VISION SOUTH CAROLINA COUNTRYSIDE AND HIGHWAY

In 1860, South Carolina was the first southern state to secede from the Union.

For a century after the South’s defeat, this upstate hill country slumbered in nostalgic, God-fearing poverty.

03:55

Not any more.  From Raleigh, North Carolina to Atlanta Georgia, Route I-85 is now a river flowing through the upstate, spreading wealth, and work, and fast food franchises along its banks.

VISION GREENVILLE. AND MCCAIN CAMPAIGN

The city of Greenville, South Carolina is no southern backwater, but a boomtown typical of boom time America.

If John McCain can win here, he can win anywhere - and right now, he’s on a roll. 

04:40

McCAIN:  The message is clear, the message is simple and we are very enthusiastic at the reception that our message is receiving here.

MCCAIN SPEAKS TO CROWD AND PRESS

We are going to take the government out of the hands of the big money and the special interests and we’re gonna give it back to the people of this country who deserve it.

05:07

And we been having a great time and it’s been a lot of fun and it’s gonna be fun and if you wanna go on a wild ride hitch on, because we’re going places that we don’t know we’re going ourselves, thank you very much and thank you for being here.

MCCAIN THROUGH CROWDS

Holmes:  He really does seem to love it.  The endless bus rides, the hotel rooms and speeches and cameras and handshakes, day after day, month after month - and the public is loving him back.

05:35

MCCAIN GREETING FOLKS

WOMAN Thank you, it’s nice to see you too.

MAN God bless you sir, you’re a national hero of mine, good luck.

OTHER MAN: Thank you for coming to Greenville.

05:48

MCCAIN GREETING CROWD

Holmes:   It’s an audacious campaign - a conservative Republican, a U.S. senator of eighteen years’ standing, has cast himself as the man to take on the money politics which are at the root of his own party’s power.

MURPHY HANGING AROUND EDGE OF CROWD/INTERVIEW

One of the campaign’s chief designers is his political strategist, Mike Murphy.

MURPHY: Well the story of the McCain campaign is message versus money and organization and one man against the machine but we have the support of the grass roots.

And people see that we are the new force in the Republican party, we’re much closer to the voters and they’re kind of tired of the top down leadership and we think that’s a lot of the reason we’re being so successful.

06:25

MCCAIN HUGS MAN IN CROWD/BUS DRIVING AWAY

Holmes:  In South Carolina, as in New Hampshire, McCain’s is a direct and personal appeal that crosses generational and party divides.  He attracts Democrats and independents as well as traditional republicans,  veterans of foreign wars and fresh-faced students.

06:39

STUDENT

FADE UP SUPER

Adam Whitty

Student

Student:  John McCain is certainly the man for me, I like his campaign platform, this guy’s a reformer, he wants to change government, and I can tell you as a youth and as a college student I’m not real happy with government.

07:00

VETERAN/BUSH CAMPAIGN PARTY

FADE UP ON SUPER

Harold Waters

U.S. Navy (Retired)

VETERAN He’s No 1 in the nation as far as I’m concerned, there’s nobody else running, I mean that literally. This other guy is spoon fed, silver slipper, silver spoon and money, money, money. My country is not for sale under no circumstances.

07:11

MONTAGE SINGER /FAT CATS WITH BUSH BADGES.

WOMAN SINGER:  Proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free...

07:26

Holmes:  There are places where John McCain’s appeal is strictly limited - and this is one of them.

FAT CAT AND WIFE

Holmes:  I haven’t seen a single John McCain  sticker here tonight.

FATCAT: Who’s that, where’s he from?

07:40

SPENCE IN CROWD/BUSH ARRIVING THROUGH CROWD

Holmes:  Floyd Spence has represented South Carolina’s 3rd District in the House of Representatives in Washington for thirty of his 72 years.  This is the launch of his year two thousand campaign - and everyone who is anyone in the South Carolina Republican Party  is here.

