South Carolina in the national spotlight following New Hampshire primary
Photos by Parker Jennette, Brian Almond, Andrew Askins, and Jeremy Aaron
The stakes are particularly high in this race, as it has correctly predicted the eventual Republican nominee every election since 1980.
Five of the remaining six Republican candidates held events in and around Columbia Wednesday; only former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who focused his attention on the Upstate, didn't visit the city.
Their campaign stops, which ranged from a large rally for Romney to a smaller gathering of ardent supporters for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, offered insight into how each candidate reacted to the New Hampshire primary — and what South Carolinians have in store in the coming days.
Mitt Romney
by Colin Campbell
Though the first-in-the-South Republican primary isn't until next Saturday, Mitt Romney is campaigning like he's got the nomination in the bag.
And he's got good reason to: The former Massachusetts governor has won in both Iowa and New Hampshire, leads in the polls and if he takes South Carolina, he'll be the first candidate ever to sweep all three.
Joined by Gov. Nikki Haley and State Treasurer Curtis Loftis, Romney came to The Hall at Senate's End Wednesday night to a packed house. Haley introduced Romney by listing the reasons she endorsed him — namely his business background and his plans for government reform. She took a veiled shot at other GOP candidates who criticized Romney's Bain Capital venture, saying it bothers her when Republicans "talk like Democrats."
But when she finally handed the microphone to Romney, as supporters chanted "Mitt! Mitt! Mitt!" he attacked only one person: President Barack Obama. Romney systematically addressed Obama's policies — international and domestic — and outlined his alternative platform.
Using the lyrics to "America the Beautiful" to frame his speech, Romney emphasized cutting spending, creating jobs and reforming the federal government.
He pointed to some young children in the front when addressing the deficit, and said the debt will be theirs to deal with if spending isn't cut.
Other talking points included encouraging business by making tax rates competitive, utilizing America's energy resources, strengthening the military, creating jobs and taking hard lines in international dealings with countries like China and Iran.
But throughout, his speech emphasized a return to an earlier time — a restoration of "the principles that made us the most powerful nation on Earth."
"When the founders wrote the Declaration of Independence, they said that the Creator had endowed us with certain unalienable rights," Romney said. "Government hadn't endowed us, the Creator had — of 'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,' ... the right we have in this country to pursue our lives, our dreams, as we wish."
Those principles, Romney argued, are what America was built on. By employing those ideals in government and the marketplace, he said, the United States became "an opportunity nation, the place everyone wanted to come."
Romney said to overcome today's problems, it needs to return to those original ideals.
"We need to call on the great spirit of America and get government where it belongs — small and behind us," Romney said to raucous applause.
And as he'd done all night, rather than distinguish his campaign from the other GOP candidates', ask for votes or even claim he deserves the nomination, Romney focused his sights on the president.
"He's got to go ... The president wants to transform America," Romney said. "I want to restore America." He attributed the nation's problems "to the failure of one man" — Obama.
And, in Romney's mind, that's his only competition.
Rick Santorum
by Thad Moore
New Hampshire wasn't exactly fertile ground for former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. After riding a surge in the polls to an effective tie with Romney in the Iowa caucuses, the momentum was his.
But while Iowa is rife with the religious and socially conservative voters that he attracts, New Hampshire was not — and he earned just 9.4 percent of the vote, effectively tying Newt Gingrich for a fourth-place finish, according to the state's Department of State.
With his attention now focused on South Carolina, Santorum is back in his home territory. The former senator spoke to the need to protect traditional values to an audience of about 300, who were alternately energetic and attentive on Wednesday evening.
"At the heart of American exceptionalism are these words, and you've heard them," he said. "We hold these truths to be self-evident ... that all men are created equal and endowed by," pausing to let his audience fill in the gap: "their Creator."
Such was the tone at the Springdale House and Gardens in West Columbia, where Santorum affected the rousing tone of a preacher and encouraged his budding but loyal grassroots following.
"If you leave here and say that you're going to vote for me, and that's all, we're not going to win," he said, wrapping up the town hall-style meeting. "I'm asking for ten days to strike a blow for freedom. Don't let America down."
Santorum cast the first stone in striking that blow, especially focusing on President Obama and his health care reform legislation that he described as "the central freedom issue in this race."
For the most part, he shied away from taking shots at the other candidates, other than lightly veiled jabs at Romney, referring to him somewhat snidely as "someone who can appeal to moderates ... someone who the establishment is all behind."
That broke down, though, late in the event, when a frustrated Santorum addressed speculation that he might not perform well in a general election, attacking his opponents' electability and implicitly acknowledging that he faces an uphill battle in the coming days.
"He's the most electable? Says who?" he asked of Romney. "Where's he ever proven that?"
Accordingly, Santorum called on his base to rally around him and offer him their support.
"All the other candidates in this race will tell you they need your help. They're lying. I need your help," he said, later adding: "We won't have the most money in this race, so we have to have the most passion."
Ron Paul
by Kathryn Kranjc
Despite the morning downpour, Texas Rep. Ron Paul had reason to smile as he landed in Columbia Wednesday.
