GREENVILLE, S.C. — Jack Boyer’s father died when Mr. Boyer was 8. Raised by a single mother, he “lived a wicked life,” married at 19 and, two years later, after “she and the Lord straightened me out,” accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior. Almost four decades later, he is pastor of a Baptist church in the northwest part of this state.
On Monday evening, Mr. Boyer and his wife drove to Stax’s Original Restaurant here to hear Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, whom he is supporting in the presidential race. “I prayed about my decision about him,” he said. “I already knew what I wanted, and I found it in him.” He cannot think of a single issue, he said, where he disagrees with Mr. Perry.
Mr. Perry is still in the doldrums here in the latest polls, and it is not yet clear whether his recent decision to stay in the presidential race and compete here will prove smart. With poor showings in Iowa, New Hampshire and recent polls, he barely met the hurdle for qualification for the Jan. 19 CNN debate in Charleston, two days before the South Carolina primary.
Despite those setbacks, Mr. Perry seems to have found in South Carolina a place where he can connect with some crowds, with stump speeches, sometimes before a hundred people, that preach reverence for Jesus Christ and for the military. He appears looser and more confident than he has been for some time, perhaps since the days when he was considered a front-runner, which ended with his string of poor debate performances.
Now, though, he has more humor and humility as he courts the votes of South Carolinians. He recounts a journey from “walking down the aisle of my church and giving my heart to Jesus Christ when I was 14 years old” to “standing up for the Ten Commandments on the grounds of our Capitol in Texas.”
“The fight never ends,” he says.
It is a contrast to his experience in New Hampshire. There, despite an investment of time and effort, he often got skeptical questions, charmed some but won over few, limped out of the state weeks before Tuesday’s primary and received fewer than 2,000 votes.
In Iowa, where social conservatives are more powerful, he drew crowds in rural areas, but even after hearing him speak, many folks would still tick off all their options — Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich — unsure of their choice.
Here, though, the crowds who have come to see him the past few days in the more socially conservative parts of the state have seemed to like more of what he believes in. That often has had more to do with how he and his wife, Anita, come across personally than with any particular piece of policy.
“What you see is what you get, and he stands on the same foundation that I stand on,” said Patty Whetsell, a Republican activist in Greenville who was at Stax’s. “He acknowledges God in his life, and without God, where would we be? He’s not like some pastors who think they own their church. He acknowledges those around him. And his wife is a great asset. She’s submissive to him, as she should be.”
While the warmer reception may be lifting his spirits, the question is whether it will boost his electoral prospects, still spiraling downward as of the latest poll: last week a survey by CNN, Time and ORC International found that he had just 5 percent of support from likely South Carolina primary voters, compared with 8 percent a month earlier. That drop is all the more surprising because Mrs. Bachmann, who had also invested a lot of time here and was thought to have similar appeal to social conservatives, left the race before the survey was conducted.
Part of the explanation is plain: many of Mrs. Bachmann’s supporters — and, it would seem, some of Mr. Perry’s, too — have migrated to Rick Santorum. In response, Mr. Perry has been attacking Mr. Santorum as the “King of Earmarks.” He has also outdone another rival, Newt Gingrich, in delivering the most caustic attack on Mitt Romney’s leveraged-buyout career, calling him a “vulture” who picked the bones of companies clean.
Mr. Perry still has influential Republican backers here working for him, including Representative Mick Mulvaney and the former state party chairman Katon Dawson, and a small-government, hawkish platform that should play well with a lot of voters here. But even so, others in the party say, the debates will most likely prove too much to live down.
“A lot of South Carolinians were eager to like him, but then they got a good look in those early debates and decided that he wasn’t presidential timber,” said Chad Walldorf, a business owner who helped lead the transition team of Gov. Nikki R. Haley, who has endorsed Mr. Romney. “You get one chance to make a first impression.”