07:44

BUSH AND SPENCE ON STAGE

And everyone who supports Floyd Spence for Congress, it seems, supports George W. Bush for President.

BUSH: Thank you all very much.

08:16

Holmes:  Bush effortlessly charms and delights this crowd. 

MONTAGE BUSH TO CAMERA/TALKING TO CROWD/CROWD REACTION

Bush:  And Mr Chairman, if all goes well, starting a week from tomorrow (laugh)…if all goes well we can work together to do what’s right for this world, to do what’s right.

08:25

So I hope everybody makes sure they turn out and vote for Floyd when his election’s up, I’m also asking you to make sure that you turn out and vote for me. I appreciate your confidence, I appreciate you having me, I appreciate you supporting this fine American, God bless you all. And God bless America.

APPLAUSE

BUSH KISSING, MEETING, GREETING

Holmes:   But for all the easy grin and the boyish charm, George W. Bush is worried.  A week before the primary, he feels he has the party regulars in the bag.

But in South Carolina, as in New Hampshire, anyone can vote in the Republican primary.   It’s the independents and Democrats, the so-called crossover vote, that George Bush fears, and John McCain is courting.

09:04

DAVE WOODARD

FADE UP ON SUPER

Prof. Dave Woodard

Clemson University

Woodard:  McCain doesn’t have to get a majority among republicans, he just has to come closer there and then win the crossover vote.  His campaign is all geared towards getting veterans and Democrats out to vote for him, and I think he’ll be pretty successful frankly, I think he’ll do pretty well.  I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he won.

09:32

 MONTAGE CLEMSON UNIVERSITY AND STUDENT MCCAIN STUDENT CAMPAIGN/INTERIOR CLASSROOM

Holmes:  Dave Woodard teaches political science at Clemson University, a prestigious college half an hour out of Greenville.  

His own students illustrate the danger for the Bush machine.  At the primary forum they’ve organised, McCain’s stall is bigger and busier than the rest.

Student:  These two pieces of literature right here, they kind of outline his platform...

Holmes:  And in Woodard’s classroom, Bush supporters are hard to find.

FEMALE STUDENT/WOODARD SPEAKS TO CLASS

Girl:  I’ll tell you the difference is that Bush to me seems sleazy. Like I can’t get over that, it’s like when I see him on TV, all I can think of is just like real greasy, you know like the typical politician that you can imagine.

10:18

Woodard:  Let’s go to my Democrats, are they planning on voting in this election, Russell, who are you voting for?

Russell:  I believe I’ll have to cast my ballot for Mr John McCain.

Woodard:  Oh you will?

RUMSEY AND FRIEND PLACE MCCAIN POSTER ON BACK OF TRUCK/RUMSEY INTO CAR AND CARS ON HIGHWAY

Holmes:  Not all McCain supporters are independents and Democrats.

10:46

Colonel Ed Rumsey, US Air Force, retired, is about as solid a Republican as you could find.

He’s Vice Chairman of the Republican Party in Okonee County, just west of Greenville.  Like many former military men, he believes that a US Navy fighter pilot who endured  five and half years of torture and imprisonment in Vietnam, is the kind of man America needs to succeed Bill Clinton in the White House.

ED RUMSEY IN CAR.

FADE UP ON SUPER

Ed Rumsey

McCain Campaign  Volunteer

Rumsey:  The most important thing that he has going for him is he can look you right in the eye and tell you the truth and you know he’s telling the truth, and I believe that our country is looking for somebody of that calibre to become a leader of our country here for the next four years.

11:20

CAR PULLS INTO BARRETT’S HARDWARE/BARRETT OUT OF DOOR AND GREETS ED AND JOHN/MEN PLACE MCCAIN SIGN UP

Holmes:  The primary contest has split Republican families down the middle.

Hardware store owner lee Barrett for instance has a brother who’s a State Representative and a stalwart Bush supporter.

