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Supporters antsy as Huckabee loses South Carolina Sunday, Jan 20, 2008 By Aaron Sadler Stephens Washington Bureau COLUMBIA, S.C. - Timothy Hutchinson started to worry the instant he saw the first snowflake drop from the dark, gray Carolina sky Saturday. In Greenville, S.C., on behalf of Mike Huckabee, Hutchinson knew snow in the evangelical-heavy South Carolina uplands would slow voter turnout among Huckabee's religious base. And it did, making for a tense night watching returns for Hutchinson and hundreds of other Huckabee supporters. "I'm very concerned about the weather," said Hutchinson, a former state representative from Lowell. "You could see the polling sites start slowing down and that is, of course, Huckabee country." Huckabee won those heavily evangelical counties, but not by big enough margins to stop Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, in Saturday's South Carolina Republican primary. Huckabee, former Arkansas governor, finished second to McCain in a tight contest not decided until about 2 1/2 hours after polls closed. McCain picked up 33 percent of the vote to Huckabee's 30 percent, according to unofficial results. Former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee finished third. When cable television networks projected McCain as winner, 300 Huckabee supporters in a half-empty convention hall went silent. They roused only to welcome Huckabee, who said a day earlier he had prepared only a victory speech. His address Saturday was without notes. "Tonight is not a time to start asking 'What if?'," Huckabee said. "It's a time to start asking, 'What now?' We're not going to sit around and second-guess ... I feel like our effort here, we gave it all we had. We left it all on the field." The snow that decreased turnout was one 'What if?' factor cited by Huckabee advisers. Hutchinson said South Carolinians quit voting when the wintry precipitation started. "That sure stopped things quickly," he said. Advisers also were concerned Huckabee didn't have enough time to spend in the state. A compressed primary schedule made it close to impossible for candidates to dedicate much more than a few days to South Carolina's first-in-the-South race, they contended. "The clock ran out," said former Arkansas state Rep. Doug Matayo of Springdale. "You hate to make excuses about anything in a campaign, but this is the slimmest of margins." The subdued, antsy South Carolina crowd on primary night was nothing like the group that waited with cool-headed certainty in Iowa - the only state out of five so far won by Huckabee. Nor were South Carolina supporters as upbeat as those in New Hampshire, where Huckabee lived up to expectations with a third-place finish. Campaign manager Chip Saltsman nervously craned his head to watch results on television as he waited for an interview. The girlfriend of a Huckabee staffer was so intent on watching results that she ignored a reporter's questions, then responded testily when she finally acknowledged him. And one frustrated supporter lodged a complaint with the nearest campaign worker when technicians turned off sound to a television. "Who turned the sound down?" he said. Then he looked to the worker and added, "You've got a badge on, you can fix it." Undeterred was Barbara Day from back home in Harrison, who with her husband, George, volunteered for Huckabee in Iowa and South Carolina. Day, 74, said the retired couple's next stop is Florida, which holds its Republican primary Jan. 29. They've logged more than 7,500 miles on their 1999 Honda Civic while following Huckabee's fledgling campaign. From Florida, it's back the the Natural State to vote for Huckabee in Arkansas' Feb. 5 presidential primary, she said. "We've made phone calls, today we went to one of the polling places and held up signs and waved. We really like this," Barbara Day said, "especially when we're winning." A Huckabee victory Saturday would have put him in a strong position heading into the Florida race. He argued after the South Carolina loss that he was still in good shape in a Republican race where there is no clear front-runner. "Politics, and particularly this year more than perhaps any other, is not an event, it is a process," Huckabee said. "And the process is far, far from over." |
