In the presidential primaries, what plays in Peoria, Iowa, may not play in Peoria, South Carolina.  At least that’s what Jim Geraghty hypothesized — and sort of tested — in his “Tale of Two States” piece that ran in Wednesday’s National Review Online.  His theory is centered around the rise of Mike Huckabee, the salience of his Baptist faith, and the difference between caucus-goers in Iowa (a state that is only five percent Baptist) where he has “taken off” and South Carolina (45 percent Baptist) where he has “jumped, but finds himself in a much tighter race.”

So why, as Geraghty asked, is Huckabee, “running away with a state that, at first glance, should be a tougher sell? And why is he not exploding ahead of the pack in the Palmetto State as he is elsewhere?”

“All these stories attacking Huckabee may hurt him in New Hampshire and in other states across the country,” [ David Brody of CBN] concludes.

But in Iowa, among evangelicals, it’s a different mind set. These stories can actually have the reverse effect with Evangelicals saying, ‘stay strong Mike. Everybody is coming against you because you wear your faith on your sleeve.’ This is usually the mentality when ‘one of their own’ is attacked. Unless he’s done something so reprehensible, it’s going to take something pretty big to stop Huckabee’s momentum in Iowa with Evangelical Christians.

By comparison, in South Carolina, the religious conservative community is active and vocal, but less unified. [...]

 

Compared to Iowa, South Carolina’s Republican voters look establishment: their winner has always gone on to be the nominee. And faith-on-their sleeve candidates tend to be afterthoughts. Buchanan finished 16 percentage points behind Bob Dole in 1996, and Robertson finished 30 percentage points behind George H.W. Bush in 1988. In the last competitive GOP primary, Alan Keyes again finished third, but with only five percent and it is worth noting that in the interim Gary Bauer, Steve Forbes, and Orrin Hatch had withdrawn.

 

Perhaps more important than any doctrinal differences, are the contrasting cultural currents that lead the states’ evangelicals in different directions. [...]

This is not to say Huckabee cannot do well among South Carolina evangelicals; in the numbers of Rasmussen’s latest poll, the former Arkansas governor leads the evangelical vote with 42-percent, with Thompson and Romney way behind at 14 and 12 percent, respectively. But it is worth remembering that there is no cookie-cutter model for an evangelical Republican primary voter or caucusgoer, and that what flourishes in an Iowa cornfield won’t necessarily grow in the swamps of the South Carolina Low Country.

Geraghty does a pretty good job summing up the distinctions between Republicans in South Carolina and Iowa; two seemingly similar voting blocs that are in fact quite different.  He even does a good job of cautioning against creating an ideal, cookie-cutter voter — which is wise advice in South Carolina where there are hundreds of different possible molds.