Nearly 600,000 South Carolinians turned out to vote, more than doubling the state’s 1996 primary count, indicating that something — the Bush message, say supporters; his inflammatory ads, say opponents — ignited interest in this year’s race.

But in his victory speech, Bush made only a passing reference to McCain, focusing his fiery rhetoric on the incumbent administration, promising that “tonight is the beginning of the end of the Clinton/Gore era.” (His Web site, however, whacked McCain for what it called an “ungracious concession speech.”)

The immediate spin from the Bush camp after the victory was that its candidate had “survived a 19-day test” after New Hampshire, as spokeswoman Karen Hughes put it, and “emerged as an even stronger candidate” in the process.

Ever since New Hampshire, Bush has been in full fight mode, unleashing a brutal barrage of TV attack ads and refusing to grant McCain ground even on the issues — government reform, veterans — that most assumed McCain had long since locked up.

There was also a more obvious, physical change in Bush. Gone was the smirking, frat-boy demeanor he showed in the initial stage of his campaign, replaced now by an intense, pumped-up politician given to barking his message out at the crowds.

In his victory speech, Bush kept the volume high, accusing the administration of basing “decisions on polls and focus groups” while he promised to “stand on principle.” He also promised to “return the highest standards of honor to the highest office in the land.”

Those comments were read as bitter irony in Charleston, where McCain supporters continued alleging dirty tricks by the Bush campaign. Bush burned through money at a rate estimated at $3 million a week, filling the airwaves with a relentless barrage of ads hammering McCain. Said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.: “I think George Bush made a huge mistake here. It’s the worst campaign I’ve ever seen. I think he mortgaged his political future here. He made a pact with some pretty bad elements.”

Hagel discussed the “push polls” — telephone smear campaigns — alleged to have been committed by Bush supporters, and leaflets that were circulated with ugly allegations about McCain and his family. “You’re going to tell me the Bush people didn’t know anything about any of that?” Hagel asked. “Come on.”

But the Bush camp insisted that it had run a positive campaign, and Hughes blamed any negativity on McCain. “The one ad that was most significant was launched by Senator McCain that compared George W. Bush to Bill Clinton. And that” — in what became a mantra for the Bush campaign in the last week — “was about the lowest blow you can make.”

As support for this contention, the Bush campaign pointed to exit-poll data that showed that nearly half of the voters felt McCain had been the one engaging in negative political campaigns.

Hagel and others in the McCain campaign speculated that by so heavily cultivating the religious right, the Bush campaign has made itself vulnerable when it moves out of the South — including tomorrow in Michigan.

“Bullshit,” says Bush TV adman Mark McKinnon. “That’s just not true. We’ve been running the same campaign in every primary, and we’ll continue to. That’s the [Democratic National Committee's] spin.”

Also disputing that Bush raced to the right in South Carolina was Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition and now a Bush advisor. “He won because he has strong conservative values, and sure, that was part of it. But I think he won here because of his message of reform.” Again, Bush exit-poll data had voters, nearly 2 to 1, identify him as the candidate of reform. In fact, Bush even split with McCain the vote from veterans.

Before the Bush campaign had even begun celebrating its win in South Carolina, it received a buzz that it was gaining ground on McCain in Michigan, where a Detroit News poll taken from Tuesday through Thursday indicated the race there is too close to call. A News poll just a week before had given McCain a nine-point lead.

Michigan voters can expect much the same treatment given those in South Carolina, as McCain promises to keep it clean, while Bush consultants say they’ll stick to the same strategy of lots and lots of TV ads; presumably, negative ones. And presumably, immediately — barely a half hour after his speech, Bush was on his way to the airport to fly to Michigan.

The end of the campaign was just fine with South Carolina’s Ben Waddell, a lifelong Republican who cast his vote in Greenville on Saturday morning. “I have had an awful lot of phone calls, reminding me to vote. But actually, I hadn’t thought it had been all that dirty a campaign. Just pretty much the usual.

“But I’ll be happy when South Carolina gets out from under a microscope,” Waddell added. “I’m ready for it to be over and for all of you to leave.”

