The candidate
with the best strategy for bridging the gap between
longtime residents of South Carolina and a big influx
of newcomers may well be the one who wins South
Carolina's Republican presidential primary--one
of the few early contests expected to have an outsize impact
on the 2008 race.
The new residents
who have spurred the rapid growth of the Palmetto
State's coastal retirement and resort communities in recent
years are known locally as the "come heres," or
"COME-yas" as the term is pronounced with the Southern
twang of the native ''been heres.'' The newcomers have
made the state even more Republican than it already
was, but not necessarily more conservative.
The transplants
tend to be more moderate on social issues like abortion
and gay rights than the Christian evangelicals who have long
dominated the state party. They are also generally
more intense in their affinity with the GOP and their
disdain for Democrats.
Those
distinctions have assumed greater importance, with the South
Carolina GOP determined to hold the first Republican primary
in the South, probably on February 2 or earlier.
Candidates have been campaigning hard in the state for
months, hoping a strong showing will provide momentum
going into what is shaping up to be a decisive
mega-primary of as many as 20 states on February 5.
It's also a
nuance that benefited Arizona senator John McCain's campaign
in 2000--although not enough for him to win the
primary--and one that gives moderate candidates
such as former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani more of a
chance at winning votes here.
''You do have to
be careful because all of them [the newcomers] aren't
socially centered. The pro-life issue--they don't see
that necessarily as part of the political debate. So
they'll look honestly at somebody like Rudy
Giuliani,'' said Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina
Republican who is backing former Massachusetts
governor Mitt Romney.
McCain, Romney,
and the other Republican candidates will gather in South
Carolina next week for the second primary debate.
In the 2000
primary then-Texas governor George Bush prevailed
partly through strong support from Christian
conservatives and establishment Republicans, while
McCain performed best along the coast in communities
like Hilton Head Island and Myrtle Beach.
''The Republicans
coming in are more moderate. The Republicans that
started up the party are, I'd say, very, very
conservative--almost right-wing,'' said Charles
Aimar, an 82-year-old native of coastal Beaufort
County who should know. He started out as a Democrat and
served on the Beaufort city council before forming the
county GOP in his living room in 1960.
That was the
decade the Republican Party gained steam in South Carolina.
Against a backdrop of desegregation and the federal Voting
Rights Act that gave black voters clout, conservative
Democrats in the 1960s left the party in droves.
Within a decade
the GOP was bolstered by ''come heres,'' who helped
solidify the party's lock on power.
''If they weren't
down here, we would not be the dominant party of
Beaufort County, I can tell you that,'' said Pete Hall, 76,
a native of Abbeville, S.C., and a former state GOP
executive committee member.
Between 1970 and
2006, Beaufort County saw a nearly threefold population
increase, growing from 51,136 residents to 142,045,
according to U.S. Census data. It ranked third in
population growth, behind only Horry County, which
surrounds Myrtle Beach, and Dorchester County, a suburban
haven for Charleston's workforce. Census survey data from
2000 shows one in three people living in Beaufort
County then had moved there from outside South
Carolina.
And the "come
heres" are rougher on Democrats than the "been heres,"
Hall said.
''Those folks up
North were all born Republican. They don't understand
that just about everybody they talk to--if they're
over 55 or 60 years old--they were Democrats at
some time,'' he said. ''Us Southerners have a lot of
friends--very close friends, football friends, basic
friends--that are Democrats.''
Neil Weingarth, a
"come here" from St. Louis who has served on the
county GOP's membership committee, agreed that he and other
transplants have brought to his retirement community of Sun
City Hilton Head an intensity that the GOP natives
sometimes lack. The newcomers have been known to
bristle when been-here Republicans are too accommodating to
Democrats.
''And when we
feel that there is one, then the uncomplimentary name of
RINO, which is Republican in Name Only, is tagged onto that
person,'' said Weingarth, 74, a retired marketing
executive.
Sun City will
have six voting precincts in 2008, double the number it had
in 2000. Weingarth said the conservative newcomers ''will
accept someone who doesn't yet completely agree with
them as far as abortion and gay rights and that type
of thing, if they agree with them on the national
issues of keeping the country safe.''
For some
Republicans, however, core social issues remain front and
center. Jane Wedgeworth, for example, is an abortion
opponent who has lived on Hilton Head Island for 26
years. She is troubled that Romney is a Mormon and put
off by Giuliani's moderate stances on some issues.
''He marched in a
gay rights parade,'' said Wedgeworth, 54. ''How can I
have him as a role model for my children?'' (Jim Davenport,
AP)
