2016, and aims to re-establish the tradition that saw the winner of the South Carolina Republican primary advance to the nomination in eight straight elections, beginning in 1980 with Ronald Reagan. Mitt Romney won the 2012 GOP nomination. But it was underdog Gingrich who won South Carolina, a victory fueled by two debate performances and one anti-media tirade.
“We’re trying to do it right this time around, get everybody in here, vet these folks, and we’re hopeful we get back to that trend that had been sustained since the ’80s,” local conservative talk radio host Josh Kimbrell told the Washington Examiner on Friday, after headlining an event for his preferred presidential contender, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, at a Dickey’s Barbecue restaurant in Taylors, S.C.
“Newt Gingrich won this state because he performed really well at a critical debate in Charleston,” Kimbrell added. “It shouldn’t really in my view be one really good debate and you become our primary winner.”
Three years ago, Romney was coming off a big win in New Hampshire and leading in most polls gauging the South Carolina vote. Gingrich had failed to gain traction in either Iowa caucuses or the Granite State primary, which come first and second on the GOP calendar. That changed with two debates just days before the Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012, primary in South Carolina.
On the Wednesday leading up to it, Gingrich began to surge with a forceful rebuttal of a Juan Williams question in the Fox News/Wall Street Journal debate in Myrtle Beach. But it was Thursday in Charleston that Gingrich sold the crowd and clinched the primary when he pointedly returned fire at the “elite media” when CNN’s John King asked the former House speaker to comment on reported marital problems with an ex-wife.
A Republican operative who advised Gingrich’s 2012 campaign said it’s important to note that his operation was more organized in South Carolina than people realized at the time, and prepared to capitalize on any good fortune. But undoubtedly, this advisor said, the debate performances triggered Gingrich’s 40-27 perecent win over Romney in that race.
“No question, those two South Carolina debate performances were huge — back-to-back grand slams by a candidate with a natural ability to shine in that format,” this GOP operative said.
South Carolina hosts the third nominating contest of the GOP 2016 primary, and first in the Republican-dominated South. The race kicked off in earnest Saturday with a presidential forum in Greenville, a city of more than 61,000 situated in the uber-conservative, northwest “Upstate” region of this decidedly red state. More than 2,000 who are likely to fill the ranks of campaign volunteers as the primary draws nearer flocked to hear from nearly a dozen Republican contenders.
Sen. Tim Scott, the popular South Carolina Republican who also spoke, told the audience he plans to host a series of “Tim’s town halls” with the candidates to offer voters even more access to a deep field that includes sitting and former governors and sitting and former senators, among others. But in a perhaps revealing moment, Scott gave voice to the angst gripping party insiders about 2016 and maintaining influence over the quadrennial nominating process.
“We in South Carolina, we pick Republican nominees for the presidency of the United States,” Scott said. “We’ve done it very well. Since Ronald Reagan, except for one time, we chose the nominee.”
Doing so could be further complicated if home state Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham runs for president, as he has signaled is likely.
Because South Carolina bats third and is first below the Mason Dixon Line, it isn’t in any immediate danger of ceding ground to another state, even if the 2016 primary winner doesn’t become the nominee.
But other southern states are maneuvering to band together and hold a super Tuesday primary earlier than they would otherwise, and the Republican politicians and consultants here aren’t interested in taking chances. This, and finding a Republican they believe has the chops to beat presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, were what pre-occupied GOP players who gathered a week earlier in Columbia, the state capital, for the state Republican Party convention.
As it turns out, though, the voters aren’t necessarily all that concerned.
In more than a half dozen interviews over the weekend, few Republican activists or rank-and-file seemed worried that the winner of their state’s 2016 Republican primary might once again fail to make the general election ballot as the party’s nominee. At least at this early stage, their focus is on learning more about the candidates and picking the horse they think would make the best replacement for President Obama.
“I’m not sure I’m invested in some tradition, you know, streak, per se. I wasn’t all that confident in Newt Gingrich becoming the eventual nominee,” said Tony Schenck, a retired investor from Prosperity, S.C., who attended the presidential forum in Greenville on Saturday. “But I was committed to voting for him at that time. I think this time around, I’ll be sorting through the issues and voting strictly on the basis of who is the best president.”
It was much the same for another undecided Republican, Calantha Holcombe, 74, who traveled from her home in Spartanburg to the Dickey’s Barbecue in Taylors to meet Perry. “I care that the right nominee gets there. We all have to work together,” she said.
Disclosure: The author’s wife works as an advisor to Scott Walker.