Jake Tapper contributed to this report.

That, of course, has only made the race that much uglier, and McCain continues to hammer Bush for using smear tactics as the Texas governor denies using “push-polling,” the technique of using seemingly scientific polling to trash-talk an opponent. The New York Times visited a Bush polling outfit where students and grandmothers spin negative on the phone “to learn about issues and their opponents possible weaknesses.” One worker there calls it “mudslinging.”

Trump opts out
Donald Trump is expected to end his high-profile flirting with a presidential bid, citing as a main reason the “general fratricide” among members of the Reform Party (the weekend ruckus made one Salon writer suggest the party is over).

Gore gets high praise
Al Gore, campaigning in New York, got the endorsement of an influential
African-American minister, the Rev. Floyd Flake. And Gore insiders admit to concerns over having to run against McCain rather than Bush in a general election. “Its like weve been studying for a mathematics exam for months, and suddenly the teacher hands you a pop quiz on history,” a Gore staffer told the Washington Post. “You are left for a minute sort of blinking, with that dumb look on your face.”

They love me, they love me not
McCain has been feeling a perhaps inevitable backlash from the media, which is now mussing up the image it had done such a good job of spit-polishing. Today, a Washington Post column finds a “dark side to McCains wonderful straight talk,” saying that those who have worked closely with him — specifically, other senators — are unsupportive of his run. The column recounts how McCain trashed Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, claiming he was pushing legislation on behalf of big-money donors. When Bennett demanded evidence, McCain demurred. The piece follows a Salon editors own narrowly averted seduction by McCain and Slates Chatterbox,which reminded of the senators more “disgraceful” behavior.

Keyes bad date
McCain blasted Bush Sunday on “Face the Nation” for speaking at conservative Bob Jones University, calling the schools ban on interracial dating “not American.” Meanwhile, Alan Keyes, the only African-American running for the president, has apparently decided to go ahead with an unfortunately timed visit to Bob Jones. Hell be at the school Monday morning — Valentines Day.

Oddly, I think McCain really helps Bush because all the other candidates are to the right of him. With McCain there, Bush can always say, “I’m the conservative in this race.” And conservatives, you know, they do go out and vote when its raining outside. What’s more amazing is really the media’s orgasm over McCain. He’s the New York Times’ candidate. He’s Geraldo’s candidate. He’s Chris Matthews’ candidate. I think that they just decided that, after eight years of Clinton, the next president is going to be a Republican president, so they want it to be their Republican. The smart Democrats want Bradley, but he can’t win. So they went for McCain, and now his real constituency is the editors of the New York Times. And, for the most part, he’s won them over.

Fran Lebowitz, essayist and humorist: Anything that will upset George Bush is OK with me. Though I do — like, I think, millions of others — feel personally attracted to him, I think McCain’s voting record is just too far right. But George Bush — what, we’re supposed to know him by his middle initial? — I find him loathsome. Didn’t we fight that little war with England so that we don’t have to deal with little princes? I don’t get it. And everyone now seems to just love George Bush — the real one, not the little one. When did that happen? The one thing about Bill Clinton I like, or I should say, the idea about Bill Clinton that I like, is that you’re supposed to be able to come out of nowhere and be president.

I’m the single best voter in America. I vote in every primary, in every school board election, everything. If you don’t vote, you cannot make any other comment about politics. I vote so I can complain. But I’ve never voted with any enthusiasm for a candidate. Among those running now, I guess I would say Bradley. I prefer him to Gore. I remember as a child how enthusiastic my parents were for Stevenson. Now the candidates are getting worse. Then again, everything has, the novelists, the movie stars …

But to complain about the candidates and not vote is just giving up. Living in a democracy means you have to be interested in politics. You have no choice. Younger people take enormous pride in never having voted, in not having any interest. But that’s an ersatz irony; the truth is there are some things that are more important. It’s not entertainment and it shouldn’t be treated that way. That’s why I think politicians should not go on Letterman. There should be a difference between Johnny Depp and Hillary Clinton.