But Lee himself is all for McCain. He’s not impressed by George W’s family connections and impeccable Republican credentials.

11:39

BARRETT /HOLMES AND BARRETT

FADE UP ON SUPER

Lee Barrett

McCain Supporter

Barrett:  Now who’re we gonna get when we get Bush, we gonna get Bush, we’re gonna get Bush’s old man, we gonna get all Bush’s cronies? I think we’re gonna get Bush’s old man and all his cronies. I like McCain because he’s different, the establishment doesn’t even support him, that’s what we need, we need a change, we need to get rid of some of these guys.

12:03

RUMSEY INSERTING POSTER BY HIGHWAY/ MONTAGE HIGHWAY TRAFFIC/CHURCH

Holmes:  But McCain’s supporters are enthusiastic amateurs compared with the formidable forces they’re confronting.

12:19

Upstate South Carolina may be the land of mammon these days - but it’s still God’s country too.  Vast churches loom amidst the shopping malls, and the Christian soldiers are working for Bush.

LISA PARKS CAR AND ENTERS HOUSE

After a full day’s work, and an hour teaching Sunday school, Lisa Van Riper - college lecturer, super mom, and networker extraordinaire - is still in a hurry.

12:43

Lisa:  I am tough, because there’s a lot at stake here. And I think New Hampshire was a wake up call, not only to the candidate, but for some of us social conservatives.

INTERIOR GRAND HOME/PEOPLE SIT AT TABLE WITH LISA

Holmes:  In her grand home in the Greenville suburbs, her troops are already hard at work.

13:12

Lisa: We’ve got to stuff all these letters, okay. We’re going to do -- the mail house is gonna to do 73,000 of these and we’re going to do 13 to 15,000.  But this is the only group we have to hand-address -- three thousand hand-addressed.

PRINTED LISTS/VOLUNTEERS WRITING OUT ADDRESSES/LISA TALKS TO GROUP

Holmes:  Three thousand Southern Baptist pastors are about to receive letters urging them to urge their congregations to vote for Governor Bush.

Lisa:  One good thing about this is these are hand addressed and they’re much more likely to be opened because of that.

13:34

MORE GENERAL SHOTS LADIES

Holmes:  They may be volunteers working in God’s cause, but they’re hard-headed political operatives too.  They know perfectly well that McCain is trying to maximise the independent and Democratic crossover vote.

13:56

LISA IN KITCHEN/VOLUNTEERS WORKING AT TABLE

Lisa:  So the way you have to counter that is you have to get the social conservatives, you have to get those numbers up, so that's what we’re after, we have to get those numbers up.

14:10

Holmes:  On the issues she cares about - parental control of education, abortion, morality and government - Lisa believes John McCain is suspect.

TEA MAKING/LISA TALKING TO HOLMES

FADE UP ON SUPER

Lisa Van Riper

Bush Supporter

Lisa:  We make the best choices we can and then we say, yeah, this is not a tea party we’re having, this is really serious business.

14:32

And there is a fairly large network of people who when they believe that something is very important and that values are at stake, will come out and give of their time and they give of their money.

MORE LETTER-ADDRESSING/VISION BUSH AD

Holmes:  Handwriting thousands of letters takes time, TV advertising takes money - and George Bush has plenty of that.

Advertisement:  He challenged the status quo and reformed welfare…

14:52

Holmes:  In New Hampshire he concentrated on promoting his own qualifications for job.

Advertisement:  Governor George W Bush.  A reformer with results. He will restore integrity and values to the White House.

John McCain promised a clean campaign…

VISION SECOND BUSH ADVERTISEMENT

Holmes:   But in South Carolina, an avalanche of ads attacked John McCain’s tax plan, and his claim to be a crusader against special interests in Washington.

15:19

BUSH AD

Advertisement:  He attacks special interests, but the Wall Street Journal reports: “McCain’s campaign is crawling with lobbyists.”

