Republicans Hit Ground Running to Appeal to S.C. Voters

MARGARET WARNER: It looks pretty frantic, Gwen. As your piece just showed, all three of the major candidates were here today. Fred Thompson is busy, too. The ads are on the air. They're all scrambling madly.

You know, there's less time right now between Michigan and South Carolina than there even was between Iowa and New Hampshire. And the state is a big one, so they were jetting and bussing themselves all around the state today.

And what makes all the campaigns quite nervous is that they are afraid that the same pattern that we saw in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Michigan will be repeated here, which is the still fairly high number of undecided voters -- and I would say, from going to events, soft-decided voters -- could late break in one direction and essentially write the results.

GWEN IFILL: Let's start by talking about Mitt Romney. You've been jetting and bussing yourself around the state the way they have. Mitt Romney had a big win last night in Michigan. How is he trying to translate that on the ground in South Carolina?

MARGARET WARNER: Well, Romney and his advisers are in a bit of a box here, because they really don't think -- unless something dramatic happens, say, by tomorrow -- that they can catch McCain and Huckabee.

So on the one hand, as I said, they do have their ads back up. But they don't want to have expectations be so high that they finish a distant third and it dims the momentum of Michigan.

So, as of a few hours ago, the plan was he would be here today. I'm going to an event after this, this evening. He might stay in the morning tomorrow, but then go to Nevada.

What the Romney people want is have a "win," quote, unquote, before the all-important Florida primary. And so they've decided to make Nevada -- which is a caucus, of course, on Saturday -- their win.

MARGARET WARNER: Yes, Gwen, for John McCain -- and his people will admit this -- he has to win South Carolina. This is where his campaign in 2000 ran aground. He lost here, and it just was over.

So, for McCain, he's put his money, his resources, his organization here. He's counting on -- there's a credible network of military families, from retirees to active military. He also is strong along the coast, in perhaps a less socially conservative part of South Carolina, and a lot of the new people who've moved into the state.

At the same time, he doesn't want to cede the more socially conservative, quote, you know, whether you call them Evangelical, or fundamentalist, or religious right, or Christian conservative voters, more up in the northwest.

And so as you saw -- and you ran a clip from that today. We were at that event. He went to the heart of that area, Greenville, South Carolina. He made a big point of talking about his pro-life position, more than he used to emphasized it in, say, New Hampshire.

But McCain has flatly predicted, as Huckabee has, that he is going to win South Carolina, and his folks feel he really has to.

GWEN IFILL: What about issues like the confederate flag, which we heard about four years ago, immigration, which has dogged him in other contests? Have we seen a sign that those issues are back?

MARGARET WARNER: Yes, there is a residual anti-McCain feeling here among some Republicans, and it's over several issues.

One is the confederate flag, where last time he actually -- it's a very emotional issue -- and he first said, "Oh, let's let South Carolina decide whether to fly the flag over the state capital." And then, after the campaign, he renounced what he'd said.

There are -- he is facing and all the candidates are facing some negative campaigning that's popping up in the last few days. So-called robo-calls against McCain accused him of being "pro-amnesty" for illegal immigrants, based on his support of immigration reform, and also that he's not really pro-life.

McCain has fought back by having a truth squad, which has been holding press conferences, essentially revealing this stuff and denouncing it as untrue.

GWEN IFILL: And finally...

MARGARET WARNER: And also today, Gwen, I should add -- sorry, very quickly -- that at McCain events today there were some confederate flag protestors out.

GWEN IFILL: Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani -- Fred Thompson left New Hampshire and never even went to Michigan, has been on a bus tour, staking his claim in South Carolina. Rudy Giuliani hasn't even been to South Carolina at all. What's going on?

MARGARET WARNER: Well, Fred Thompson is making a pitch here, running as, "I'm the real southern conservative." And the person he's apparently taking votes from, to some degree, is Huckabee.

For Huckabee, this is also make-or-break. Like McCain, they're overstretched money-wise. He feels he has to have a win going into Florida. And so he feels -- his people feel that Thompson -- they mostly see him as sucking away votes from them.

Thompson is campaigning. He does have ads up. It's probably do-or-die for him, as well. But I'd say his greatest role right now, at least as far as the other campaign advisers are concerned, is that he is draining away from Huckabee.

GWEN IFILL: And Giuliani not a factor?

MARGARET WARNER: Just not a factor at all. He spent a lot of money here early and, you know, as you know, has gone and just put up his -- however we'd want to say it -- put everything on Florida.

GWEN IFILL: Pitched his tent. Pitched his tent in Florida.

MARGARET WARNER: Pitched his tent, thank you.

GWEN IFILL: Any time. Happy to help. Travel safe, Margaret.