Sean Wilentz, Dayton-Stockton professor of history at Princeton University and a contributing editor to the New Republic: George W. Bush is the big loser tonight. If I were him, I would shake up my campaign right away — because this does not portend well for the long haul. The Republican Party will nominate Bush, I have no doubt about that. But the primaries are a way to preview how a candidate is going to perform in the general election. If I were Bush, I would be concerned about that.

If McCain can keep up a steady barrage and come close in these primaries, then the Bush campaign should be very, very concerned. New Hampshire’s not enough to do that, but it is a blow. McCain’s 16-point margin was huge, a whopper. [The final margin, announced Wednesday morning, was 18 points.] Bush spent a lot of time in New Hampshire and he spent a lot of money putting on a show. I’m sure that right now , somewhere in Concord, N.H., or Austin, there’s a meeting going on saying, Well, what do we do, guys? As a student of American politics, I would love to be at that meeting.

Bush’s is the Republican establishment’s candidacy, but New Hampshire voters are not well disposed to the party establishment. I remember in 1964 they voted for Henry Cabot, who was in Vietnam at the time. McCain basically ran to Bush’s left — and what it shows me is that, even among Republican voters, the Reagan-Bush era is dead. Bill Clinton killed it, and what we’re now seeing is a shakeout. And the fact that Gore won, even if narrowly, proves that there’s no such thing as “Clinton fatigue,” which has been made up by the press.

For Bradley’s part, he was really building momentum up until the debate in Iowa, and then everything seemed to flop. But there’s still a long way to go, he’s got a lot of money and he’s a strong candidate. But a close loss does not do for him what it did for Eugene McCarthy in 1968 — where a close loss was enough to practically unseat a president. But the Bradley candidacy is still alive — it’s been hurt and it comes out of this weakened, but I think he can go on.

Andrew Sullivan, columnist for the New York Times Magazine and author of “Love Undetectable”: My immediate feeling is exhilaration because I’ve been feeling so resigned to a Gore-Bush ticket. And in all likelihood it’s still going to be Gore-Bush. This is about “How do we purge ourselves of the past four years?” It’s clear that McCain would be much more formidable against either Gore or Bradley in a general election because he could bring the independents that made up the crucial block of voters that supported Perot and Reagan. Bush won’t do that. He’s just not a great candidate. And once voters get a chance to see him up close, they’ll realize there’s less than meets the eye. The only hope now is that enough Republicans realize it is in their own self-interest in supporting McCain. I also think this showed that the religious right doesn’t have the control it had. If they still controlled the party, McCain would never have gotten away with this.

Bradley is clearly going to be here until April. If Bradley takes from this that the four days of hammering he gave Gore gave him this much traction, maybe he’ll get out and start campaigning. I don’t think this is a good result for Gore.

David Horowitz, Salon columnist and author of “Hating Whitey: And Other Progressive Causes”: I’m sitting here watching my guy [Bush] get his ass kicked. Everyone
thought it would be closer. It shows that John McCain has really connected
with voters in ways that Bush has failed to do. He doesn’t come across as warm and accessible and appealing on TV as he does in the flesh. The debates hurt him. He seemed stiff and almost withdrawn.
But politics is about what’s there and not about what might have been.

John McCain is a very appealing figure. Whenever I find myself on the opposite side of a political issue from him, I find myself wishing he were right. Democrats have to worry: John McCain would be a very difficult Republican candidate to beat. The main problem McCain has with the Republican Party is that his campaign-finance reform proposal would sink it. That’s because Democrats have the press in their pocket, so buying campaign advertising is critical to Republicans being able to be competitive. Of course, the Democrats have the unions, too, which is another big advantage of theirs. But McCain is backing off his campaign-finance thing already, so Republicans won’t have a serious problem with him.

The other big surprise tonight looks to be the late surge by Bradley after he went “negative” on Gore. This portends ominous things for the election year ahead. Negative campaigning — there’s going to be a lot more of it.

Joe Conason, Salon columnist and author of “The Hunting of the President: The Ten Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton”: What a blowout … and a worse result still for the GOP bosses when you factor in the state Republican Party backing of George W. and the vast financial advantage he enjoyed over John McCain in New Hampshire. They’ve learned that they can package Bush brilliantly and put him on TV, but they may not be able to sell him. As one of my friends put it the other day: “The dogs won’t eat the dog food.”

