DATELINE: Greenville, South Carolina

INT. Early evening on the day of the South Carolina Republican Primary. A virtually empty bar on Greenville’s wealthy Main Street.

Tom, an indie-looking guy with a Rider of Rohan hood and an English accent, gestures to a TV in the corner of the bar.

Tom: “Excuse me. Are you going to be screening the Primary results when they start coming in later?”

Barmaid 1: “The what?”

Tom: “The South Carolina Primaries. The, erm, Republican Presidential Primaries.”

Tom stares hopefully at the barmaid. The barmaid stares blankly at him. Another barmaid calls across in a vain attempt to mediate this cul-de-sac of a dialogue.

Barmaid 2: “Is that that fight thing?”

Tom: “Um. No. The. Erm. Election. The Presidential Primary Election.”

Barmaid 1: “Oh. What’s that?”

The two smartly-dressed barmaids, both in their mid-20s, were not mentally challenged; to the naked eye, anyway. Yet we are supposedly now in the Republican heartlands. The evangelical heartlands. Mike Huckabee’s heartlands. The hot, dusty, conservative south, where your traditional 18th birthday present is a rifle, a Bible, and a Confederate flag for the back of your truck.

But there’s a New South, apparently; cosmopolitan, tolerant, and keen to shake off the caricatured clichés listed above. Because in Greenville, an upstate town of 60,000 people with a very pleasant, pretty Main Street and some luscious cultivated parklands, we have been surprised, surprised, and surprised again. There’s a statue to Robert E Lee across the road from our hotel, but otherwise it’s like a Bizzaro World version of the south. It’s snowing outside, the live band playing the Friday night set are a white reggae band, and the Republicans are nowhere to be seen on their big day.

As we journeyed down the eastern seaboard we kept apologising to ourselves and others for focusing so fixedly on the Democrats on this blog; the problem was that we just kept accidentally meeting Democrats (supporters and candidates alike), staying in largely Democratic towns, and so on. “Oh don’t you worry, South Carolina will see to that!” our friends kept saying, a glint in their eye.

Where on earth, then, are Greenville’s Republicans? It’s Primary day, and Tom and I walked a five mile tetrahedron around the town centre, through empty parking lots, rain-sodden parks and shopping streets, stopping off in a number of thronging cafes and restaurants along the way. Nowhere did we see a single Republican badge, bumper-sticker, or window-sign.

Approaching desperation, I called the Greenville County Republican Party, and was surprised to find my call answered by Samuel Harms, the local party Chairman. Even he was leaving Greenville, on his way to Columbia to see Mike Huckabee, the man for whom Greenville County is ‘the evangelical heartlands’, his natural home (Huckabee just came second to McCain, by the way).

According to the man on CNN 50% of South Carolina’s Republicans are evangelicals – how he knows this I have no idea. Is ‘evangelical’ a binary belief system? Furthermore, is it one that you must register ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to at the Town Hall? Either way, I know what the word ‘evangelical’ means when removed from its Christian context, and not once in 24 hours did I see anyone try and convince anyone else of anything political in Greenville. Actually, I tell a lie. There was one small group of young people wearing candidate stickers, debating with a middle aged man wearing a pin-badge in an office on Main Street. The stickers said ‘Edwards 08′. The pin-badge said ‘Obama’.

‘Nation to hear state voters’ voice today’ said the Saturday edition of The Greenville News. Well, the state’s Republican voters were speaking loud and clear in Greenville. They declaimed with one, resounding voice when they said “it’s cold out, so we’re staying home and watching a Steve Martin movie”.