Party preferences change over time.
Demographics shift, and politicians come and go.
But century over century, some features of a state's body politic persist and give it a special personality. In South Carolina, the old political worry lines can be traced in the difference between Upcountry and Lowcountry Republicans. South Carolina in many ways has always reminded me of a bucket of crabs. No simple change of party label has erased this tendency. Within a decade or so of Sen. Strom Thurmond's switch to the GOP, South Carolina became the jewel of the Republican's Southern realignment, with the bulk of the state's white power structure moving to the party.