They remember Katie Lou McCain and Sen. John McCain's uncle, Joe, who owned Teoc until his death in 1952. Simpson Hemphill, a longtime Carroll County resident, lives 4 miles down the road from the old McCain place. They raised cotton and corn. If the proverbial sleepy Southern town ever existed, Carrollton is it. The civil rights movement seemingly hasn't made it down to Carrollton, where blacks and whites still live, literally, on opposite sides of the railroad tracks.
Confederate flags wave on front porches.
The Arizona senator has never visited rustic Merrill Museum, built in 1834, which sits on historic Carrollton town square where a Confederate flag flies in front of the county's grand Civil War memorial. He's a military man, he says, and that institution is his real home, not any particular geographical location. He says he has been touched by South Carolina's patriotism during this campaign. He says he feels a commonality with the residents of this state because of their love of country and their military service. But not, he says, because of his Southern roots.