Bush has taken a hard shot and now he faces a difficult problem. Going into South Carolina, he will move right to flank McCain, labeling the Arizonan a “liberal.” That may win the primary, but going hard right will cut against Bush’s “compassionate conservative” strategy for the general election. This problem has emerged already in New Hampshire, where Bush overwhelmingly lost among independent (and more moderate) voters. But McCain also faces a quandary. If he doesn’t emphasize his own conservative credentials in South Carolina, he will lose badly to Bush and his campaign may be over. If he does, however, he may risk losing the support of the starry-eyed journalists who have made him a cult figure.

Rich Galen, author and publisher of Mullings.com: There is no question that the size of the McCain win was a shock. But the other winner is Bill Bradley. We’ve finally stopped announcing his imminent death. He’s now
got a little itty-bitty campaign going. Gore, a week ago, his handlers
were carrying him around on their shoulders and announcing that he was the
nominee.

In effect, he lost 25 points in a week because he was winning by
30 points a week ago and he barely beat Bradley by five points tonight. What that indicates is that Gore, with a very gentle pushing back by Bradley, collapsed like a cheap umbrella. And the problems [Gore] has got here are that he doesn’t have much money, and because of the nature of the Democratic selection process, the proportional distribution of delegates,
Bradley can claim that he’s back in the race. But the only way Bradley can win the nomination is if he starts racking up so many victories in the primaries that Gore has to get out of the race.

I believe the McCain campaign when they say that the 20-point deficit they
faced in South Carolina last week will be reduced by half by Thursday. The
problem that the McCain campaign has is they don’t have any money, and they
will be week-to-week from now until the [South Carolina primary] on Feb.
19. But in McCain’s defense, if he didn’t win tonight, everybody agreed
that he was done. So he’s clearly not done.

When you look at what’s happened to the Christian Coalition over the last four and a half years … Let me put it this way: There is a difference between a
political party and a political movement. The Christian right has confused
those two things. The difference is that a political party is in business to
win elections. A political movement is willing to lose an election on
principle. And I think for a while, the Republican Party forgot that they
were a party, not a movement. I think the Republicans are more interested
in winning elections than hewing to an ideological line.

More importantly, it was the first time Clinton had to deal with the fact that the country, collectively, wasn’t just looking at him, but past him — literally, over his right shoulder to his vice president and would-be successor, Al Gore. So the narcissist in chief responded like a toddler realizing that his younger brother is suddenly drawing all the attention. He talked more. He got louder. And he made the tricks bigger.

In the process, he did the little brother a big favor. The president’s speech — highlighted by a proposed $350 billion tax cut — had the feel of a victory celebration, where there’s enough of everything to go around — enough money, enough food, enough love — that even the No. 2 guy will go home happy. (And as the significance-starved TV wags would note later, Clinton mentioned Gore six — Count ‘em! Six! — different times.)

The president was especially generous to his and Gore’s choice constituency: baby boomers. Two-income families could celebrate (he promised to reduce the marriage penalty), especially if they have kids going to college (major college tuition tax breaks). And if they also fall into a lower-income bracket (increased insurance eligibility), have younger children who need extra help while in school (a $1 billion after school program), or preschoolers (a $1 billion expansion of the Head Start program), they got more goodies. To complete the PTA-friendly package, Clinton promised more competitive charter schools, ambitious teacher training programs and upgrading the number of schools with Internet access.

Also central to his proposal is a $110 billion plan over 10 years to expand health-care coverage, along with a series of other related health proposals that include $3,000 tax credits for long-term care, $1 billion in tax credits to encourage the development of vaccines against malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS or HIV, and the ever-popular patients bill of rights.

The big laugh of the night might also have been the most illuminating. Twice, within about 40 seconds, Clinton told of the need “to make our communities more liberal” — instead of livable. It was less ironic than honest, however inadvertently: His embrace of big, imaginative, taxpayer-funded programs, along with an unapologetic promotion of social programs — tougher gun control laws, a higher minimum wage, the Paycheck Fairness Act for women, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty — seemed to intentionally and aggressively embrace the “L” word, arguably for the first time since his health-care proposal was laughed down in 1993.

