In Chesterfield, McCain leaves core Republicans cold

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JEFFREY SIMPSON

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

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January 16, 2008 at 4:56 AM EST

CHESTERFIELD, S.C. — 'There, you've seen the rednecks," laughed Larry Courtney as he and two friends ambled out of the Republican Party of Chesterfield County meeting.

It hadn't been much of a meetup, to use American parlance. Rural, white South Carolina is quite Republican, but Chesterfield County isn't. Poor and a bit out of the way, hard by the North Carolina border in the northeastern part of the state, the county has always been Democratic.

Only about 20 Republicans gathered the other night. They recalled recent years when even fewer showed up. They were, therefore, the core of the core, and on the right side of the party. They could agree on two bad outcomes for the presidential election: that a Democrat wins the White House and that (with one dissenting voice) Republican John McCain gets there.

"I've been reading everything, and I still can't come up with a candidate that I feel comfortable with," Bernie Ballard, a trial lawyer, told the gathering. "The greatest president was Ronald Reagan. Now, there isn't an ideologue among them ... With Reagan, you knew what he was going to say almost before he said it ...

"I can't find a good one in the crowd. The one I wouldn't vote for is John McCain. He's always been a loose cannon."