Florence, S.C.
Different state, same old story. And Mitt Romney is smiling.
Even before the first votes of this nomination fight, the Republican presidential rivals to Mr. Romney were pointing to South Carolina. Iowa would be a scrum, they explained, and New Hampshire a foregone Romney conclusion. But South Carolina, well . . . watch that space. The Palmetto State would be the opportunity for one candidate to break out, unite all those South Carolina conservatives, and make this a race.
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GOP candidates Mitt Romney (left), Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry.
Someone might want to tell South Carolina. For all the bickering among the campaigns about how real Mr. Romney's lead is here, there is one polling fact that is undeniable: No one Romney opponent is breaking out. The non-Romney vote is as split as ever, and for that the non-Romneys have only themselves to blame. They're botching it.
WSJ's Neil King reviews Monday's Republican presidential debate in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Photo: EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images
!Some 30 years after Ronald Reagan assembled his winning coalition, the task of any candidate who wants to unite conservatives remains largely the same: Run on a message that brings together economic libertarians, defense hawks and social conservatives. That's the game here, the first-in-the-South primary, a state with sizable contingents of limited government, military and evangelical voters.
Newt Gingrich, who as recently as last month held a 20-point lead here, initially seemed to understand that job. His closing Iowa argument was that voters faced a choice between a "Massachusetts moderate" and a candidate born to a "bold Reagan conservatism" that highlighted economic growth and opportunity. Whether that message would have rescued Mr. Gingrich from his sliding poll numbers, we'll never know.
He couldn't stick with it. Mr. Gingrich is a gifted and knowledgeable politician, traits that have also given rise to a certain egoism and lack of discipline. Even before the Iowa caucuses, he was wandering off message, and his bitter, fourth-place finish inspired a vendetta against Mr. Romney. The optimistic Gingrich growth campaign quickly gave way to the opportunistic Gingrich Bain assault.
Running for a Republican nomination as an anticapitalist is not the smartest politics. Doing it even as you acknowledge taking $1.6 million from taxpayer ward Freddie Mac is the opposite of smart. The Gingrich team was betting it could tap into populist anger against wealthy Americans, but it misjudged its South Carolina audience.
This is the state that for the past year has been the epicenter of the debate on the merits of a free market because of President Obama's National Labor Relations Board attack on Boeing. The voters here get creative destruction, and when Mr. Gingrich brought up Bain at a forum in Charleston on Saturday, he was booed.
By Sunday, at an event in Georgetown, S.C.—a town that had once had a steel mill shut by Bain—he'd dro! pped the Bain line altogether and returned to his "Reagan conservatism" argument, insisting he's the best choice to counter "Obama radicalism." But it's arguably a little late for a refocus.
Focus has not been a problem for Rick Santorum, whose late Iowa surge was on the back of evangelical support, and who remains focused on that constituency here. The economy may be in the tank, Iran may be threatening, but the former Pennsylvania senator doesn't want to talk about that. He's making the pure pitch to social conservatives.
At an event here in Florence—a regional business hub in this state's coastal plain—Mr. Santorum spent an hour talking about his faith, "strong families" and America as a "moral enterprise." He cast the general-election stakes as a choice of two radically different cultural visions of America, and he boasted he was the only candidate who would openly fight on issues like abortion. It won him applause from certain quarters. But it left many attendees wondering when Mr. Santorum was going to talk about his tax plan, or his views on national defense. Save for responding to questions, he never really did.
Yet South Carolina voters want to hear about these issues, and in depth. If Iowa showed anything, it is that in this age of Obama and high unemployment and terror threats, even cultural conservatives are voting on more than faith. That explains the growing fight over whether Mr. Santorum should have won the recent endorsement of a group of 150 social conservative leaders—or whether the nod should have gone to Mr. Gingrich. The social right is as split as anyone.
Lurking, too, in South Carolina minds are doubts about Mr. Santorum's economic credentials. Ron Paul has been running an ad noting Mr. Santorum's vote against federal right-to-work legislation, which would restrict unions from forcing membership and dues. Voters are also aware of his past votes for acts like Davis-Bacon, which requires taxpayers to pay union rates in government-funded! contrac ts and disadvantages nonunion companies in right-to-work South Carolina. Voters are open to Mr. Santorum's reassurance, and the former senator has the smarts and skills to offer it. But he's not bothering.
Ron Paul has likewise pursued a narrow approach, pitching himself to small-government economic conservatives. That purity arouses great passion in a certain core following, but it leaves Americans who are concerned about foreign policy and social issues cold.
Rick Perry, for his part, has yet to figure out who he is courting: One minute he's slamming Mr. Obama's "war on religion," the next smacking "vulture capitalism," the next flogging his "energy jobs" plan. His herky-jerky campaign has underlined his lack of preparation.
And so, while the Romney rivals now openly exhort voters to hurry, to unify, to stop the Romney march, too few may be listening. The four main opponents to the former Massachusetts governor are, among them, splitting almost 60% of the vote.
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Mr. Romney has steadily motored on, pounding at his two themes of competence and electability. He's been running ads since last year slamming the Obama administration for its Boeing assault, while enlisting South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to act! as his local surrogate. The Bain attacks have, if anything, helped solidify some of his support. And Jon Huntsman's withdrawal and endorsement will throw a few more voters his way. Should Mr. Romney win a clear victory here, the nomination may be over but for the balloons and confetti.
Messrs. Gingrich, Paul, Santorum and Perry can't argue that they haven't had a shot. Super PACs have assured they have had the money to compete in South Carolina, despite varying prior performances. South Carolinians have hardly rallied behind the flawed Mr. Romney—his polling average in this state remains at 30%—and they remain open to a compelling alternative.
They just haven't seen anything compelling enough to unite them. And the non-Romneys are running out of time.
Ms. Strassel writes the Journal's Potomac Watch column.
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