Fred Thompson was leaving the Sippin Cow Cafe on Wednesday in this coastal town, where out-of-state retirees put down roots every day, when Thomas Heyward, 65, a town councilman who lives in the same house he grew up in, pulled the candidate aside.
"I told him he's got to break out. He's got to do something spectacular," said Heyward, who supports Thompson's bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
South Carolina is a staunchly Republican state, and its traditional culture defines Deep South conservativism.
But the influx of northeastern retirees to the coastal "Low Country" and of younger transplants to growing upstate job centers such as Greenville is changing things.
The top tier presidential candidates in both parties are non-Southerners. Noticed that? Can we safely assume that the culture is shifting? Is it that the sonorous Southern voices of tiresome evangelicals and lazy, arrogant men like Fred Thompson no longer work for us? Eight solid years of spoiled-boy-from-Texas has us up to here with "charm." Michelle's clear, rational tones sound saner and a good deal more honorable than Laura's twinkling, insinuating Dallas phrasings.
Give us sharp rationality, clear views of our government working, an uncorrupted vocabulary, women and men of their word. And if we have to have northern corruption, chances are it will be about personal greed and ambition and not driven by apocalyptic visions and authoritarian dreams.
