Sumter, S.C.

When I started covering presidential primaries, the best part was getting to know the candidates. We journalists would ride around in vans and buses with them and get an intimate look at what it’s like to endure this soul-destroying process. But the ubiquity of Web cams and tweets has ended that off-the-record culture. As the technology gets more open, the lines of political communications become more closed.

Now the best part is meeting the people who come to the rallies. It’s best to get to the events an hour early and treat the waiting crowd like a cocktail party. First, you ask people about the local economy. Then you ask them about their lives (about which they are always interesting). Then you ask them about what they think of the issues and candidates (they generally repeat the banalities they have heard one of us pundits utter on TV the day before).

This past weekend in South Carolina I met, among many others, a soldier leaving for Afghanistan who quoted the Book of Revelation from his iPhone, a Vietnam veteran who movingly described the death of his first wife, a textile factory middle manager whose job got sent to El Salvador and a pawnshop manager who supports Ron Paul and said he has clients who buy a new gun every time the government does something they don’t like.

I came here wondering how voters would react to the charge that Mitt Romney was a corporate vulture when he ran the private equity firm Bain Capital. I asked dozens of people. They were all familiar with the attacks, thanks to the TV ads. Almost everybody thought the charges were ridiculous, even supporters of Newt Gingrich.