His conservative home-town paper warns: “It’s time the rest of the nation learns about the McCain we know.”

MCCAIN AD

McCain:  I guess it was bound to happen, Governor Bush’s campaign is getting desperate with a negative ad about me.

Holmes:  Despite having promised time and again not to fight a negative campaign, McCain hit back.

15:40

MCCAIN AD

McCain:  Governor Bush loses all the surplus for tax cuts, with not one new penny for social security or the debt.  His ad twists the truth like Clinton - we’re all pretty tired of that.

WHITE HOUSE PIC

Holmes:   Many Republicans felt that comparing Governor Bush’s truthfulness to Bill Clinton’s was a punch below the belt.

MCCAIN OUT OF BUS

Forced on to the defensive, McCain offered to pull all his negative ads if Bush reciprocated.

16:09

INTERVIEW OUTSIDE BUS/MEDIA PACK

Holmes:   Senator McCain, the Australians again.

McCain: Oh good to see you.

Holmes:  Isn’t this whole business of the negative ads beginning to distract from the substance of your campaign now?

16:15

McCain:  That’s always a risk that you take in politics but also there’s another rule and that you can’t allow attack to go unresponded to so …

Holmes:  Did you get any response from the Governor to your offer to withdraw the ads?

McCain: Not yet, we hope that we’ll get that response from the Governor because we’d like to see all those ads taken down and then get on the issues.

MCCAIN THROUGH MEDIA PACK AND INTO HALL/SHOTS AUDIENCE

Voice over:  Please give a warm South Carolina welcome to the next President of the United States Senator John McCain and his wife Cindy.

16:42

CHEERS, APPLAUSE

Holmes:  But the town hall meeting he had come to attend would provide a turning point in the campaign. A woman told him how  her fourteen-year-old son, for whom McCain was a hero, had taken a telephone call from an anonymous pollster.

WOMAN AT TOWN HALL MEETING/MCCAIN

Woman:  He was so upset when he came upstairs and he said “Mom, someone told me that Senator McCain is a cheat, a liar and a fraud” and he was almost in tears.

17:07

I am so mad, I was so livid last night I couldn’t sleep.

McCain:  I really hope that the people who are doing these things could have heard and seen your statement. Because we don’t need to do this to young people.

MCCAIN TALKS TO PRESS

Holmes:  At a press conference immediately afterwards, a visibly upset McCain appealed to his rival directly.

17:34

McCain:  I’m calling on my good friend George Bush to stop this now, to stop this now. I can’t believe that a person from a good family such as George Bush wouldn’t stop this but if he doesn’t then I will call him or I will write him or I will do whatever I can.

Holmes:  Hours later, McCain announced he would run no more attack ads, no matter what the Bush campaign did. 

But Governor Bush was unimpressed.

BUSH TALKS TO HOLMES AT PARTY FUNCTION

Holmes:  Are you going to respond to Senator McCain’s unilateral disarmament.

Bush:  There’s an old trick in American politics - it’s run a bunch of negative ads, and then say “let’s do no more”.  And he’s been doing this for eighteen days, obviously it’s not working - he actually equated me to President Clinton, which in Republican circles is a pretty high insult and I’m going to defend myself and I’m going to do what’s necessary to make sure I set the record straight.

18:03

BUSH ATTACK ADS MONTAGE/HOLMES LISTENING TO RADIO AD/TRAFFIC

Holmes:  And so he did

Advertisement:  McCain’s plan – a tax cut smaller than Clintons…

18:34

Holmes:  For the next week the Bush campaign and its allies blitzed the airwaves.

Advertisement:  Senator McCain, five times he voted to use your taxes to pay for political campaigns. That’s not real reform.

Advertisement:  John McCain says he’s for tax cuts, yet he’s proposed $150 billion in new taxes.

Advertisement:  So if you want a strong, pro-life president, don’t vote for John McCain, vote for George Bush.