MARGARET WARNER: Thanks, Gwen.

Mark, are the Republicans still looking for a candidate? Is that the bottom line here after all this?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: They're looking for a frontrunner, because the Republicans like a frontrunner and some order in this chaos.

But Mitt Romney had his win. I mean, it shows the power of the press, because over the last three weeks nobody has had more relentlessly negative press coverage than Mitt Romney, and nobody has had more favorable, positive press coverage than John McCain.

And the voters of Michigan took that into account and gave Mitt Romney a victory.

JIM LEHRER: What's your analysis of why Romney won? Is there an easy explanation?

MARK SHIELDS: I guess because the electorate has changed. When John McCain carried Michigan against George Bush in the year 2000, 51 percent of the people who showed up were independents or Democrats coming to vote.

There were a lot more independents, Jim -- independents have not participated on the Republican side, either in New Hampshire or in Michigan, which may be a bad omen for the fall, but it's a more clearly, purely Republican conservative electorate that John McCain faced yesterday.

And this is a problem for John McCain. He's shown great strength with independents, with moderates, but that's going to be the test in South Carolina.

JIM LEHRER: And in South Carolina -- do you agree, South Carolina, what everybody is saying, South Carolina is crucial to McCain?

DAVID BROOKS, Columnist, New York Times: I actually don't believe that.

JIM LEHRER: You don't believe that?

DAVID BROOKS: I mean, he's up in California. He'll do well in New York and some of the coastal Republican states. I think it's crucial for Huckabee and Fred Thompson.

I think McCain, if he does fine -- assuming he's not -- if he's a close second -- he can carry on to these big states where he'll do fine.

The real problem for John McCain is he's got to have a domestic policy. I mean, I think Mitt Romney won in Michigan in part because he was a favorite son, and the polls revealed a lot of people associate he and his father with Michigan. And he benefited from that, the polls suggest.

But the big reason Romney won, I think, is because he addressed the economic problems of Michigan, whereas McCain said a lot of these jobs are never coming back, which happens to be true, but is impolitic to say.

Romney said, "No, I'm going to bring them all back." And he said, "I'm going to spend $20 billion on federal research. I'm going to get Washington actively involved in reviving the auto industry."

It sounded like -- I don't know, it sounded like the Christian Democratic Party of Germany, with the unions, business, and government all getting together and creating a plan to revive the auto industry. But it worked.

And it worked among people who feel that the country has forgotten about the auto industry and the unemployment rate there, and they went for Romney for that reason.

And Romney does carry some economic credibility into all these other states, something which Huckabee certainly doesn't have and McCain really is struggling to get. I think they really need to have an economic policy that is Republican and different from Mitt Romney's, and the campaigns are very slow to get that.

JIM LEHRER: And the economy is gradually becoming the issue, is it not, not only just among Republicans, but Democrats as well, the whole country?

MARK SHIELDS: Two points. One, Romney has hit upon which of the roles, the faces he should be wearing in this campaign, which is the can-do, Harvard MBA, started a business, very successful, saved the Olympics.

He ran as sort of the moral, conservative, religious candidate in Iowa, lost to Mike Huckabee, then pivoted on a nickel and went to New Hampshire, where Obama had won on change in Iowa. He became the change candidate.

In Michigan, he did come to this message. It was interesting, Jim...

JIM LEHRER: Your thinking is that he should stay there, right?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I think it's the one that's the most authentic for a guy, a campaign that has not been terribly authentic up to now. But I do think that it's interesting to look at it.

For a party that lights votive candles to the image of Ronald Reagan on an hourly basis, rhetorically, at least, this is a big government party now. I mean, Mitt Romney's suggestion, as David described it yesterday, no Democrat has come up with that kind of initiative, bold, government intervention, government involvement, bringing business, labor in, $20 billion of research, we're going to do this. I mean, that is not small-government conservatism.

JIM LEHRER: Going back to South Carolina specifically, you think Huckabee has a real good chance of scoring big? And if he does, that hurts McCain. But what does that do to Thompson?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think it would finish Thompson. Thompson is doing well. He had a very good debate, and you sense something going on with Fred Thompson, but Huckabee really has to do well or else he's just an Iowa candidate.

The big problem Huckabee faces -- McCain's, also -- is Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh all week has been on the warpath against Huckabee and McCain as people who are not real Republicans. He says they're drawing independents, they're drawing Democrats, they're breaking up the Reagan coalition. He calls them Jell-o people, because they're soft and squishy.

And there are a lot of people who listen to Rush Limbaugh, and a lot of talk show hosts repeat what Rush Limbaugh says. And so that -- he has been a very pro-Romney force in the past week. And it's bound to eat into Huckabee, because there are a lot of Republican primary voters who listen to Rush Limbaugh.