Along the way, he delivered token political credits to Gore and wife Hillary Clinton. He gave the vice president specific credit twice, saying it was Gore who came up with the idea to make low-income parents eligible for insurance that also covers their kids, and Gore who cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to pass gun control legislation (that then died in the House).

But with his rousing tax and health-care proposals, Clinton was able to simultaneously promote ideas Gore has campaigned on, while drawing attention away from vaunted tax and health plans of all of Gore’s potential opponents. Reached in New Hampshire immediately after Clinton’s comments on Gore’s health care record, Bill Bradley’s campaign spokeswoman Anita Dunn speculated that “it would be no surprise that perhaps the Gore campaign has misled the president on what the Gore proposals are.” Either way, she noted, “Gore’s been a loyal member of this administration and obviously Clinton’s made no secret that he’ll do everything he can to get him elected.”

He also gave wife, Hillary, credit for proposing what he described as “a single, voluntary rating system for all children’s entertainment, one that is easier for parents to understand and enforce.” He urged entertainment executives to support the plan. (Campaign officials for her likely New York Senate opponent, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, refused comment.) Significantly, he didn’t mention his wife when touting his health-care proposals, lest he contaminate them with the scorn and suspicion that doomed hers.

Before he got to his plans, though, Clinton spent time focusing on the country’s economic success, and listing a string of positive social and economic indicators before concluding, simply, “the state of the union is the strongest it has ever been.”

Clinton’s aggressively confident and well-received speech was a marked contrast to his two previous addresses, which were mired in the Lewinsky scandal. The dramatic change could be seen in audience shots of chief GOP rivals nodding, if not cheering along — surreally, the cameras even captured impeachment nemesis Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., cheerfully clapping along as Clinton announced plans to crack down on illegal guns. Still, Clinton’s own attempts at magnanimity seemed strained, as when he reached across to the aisle to thank Republicans for the “extraordinary” — if hardly surprising — “support you have given to our men in uniform.”

The Republicans’ response was led by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who, in a halting, kindergarten teacher’s delivery, argued for Republican education plans that allow decisions to be made in local school boards with “more federal help but less federal interference.” Education, Collins said, was the best way to fight what she described as a growing fear brought by economic prosperity. “Between Silicon Valley and Wall Street, many Americans still live in the shadows of the new prosperity.”

Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., stressed the need for health-care reform that, he said, offered choice. He characterized the Clinton plan as a “bloated” big government plan, saying that “socialized medicine doesn’t work.”

“In fact, if David Letterman had lived in Canada, he’d still be waiting for his heart surgery,” Frist said.

Sounding a similar note, Texas Gov. George W. Bush issued a reaction, stating: “The litany of spending programs the president announced tonight proves my point that if you leave a large surplus in Washington, the money will be spent on bigger government.”

But compared to Clinton’s overwhelmingly optimistic speech, the Republican response seemed cautious and abbreviated.

Of course, before he even gave the speech, others, including the Washington Post, were quick to point out the difference between State of the Union rhetoric and reality. And after Clinton released his more ambitious proposals to Congress earlier in the day, The Associated Press quickly reported that, “Republican leaders in Congress are saying that big proposals with big spending to match do not stand much chance of passage in this election year.”

Still, that wasn’t quite the point of this exercise. According to presidential historian Allan Lichtman, “All he needs to do lay out an ambitious agenda — the more ambitious the better — and it will put Republicans on the defensive.

“His approval ratings are still high. What does he have to lose? Right now, he’s interested in what kind of vision he can claim, what it will do for his legacy.”

It will be a while — if ever — before he’ll be able to take credit for implementing these programs, and not just proposing them. But Thursday night that didn’t matter. He packed the house, got the applause, and felt all eyes upon him — even if they were really focusing on the guy over his shoulder.

Salon’s Washington correspondent Jake Tapper contributed to this report.