We Pick Presidents
It’s a chance for the state of South Carolina to again make political history, and pick a next president. On Saturday, February 24, 2024, the winner of the Republican party presidential primary might be opposite Joe Biden, an incumbent Democrat whose approval ratings have been around 40% since October of 2021. SC conservatives are familiar with the opportunity, and have a refrain that is also a kind of boast: “We Pick Presidents.”
Beginning in 1980 with Ronald Reagan, the winner in the South Carolina GOP presidential primary became the national party nominee. The streak ended in 2012, when Newt Gingrich beat Mitt Romney here, but in 2016 SC returned to its way of forecasting the party nominee by selecting Donald Trump as the winner.
The next primary presents a special test for voters. Trump again asks for the Republican nomination from people in the “First in the South” primary contest. Look at an electoral map, and you’ll see that there are about thirteen states where people say “Y’all.” If you’re running for president, and you can win all those states, they have two-thirds of the electoral votes needed for a national November victory.
In this election cycle, Trump comes well-known, but with some troubling liabilities: he’s been impeached twice, held responsible for a Capitol riot on the day when his successor took office, and found liable for sexually assaulting a female in a department store fitting room. Each week a new allegation, indictment or investigation surfaces involving Trump. In spite of these concerns, the former president asks for a chance to return to the White House by the same SC voters who gave him their November allegiance in the past two national elections.
Should voters vote the same way again? The sexual assault conviction, with a $5 million penalty, suggests a bleak future for anyone in the presidential office. In this “MeToo” era of sexual accountability, twenty-six women have publicly accused Trump of misconduct since the 1970s. Some of them are still pursuing legal remedies.
The most important question about the past president is not related to his personal behavior, it’s political, can Donald Trump win? Joe Biden beat him in 2020 and, even in the recount voting controversy lawsuits, no convincing evidence has emerged to change the outcome of the past election. Can a nominee who lost an election to someone with a string of the lowest presidential approval ratings since WWII win the top office? Can Trump lead his party to victory? The Republican margins in the US House of Representatives and Senate are unyieldingly close, will they improve with Mr. Trump leading the ticket? Candidates need help, not controversy, when they run for national office. One of the maxims of American politics is straightforward: “Voters are not fools!”
Constituents don’t expect perfection from their politicians, but they have a way of judging them in advance of voting for them. Many voters heard childhood myths about George Washington tossing a silver dollar over the Potomac and Abraham Lincoln being little more than a simple country lawyer. Those things weren’t true, but they carried a message that is a mainstay in any presidential election cycle: character counts. Voters across the nation didn’t see Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a wheelchair or in leg braces, but they knew the devastation of 50,000 people stricken by polio at the time. They trusted FDR anyway.
Both political parties have had men in office, sometimes ones with falling approval ratings, who continued to be effective. Harry Truman had low popularity scores and a sign on his desk that said “The Buck Stops Here.” He made some unpopular, but ultimately important, decisions. Dwight Eisenhower faced down the Soviets led by Joseph Stalin. The Russian was someone Ike knew personally from his former position as “Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe.”
Winston Churchill summed up the integrity issue: “Your character is your destiny.” In a tense world, with a growing Chinese global presence, dramatic wars involving some European NATO countries, hostilities in the Middle East and political unknowns ahead – who should win the SC primary to be our next president? A number of capable GOP candidates are in the race, including two from this state.
The bluster and bombast of former president Trump is such a risk that it renders him a bad choice to be the national party nominee. Everything he does seems to be for visual and emotional effect. We will have to wait and see what happens here in 200 days, but there is already enough evidence to cause Republican voters to choose someone besides Donald J. Trump for their nominee as president.