If the Republican campaign is to return to normality, it will do so in South Carolina

IN THESE panicky times, it is easy to doubt whether American politics will ever feel normal again. Here is a case for calm. It is true that when pollsters survey Republicans, about half say that they want to send an angry champion to Washington, with a Samson-like mandate to bring down the rotten pillars of government, ideally on the heads of the political class. But presidential nominees are not chosen by national opinion polls. Candidates win nominations state-by-state, and each one has its quirks.

A good place to look for evidence of normality is in South Carolina, which on February 20th will hold the first presidential primary elections in the South, shortly after Iowa and New Hampshire’s frostbitten contests.

Since 1980 South Carolina voters have an almost-perfect record of picking the candidate who goes on to win the Republican nomination. Local grandees call their state a microcosm of conservative America. It boasts God-and-guns rural voters in the hills of the Upcountry. It offers shrink-the-government fiscal conservatives in the Lowcountry, a coastal region transformed by tourism, foreign investment and legions of retired folk. The state is home to more than 400,000 ex-servicemen, who hold robust views on national defence. Nor is the seamier side of politics forgotten: South Carolina has often surpassed other states in reptilian campaign tactics.

That conservative diversity has long made South Carolina more representative than either Iowa, where a hefty evangelical vote favours fire-and-brimstone social conservatives; or New Hampshire, where primary results can be skewed by plaid-coated, leave-me-the-hell-alone libertarians. To win South Carolina, candidates must “appeal to every core constituency” on the right, says Matt Moore, chairman of the state Republican Party. What is more, the task of turning disparate groups out to vote makes the state a good test of organisational strength.

With that record in mind, Lexington headed to South Carolina last week, just before the Paris atrocities, to watch campaigning by two of the more pragmatic Republican hopefuls, Governor John Kasich of Ohio and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. Their reception was more enthusiastic than some public surveys might suggest (the businessman Donald Trump and the retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson began November far ahead in South Carolina polls, though one recent survey did put Mr Rubio third).

The site explained some of the warmth. Both Mr Kasich and Mr Rubio spoke in Beaufort (pronounced Bewfut) County, on the Atlantic coast. An affluent spot with some big military bases, it is home to many migrants from such states as Ohio and Pennsylvania, drawn by mild weather, golf courses and gated retirement communities where the wildest neighbours are the alligators which sometimes lumber into people’s gardens.

Mr Kasich spoke at a town-hall meeting on November 11th on Hilton Head Island, a manicured neighbourhood of villas and resorts, oak trees and Spanish moss. It was organised by one of the state’s most popular politicians, Senator Tim Scott. Mr Kasich was not exactly mobbed—his style is laconic, even rambling, at such hustings. But activists praised his anti-populist candour, as when he scoffed at Mr Trump’s suggestion that 11m immigrants living in America without legal papers can all be deported—calling that as likely as him flying to the moon tonight.

Jeffrey Bradley, a Republican who represents Hilton Head Island in the state legislature, suggests that realpolitik will come into play among Republicans as the election nears. That view is echoed by Mr Scott, the first black Republican to be elected to Congress from South Carolina since 1897, who combines a flintily conservative record with a gentle, genial manner. The 50-year-old senator has invited each presidential candidate to address a “Tim’s Town Hall” around his state. Too canny to endorse any candidate at this point, Mr Scott was at pains in an interview to explain away the one blot on South Carolina’s perfect record of picking a winner: 2012, when state Republicans chose Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, over the eventual nominee, Mitt Romney.

Newtered?

Mr Gingrich was “our cousin and neighbour from Georgia”, Mr Scott volunteered. Mr Gingrich “knocked it out of the park” in a South Carolina TV debate (when he attacked the media as “despicable”). Mr Scott predicts that South Carolina will pick someone with both a vision for the future and a background that suggests they can “bring it to pass”. Its primary voters are very conservative, the senator says, but they want someone “able to win”.

The day after Mr Kasich’s visit, Mr Rubio addressed the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce, also on Hilton Head Island. He offered an upbeat message about building an economy fit for a 21st century of breakneck technological change. It went down well, though reporters mostly wanted to ask about attacks from hard-right rivals about Mr Rubio’s views on immigration, which are relatively pragmatic. The American people are “reasonable”, Mr Rubio retorted.

The Republican who wins South Carolina will earn timely momentum. Its primary will be followed by a flurry of more than a dozen contests, many in the South. In Beaufort County some murmur, excitedly, that their governor, Nikki Haley, might make a fine vice-presidential running-mate, after deftly handling the aftermath of a racist mass-murder this summer in a black church in Charleston: Ms Haley, the daughter of immigrants from India, broke with earlier caution and backed moves to haul down the Confederate flag outside the state capitol.

South Carolina has long been seen as a firewall state for establishment candidates, who sometimes struggle in the first two primary contests. That still looks true. Though if an insurgent wins there in February, it really will be time to panic.