BUSH RALLY

Holmes:  By the time George Bush came to Clemson university for a rally on the day before the poll, even hardened veterans like David Dave Woodard were talking about the unprecedented scale of the Bush campaign’s effort.

18:59

BUSH AND LAURA

MC:  The First Lady of the State of Texas, Laura Bush and Governor of Texas and the next president of the United States, George W. Bush.

19:26

Holmes:   Bush left it to his admen to wage the negative campaign, meanwhile he targeted his own message straight at the Republican heartland.

BUSH

Bush:  I’m running because the great valleys of America mean a lot to me and should mean a lot to everybody who’s fortunate to be an American. I’m running because I want to end the Clinton era in Washington DC.

CHEERS

19:46

MCCAIN AT RALLY

Holmes:  Meanwhile John McCain was hammering ineffectually at his opponents negatives tactics.

20:05

McCain:  Every time anybody picks up a phone or turns on their radio or their television set they see an attack ad from the bush campaign.

Holmes:  But McCain himself sounded less every day like the conservative Republican he claimed to be.

20:17

McCain:  My friends, if you share our vision, if you share our hope, if you share our courage, then I say to independents, Democrats, Libertarians, vegetarians, come on over, vote for me tomorrow and I’ll give you your dream.

CHEERS

20:22

Holmes:  On the eve of the election, most of the polls and the pundits agree – a big turnout would mean a big crossover vote and a narrow victory for John McCain. Which just goes to show how wrong pollsters and pundits can be.

20:41

VOTING DAY

Saturday dawned cloudy and threatening. But by mid morning in Okonee the weather had turned clear and warm and the voters were pouring into the polls.

210:57

Colonel Ed Rumsey had never seen anything like it.

21:13

RUMSEY

Rumsey:  It’s just been an exciting primary. When you read a paper or you turn on the TV, there’s the South Carolina Presidential Primary. It may be the crucial primary in the whole United States. So with that kind of coverage people are coming out to vote.

21:17

VOTERS OUTSIDE POLLING BOOTH

Holmes:  Do you mind telling us sir which way you voted?

21:33

Man:  Oh, we absolutely voted for John McCain for Republican candidate for Presidency of the United States.

Holmes:  Both of you?

Woman:  Yes sir, absolutely.

LISA IN POLLING BOOTH

Holmes:  In the polling booths in Greenville County, where Lisa van Riper was helping voters, the turnout was just as high. But as Lisa pointed out that wasn’t necessarily good news for John McCain.

21:46

LISA

Lisa:  The strategy in the Bush campaign was to get the traditional Republican vote out. If these are Republicans that are coming in today then we have a very high Republican turnout, which should bode well for Mr. Bush.

21:59

POLLING BOOTH

Holmes:   And that it turned out was what was happening. Traditional Republicans turning out in huge numbers, inspired among other factors by the fear that Democrats and independents were about to take over their primary.

22:12

WOMAN VOTER

WOMAN VOTER:  We are fearful of that, and we are praying much about the Lord’s will in this and that conservative Christians will get out and vote and override those who really don’t care.

FX:  CHEERS

22:26

MCCAIN WITH SUPPORTERS

Holmes:   Those prayers were answered. Soon after the polls closed, John McCain emerged to concede defeat.  In three short weeks his crusade had plummeted from the height of euphoria to a setback from which he’ll find it hard to recover. From the loser this time, not graciousness, but ill concealed bitterness.

22:39

BUSH CONCEDES DEFEAT

McCain:  I will not take the low road to the highest office in this land.

FX:  CHEERS

McCain:  I want the Presidency in the best way, not the worst way.

23:04

Holmes:  In South Carolina, two maxims of American politics had been proved true once again. You don’t win Republican primaries by neglecting the Republican base. And in politics as much as war, the best form of defence is what it’s always been – attack.

23:24

BUSH

Bush:  And I want you to know what I think. I believe because of this vote today that I will be the next President of the United States. Thank you all very much. And God bless you all.

23:42