As I think about what lies ahead for the Republican Party the phrase “pier-sixer” keeps coming to mind. What, pray tell, is a pier-sixer? While its precise etymology is uncertain, it may be said with impunity that it refers to some type of horrifically violent, physical altercation. Having grown up in coastal Brooklyn--fertile ground for those who participate in horrifically violent, physical altercations--I always imagined a pier-sixer as follows: a few dozen beefy Merchant Marines are standing on an abandoned Red Hook wharf in the early hours of a hopelessly cold February night. The Merchant Marines have consumed significant quantities of spirits. And they are kicking one another’s heads in. After last night’s victory and on the basis of recent Republican history I am now projecting an all-out pier-sixer in the days leading up to the South Carolina primary of January 19th. It is certainly a prize worth fighting (dirty) for: Since 1980 no Republican who has lost the Palmetto State has ever won the GOP presidential nomination.
Entering this contest three candidates will have at least one victory under their belt. Mike Huckabee, who won Iowa, will find an even larger contingent of Republican Evangelicals for whom to thump the Bible (a whopping 53% of the GOP electorate in South Carolina). Let there be no doubt, he will thump hard. The only question that remains is whether local customs lead him to break a golden rule of political scripture-citing etiquette. The Good Book is rarely used as a means of attacking opponents (traditionally a politician never "goes negative" with the Bible).
Mitt Romney, for his part, should be in a pretty foul mood. True, he won Wyoming. But his vice-like grip on the Michigan that his father once governed appears to be slipping in advance of next Tuesday’s primary there. Tired of being garlanded with “silver medals” Romney is certainly not going to take it easy on his opponents in South Carolina (Though permit me to observe that he has made a peace offering to atheists who he recently insulted. In last night’s speech he conceded that “Even those who don’t believe in God believe in something bigger than themselves”).
Rudy Giuliani--who knows a thing or two about pier-sixers--may be a tad perturbed that his “50-state strategy” has already failed in four out of four states. It might be advisable for him to put his considerable powers of vitriol on display if only so that no one forgets him by the time Super Tuesday rolls around.
Which brings us to last night’s victor, John McCain. The Senator from Arizona will fly south with traumatic memories and guns blazing. Eight years ago, fresh off an inspiring victory in New Hampshire, McCain charged into South Carolina. As is well known, his good name was promptly dragged through the mud by Bush operatives -- a fact verified by one-time Bush staffer David Kuo in his engaging Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction (New York: Free Press, 2006. p. 129).
The not un-hotheaded Senator riposted with his infamous “agents of intolerance” speech (in reference to Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, among others) thus becoming the only major Republican presidential candidate in recent memory to frontally attack the Christian Right. In case there was any doubt about how much psychic pain the character assassination caused him, he proceeded to dub Falwell and Robertson “forces of evil” a few days later. His candidacy was sent into a tailspin.
Fast forward to this past October when many were puzzled by a series of seemingly un-Maverick like pronouncements. There was his “Christian nation” comment and his even stranger aside that he was actually a Baptist, not an Episcopalian.
With the privilege of hindsight, we may now view those overtures as a sort of preemptive measure. It was McCain’s little way of saying to Evangelicals “Lay off of me, would you? And kindly refrain from claiming that I have fathered an illegitimate child” That, incidentally, was one of many completely baseless accusations that surfaced in 2000. It reminds us that South Carolina is a place where Republican presidential hopefuls dispense with the intra-party niceties.
Jacques Berlinerblau is the Rabbi Harold White Chair in Jewish Civilization in Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service and senior advisor to the Center for Jewish Civilization, where he was director from 2006 to June 2020. Berlinerblau has published on a wide variety of issues ranging from the sociology of heresy and modern Jewish intellectuals to African-American and Jewish-American relations.
