South Carolinians don’t play by normal rules of politics

Watching the Democratic Debate in Las Vegas felt like watching a Tarantino movie. There was blood everywhere. About which South Carolinians might say: “Welcome to the Palmetto State, ladies and gentlemen. We love that stuff here.”

In the state once described as “too small to be a republic and too large to be an insane asylum,” politics has always been a blood sport. This is surely attributable to the deep vein of ScotsIrish blood that runs through generations and descendants of the earliest settlers. Or, perhaps, it’s partly the vestige of The Civil War, which started here, too. Politics around here is just war by other means.

When it comes to politics, South Carolinians don’t play by normal rules. Here, eccentrics tend to be favored and villains pardoned. Remember it was Gov. Mark Sanford, who wandered off to “hike the Appalachian Trail” and ended up in the arms of his lover in Argentina.

And then was elected to Congress.

Sanford represented the “Lowcountry,” or low-lying coastal areas. A deep-port city, Charleston was once a hub for pirates, who seem to have infected the coastal zone with some of their wild spirit. As I was informed by the publisher of my first newspaper, The Charleston Evening Post, port cities tend to be more understanding of carnal transgressions than, say, their more provincial, inland cousins. (I don’t recall how this came up.)

What makes 2020 different is that the low country has been transformed over the last decade by the arrival of many retirees from New York and New Jersey, as well as California and points in between, who have put down roots along the coast, from Myrtle Beach on down. No one knows, really, if there are more Democrats than Republicans among the newcomers, but it may not matter. The primary on Saturday is open to both.

About 150 miles away in the center of the state, Columbia anchors the so-called “Midlands,” the state capital, and the most important political event of the Democratic calendar, the annual fish fry hosted by House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn. Clyburn’s endorsement is priceless in a primary where more than half the voters are African American, but he hasn’t made one yet this year and probably won’t. (He declined to do so in 2008, as well.) Columbia can roughly be described as a large and pleasant suburb of itself. Home to about 133,000, the city is a reservoir of traditional values, divided deeply along racial lines. The mayor is an up-and-coming star named Stephen K. Benjamin, an African American who has endorsed Michael Bloomberg. Who isn’t even on the ballot.

Overall, of course, South Carolina is still Trump country, much to the dismay of Democrats and at least some Republicans, who are forced to meet in undisclosed locations. But it’s a pivotal state for Democrats in the presidential years. We tend to make or break Democratic presidential campaigns: Clinton clobbered Sanders here 3 to 1 in 2016; she won every county that year. Barack Obama got more than twice the vote of Hillary eight years before that. Although Joe Biden still leads here, thanks to support from African American voters his light has dimmed with each debate. And it may surprise some people to learn that Tom Steyer has had more events here than any other candidate still in the race.

What will it take to win it this year? That’s impossible to say, but I do have a few suggestions. Sanders might want to lower his voice a bit and go easy on the armwaving. Biden should flash more charm and smile, which sells better than anger in this well-mannered state. This is one of many reasons Pete Buttigieg will do better than people expect here.

Above all, be who you are, from wherever you are. It’s a legacy of having been invaded: we can smell imposters long before we see them.