Accompanied by his family, the libertarian presidential candidate stepped out before a group of nearly 200 supporters with a confident swagger left over from his capture of second place behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday night. It was a significant moment in a political performance that has so far challenged media skepticism and opponents who have labeled him "unelectable."
"We're not so much a minority anymore; the numbers are growing, and we're going to grow continuously here in South Carolina," Paul told the energetic crowd gathered to welcome him by the Columbia Metropolitan Airport.
Addressing media references to the most recent South Carolina polls, which put him in fourth place with just 9 percent of the vote, he continued in that hopeful tone, even though that represents less than half of the percentage he earned in New Hampshire.
"Well, they haven't done a poll since last night," he said with a grin.
The self-proclaimed constitutionalist went on to issue promises of restrained government, a free market and fiscally conservative reform, including nonintervention in foreign policy and an audit of the Federal Reserve.
"What we want to do is reverse the trend of this country, and not just over the past few years; it's a reversal of nearly 100 years," Paul said. "This tendency for the federal government to take care of us from cradle to grave — whether it's education or medical care or whatever — doesn't work."
It was a message well-received by supporters at the event, ranging from families to professionals on their lunch break, many carrying signs bearing Ron Paul's name underscored by the slogan "Restore America Now."
Grassroots Coordinator Nicole Quinn, a native of Lancaster, Pa., said she was kept up all night Tuesday by an influx of text messages and emails from people wanting in on the campaign after the announcement of the New Hampshire results.
"Last night he proved that he's received clear support from independents and moderates," Quinn said. "People are more hopeful now."
Jon Huntsman
by Cassie Cope
When Republican Candidate Jon Huntsman visited the Darla Moore School of Business for his town hall Wednesday, he got right down to business.
Huntsman directed his speech toward the audience that mostly consisted of university students — some of whom had traveled together with classes to see the candidate.
"We are about to hand down the greatest nation that ever was — The United States of America — to you: the next generation," Huntsman said. Huntsman described the generation as "less good, less competitive, less productive, more divided and more saddled with debt, than any other recent generation."
Standing in the business school's Hall of Fame, Huntsman discussed the trillion-dollar deficit in the country's budget. And then he discussed a second deficit in America he argued was equally worrisome — the "trust deficit."
The country, Huntsman said, no longer trusts its institutions of power or its elected officials.
"How pathetic is this?" Huntsman asked. "A country that was founded on trust, that no longer trusts its institutions of power? How did we get to this point?"
Among the solutions to the trust deficit Huntsman suggested on Wednesday: implementing term limits for Congress, using the bully pulpit to combat what he called a pattern of incumbency and closing the revolving door that allows former members of Congress to become lobbyists.
"Cronie Capitalism prevails on Capitol Hill, and we're doing nothing about it," he said.
But Huntsman, the former ambassador to China, called on this global perspective to assert that America is still the envy of the world.
"We have every attribute that any country would ever want to succeed in life," Huntsman said.
After all, Huntsman, who has stayed in the race after skipping the Iowa caucuses and a middling performance in New Hampshire, knows a thing or two about keeping his chin up.
"I am optimistic, or I wouldn't be standing here in front of you," he said.
Rick Perry
by Thad Moore
Tuesday was not Rick Perry's day.
The Texas governor opted to skip New Hampshire's primaries following a lackluster performance in the Iowa caucuses last week. Instead, he went all-in in South Carolina.
But New Hampshire responded with a stern rebuke, as he won just seven-tenths of a percent of the vote there, placing sixth in the contest. The next closest competitors, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, both earned more than 9 percent of the vote.
Such was the environment during the governor's visit to Doc's Barbecue on Shop Road, where he spoke to a group of supporters and strove to downplay a second set of disappointing returns.
"Let me tell you, New Hampshire and Iowa are wonderful places. They are a place that you go, I guess, to practice your campaign speech," he said, to chuckles from the crowd, "but they winnow the candidates down. South Carolina picks presidents."
Unlike New Hampshire, though, South Carolina is rife with socially conservative and traditional "family values" voters, a characteristic Perry played to in his stump speech.
Speaking about his upbringing in rural Texas, he said: "Those were the three things that were kind of central in my life: school and church and Boy Scouts ... I understood that those values of faith and family and freedom ... paid great dividends," adding that "all of those values are reflected in South Carolina."
In an attempt to distinguish himself from the rest of the field and appeal to the Palmetto State's voters, Perry also worked to cast himself as an outsider and fiscal conservative.
"I'll talk about [the other candidates] en masse. I'm the outsider," he said. "I have never worked on an administration. I've never been on Wall Street. I've never been a part of Congress. I've never been associated with what I consider to be this corrupt relationship between Washington and Wall Street."
The success of that message in propelling Perry's last-ditch effort here is uncertain; a poll conducted by Public Policy Polling released on Saturday puts the candidate at fifth place in the state with 5 percent of respondents.
But for now, Perry is banking on South Carolina to make his day.