Read My Knuckles

The crowd in Hilton Head last Wednesday morning wasn't much to brag about--roughly 250 people had shown up at a local marina to hear George W. Bush--but the candidate was pumped just the same. In the big debate the night before, he'd finally managed to get the better of John McCain. More important, Bush had unleashed the dogs of war against his rival--saturation TV and radio attacks, hundreds of thousands of telephone and direct-mail blasts, everything short of leaflets dropping from the skies above South Carolina. The dogs were tearing into McCain, raising questions about his character and dedication to the conservative cause. Bush told the crowd, in his new fire-in-the-belly style, "If you're sick and tired of the politics of cynicism, of polls and principles, come and join this campaign." His slip of the tongue about being tired of principles hinted at what happened in South Carolina: Bush believed he would be finished if he lost the state, so he did what it took to win. A country tune that played at the Hilton Head rally neatly summed up Bush's approach. Its refrain: "I'm really good at gettin' by."

Want a reformer? Bush asked his party in South Carolina. I'll be your reformer--but a safer and more predictable one than McCain. Want a fighter who can take it to Al Gore? I can play rough--look what I did to my Republican rival. I can court the radical right and come out shining brightly. I'm really good at gettin' by.

So good, in fact, that Bush did more than get by in South Carolina. He trounced McCain by 11 points overall, beating him handily among nearly all age groups, both genders and most income levels--among everyone, in fact, except veterans and new G.O.P-primary voters. South Carolina Republicans rejected McCain's message that "this party has lost its way," voting for Bush almost 3 to 1. The independents and Democrats who made up about 40% of the electorate went to McCain 2 to 1, but there weren't enough of them to keep things close. Exit polls show that a majority of voters saw Bush as the "real reformer"--an astonishing coup for the Texas Governor, who adopted McCain's mantle of reform just two weeks ago. Of those who believed McCain was the true reformer, more than a third voted for Bush anyway. For all its demographic changes in recent years, South Carolina remains wary of mavericks and loyal to the G.O.P establishment. It was the third consecutive time a Republican front runner had lost New Hampshire and regained his balance in South Carolina. The fire wall held.

Bush's slashing tactics--ferocious even by South Carolina's down-and-dirty standards--don't fully account for the size of his victory. Bush managed to drive McCain's negative ratings from 5 to 30 in a month, but he also benefited from his own more serious and improvisatory style. Gone were the photo ops of Bush bowling and snowmobiling, replaced by substantive town-hall forums that looked a lot like McCain's. What helped Bush most of all was his hard charge to the right on social issues: he boosted conservative Christian turnout to record levels and collected two-thirds of their votes. But the things he said and did to win them could cost him down the road.