Talk about timing. Senator Kerry reportedly met briefly with Senator Edwards on Tuesday. The Associated Press reports that the Service Employees International Union and Ralph Nader are both pressing Mr. Kerry to choose Mr. Edwards as his running mate on the Democratic ticket. Mr. Edwards had tried, in the Democratic primary, to differentiate himself from Mr. Kerry by posing as a critic of free-trade deals. “When we talk about trade, we are talking about values,” Mr. Edwards said back during the Democratic primary campaign. “I have seen it with my own eyes what happens when the mill shuts down. It’s devastating when those jobs are gone.”An Edwards press release said that the senator from North Carolina opposes not only the North American Free Trade Agreement but also fast-track and trade agreements with the Caribbean, Africa, Chile, and Singapore.

Now, just as speculation is swirling about Mr. Kerry’s possible selection of the anti-trade Mr. Edwards of North Carolina, voters in South Carolina delivered a decidedly different message. In the Republican primary on Tuesday, Palmetto State voters delivered a resounding victory to Rep. James “Jim” DeMint over Governor Beasley. Mr. DeMint, a free-trader, won 59% of the votes against 41% for Mr. Beasley, a protectionist. The race was for the Republican spot on the ballot for the Senate seat held by Ernest Hollings, a Democrat, who is retiring.

The South, where textile factories have closed and moved overseas, is supposed to be prime territory for those like Messrs. Edwards and Beasley, who blame trade for job losses. But the voters in South Carolina did not buy it. Instead, they went with Mr. DeMint’s ambitious growth-oriented agenda. Mr. DeMint is now the favored candidate to prevail in the general election.

We met with Mr. DeMint a year ago in New York. The resulting editorial, “The DeMint Agenda,” spoke of the congressman’s plan to overhaul Social Security to allow younger workers to build capital in individual savings accounts that they could invest. He spoke of “tax code replacement” to destroy the current, complex system and implement instead a 9% national sales tax that would let voters see the cost of government every time they bought something.

Mr. Edwards’s protectionist agenda faltered even in the Democratic primary against Mr. Kerry. If Mr. Kerry goes ahead and picks Mr. Edwards as his running mate, or even if Mr. Kerry picks another protectionist, Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri, Vice President Cheney could do worse than invite Mr. DeMint in for a campaign strategy and debate preparation session. A national showdown over the virtues of free trade and policies that favor growth would be a terrific theme to add to the mix in this election.