Risks for G.O.P. on Attacks With Racial Themes - Political Memo Newt Gingrich campaigning Tuesday in Florence, S.C. He said he had "struck a chord with the American people" at Monday's debate by calling President Obama a "food stamp president." CHARLESTON, S.C. - South Carolina has the nation's first female Indian-American governor (a Republican), the highest-ranking African-American in Congress (on the Democratic side) and a rapidly growing population of Latinos, all evidence, longtime political players here say, that the state is shedding its racially charged past. But like the historic slave plantations that draw tourists on the outskirts of town, the legacy of that past has not been totally wiped from the politics of today. And if the general election campaign by Republicans against President Obama, the nation's first black president, goes on to include a fraught, multilayered discussion about minorities and entitlements, work ethics and what it means to be American, then it will have gotten under way in earnest here this week. So it was that on Tuesday Newt Gingrich gleefully said his description of Mr. Obama as a "food stamp president" at Monday's Fox News debate had "struck a chord with the American people"; the White House press secretary asserted that it was "crazy" to say so, and then Mr. Gingrich doubled down - releasing an ad with his debate-night assertion that "more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history." Mr. Gingrich was clearly making the case that he is the candidate most able to take the fight to Mr. Obama in the fall, but he was also laying bare risks for his party when it comes to invoking arguments perceived to carry racial themes or other value-laden attack lines. Mr. Gingrich has been engaging in such arguments here and there for the past couple of weeks, as has Rick Santorum, who found himself in the middle of a tortured debate in Iowa several weeks ago over whether he had said he did not want to make "black people's" lives better "by giving them somebody else's money." He said he misspoke and was misquoted as referring to "black people" when in fact he had meant to say, simply, "people," but stumbled and also uttered "blah." Mitt Romney, who regularly says Mr. Obama wants to create an "entitlement society," often suggests that the election is about saving "the soul of America." But it took a Republican debate in South Carolina on Martin Luther King's Birthday and an African-American debate moderator for the Fox News Channel, Juan Williams, to bring it all together for a national audience in a state that has tended to make issues of race, religion and class central for both parties. Pressing Mr. Gingrich specifically at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center on Monday night, Mr. Williams asked Mr. Gingrich if his comments calling Mr. Obama a food stamp president were not potentially belittling to black people. Mr. Williams was channeling the view of Democratic African-American stalwarts like Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, who likened the approach on Tuesday to a modern version of the Republican "Southern strategy" to win over disaffected white voters in the South when the Democrats embraced the civil rights movement. "It tends to equate the president of the United States with dependency, with a lack of status, or tends to try to lower the president," Mr. Clyburn said in an interview. And I believe it's another way to separate his presidency from the presidencies of all the others before him. Yet Mr. Gingrich spoke for many Republicans who have publicly worried that Mr. Obama's supporters will unfairly cast necessary policy arguments in terms of race. As Mr. Gingrich said in the debate, "I know among the politically correct, you're not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable." In an interview, Mr. Williams said he questioned Mr. Gingrich about his "food stamp president" comments and his suggestions that poor children lacked a work ethic and should be put to work as janitors because he found the remarks to be "racially charged." "That's more than a dog whistle," Mr. Williams said. It's a hoot and a holler. Mr. Williams added, "I think there is a real issue here for Republicans." Mr. Gingrich drew a standing ovation when he responded that a historically high number of Americans were on food stamps under Mr. Obama, and defiantly declared, "I believe every American of every background has been endowed by their creator with the right to pursue happiness, and if that makes liberals unhappy, I'm going to continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job and learn someday to own the job." Mr. Gingrich is correct that food stamp program participation is at record levels but he ignores the depth of the recession inherited by Mr. Obama when he took office. Some Republicans here, while not necessarily embracing Mr. Gingrich's language, said his reception at the debate showed that voters were ready to have a substantive discussion about minorities and entitlement programs without getting tied up in the enduring legacy of racial injustice. "If anything, they're the ones who are race baiting," said Glenn McCall, the South Carolina committeeman to the Republican National Committee, who is African-American, speaking of liberals. Noting that the economic hardship is disproportionately falling upon "people of color - my people," he said, "I wish they would hold the president's feet to the fire in the black caucus to do more - not through handouts but in ways that lift people up." Former Gov. Jim Hodges, a Democrat, said it was an old-fashioned debate that will not engage voters. "Years ago you would hear those sorts of discussions, but I've got to say that was a long time ago," Mr. Hodges said. If we've seen anything from recent history it is that voters - whether Republican or Democratic voters in our state - want to hear about how we're going to make their lives better. Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting from Florence, S.C.