Mr. Perry will not say whether he will pull out of the race, as is widely expected, if he has another poor showing at the Jan. 21 primary. “That’s trying to call the game in the first quarter,” he said, adding, “I’m not here to come in second.”
On Monday evening, Mr. Boyer and his wife drove to Stax’s Original Restaurant here to hear Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, whom he is supporting in the presidential race. “I prayed about my decision about him,” he said. “I already knew what I wanted, and I found it in him.” He cannot think of a single issue, he said, where he disagrees with Mr. Perry.
Mr. Perry is still in the doldrums here in the latest polls, and it is not yet clear whether his recent decision to stay in the presidential race and compete here will prove smart. With poor showings in Iowa, New Hampshire and recent polls, he barely met the hurdle for qualification for the Jan. 19 CNN debate in Charleston, two days before the South Carolina primary.
Despite those setbacks, Mr. Perry seems to have found in South Carolina a place where he can connect with some crowds, with stump speeches, sometimes before a hundred people, that preach reverence for Jesus Christ and for the military. He appears looser and more confident than he has been for some time, perhaps since the days when he was considered a front-runner, which ended with his string of poor debate performances.
Now, though, he has more humor and humility as he courts the votes of South Carolinians. He recounts a journey from “walking down the aisle of my church and giving my heart to Jesus Christ when I was 14 years old” to “standing up for the Ten Commandments on the grounds of our Capitol in Texas.”
“The fight never ends,” he says.
It is a contrast to his experience in New Hampshire. There, despite an investment of time and effort, he often got skeptical questions, charmed some but won over few, limped out of the state weeks before Tuesday’s primary and received fewer than 2,000 votes.
In Iowa, where social conservatives are more powerful, he drew crowds in rural areas, but even after hearing him speak, many folks would still tick off all their options — Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich — unsure of their choice.
Here, though, the crowds who have come to see him the past few days in the more socially conservative parts of the state have seemed to like more of what he believes in. That often has had more to do with how he and his wife, Anita, come across personally than with any particular piece of policy.
“What you see is what you get, and he stands on the same foundation that I stand on,” said Patty Whetsell, a Republican activist in Greenville who was at Stax’s. “He acknowledges God in his life, and without God, where would we be? He’s not like some pastors who think they own their church. He acknowledges those around him. And his wife is a great asset. She’s submissive to him, as she should be.”
While the warmer reception may be lifting his spirits, the question is whether it will boost his electoral prospects, still spiraling downward as of the latest poll: last week a survey by CNN, Time and ORC International found that he had just 5 percent of support from likely South Carolina primary voters, compared with 8 percent a month earlier. That drop is all the more surprising because Mrs. Bachmann, who had also invested a lot of time here and was thought to have similar appeal to social conservatives, left the race before the survey was conducted.
Part of the explanation is plain: many of Mrs. Bachmann’s supporters — and, it would seem, some of Mr. Perry’s, too — have migrated to Rick Santorum. In response, Mr. Perry has been attacking Mr. Santorum as the “King of Earmarks.” He has also outdone another rival, Newt Gingrich, in delivering the most caustic attack on Mitt Romney’s leveraged-buyout career, calling him a “vulture” who picked the bones of companies clean.
Mr. Perry still has influential Republican backers here working for him, including Representative Mick Mulvaney and the former state party chairman Katon Dawson, and a small-government, hawkish platform that should play well with a lot of voters here. But even so, others in the party say, the debates will most likely prove too much to live down.
“A lot of South Carolinians were eager to like him, but then they got a good look in those early debates and decided that he wasn’t presidential timber,” said Chad Walldorf, a business owner who helped lead the transition team of Gov. Nikki R. Haley, who has endorsed Mr. Romney. “You get one chance to make a first impression.”
Mr. Perry will not say whether he will pull out of the race, as is widely expected, if he has another poor showing at the Jan. 21 primary. “That’s trying to call the game in the first quarter,” he said, adding, “I’m not here to come in second.”
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