South Carolina’s fierce independent streak made the old “Don’t Tread on Me” flag from colonial days a good fit for the Palmetto State, but recent developments may cause a little rearrangement of that slogan.

How about, “The treads on me.”

Tire treads that is.

In the span of two weeks, two major tire manufacturers announced that they’re going to start making round rubber circles in our fair state. Bridgestone is building a plant in Aiken that will bring 850 jobs to old S.C. Continental will be cranking up a one million square foot facility in Sumter that could bring as many 1,700 jobs there. When tires start rolling off the assembly lines at full speed, perhaps as soon as early 2013, South Carolina will become a national leader in tire manufacturing. Sumter and Aiken will become the new Akron (now there’s something to crow about.)

Global economic factors helped make this happen. Depressed Americans are holding onto their cars for longer periods of time, making this a better market for tires; and the falling value of the dollar has made American production a better deal for the U.S. market than some overseas plants.

That’s why the plants are coming to America.

The reason they’re coming to South Carolina includes incentives, business climate and political leaders who know how to get out of each other’s way.

The last may be the most important, especially with regard to the Continental deal, which was announced last week. In the end, the choice came down to Sumter and a site in Brunswick County, N.C. (rural territory just went of Wilmington, N.C.). And while the biggest factor was probably South Carolina’s willingness to pay out its incentives on the front end of the deal, rather than down the road, economic development pros say there’s no question that some political stumbles helped deflate North Carolina’s chances.

The economic development world, which has shined on the Pee Dee of late, is like that. Big companies, like race horses trapped on a rattlesnake farm, spook at the least little thing. For instance, say some local leaders, Continental probably eliminated Florence County early on because of last year’s pro-union vote at the Johnson Controls facility here. The unionization of that facility was a rarity in S.C., a right-to-work state with a strong, anti-union bias. But Continental leaders, fearing a union contagion, and especially contact with the powerful United Auto Workers, dropped the Florence idea and moved one county west. Apparently that’s far enough away to ward off union cooties.

Meanwhile, North Carolina officials, who had already spooked Continental into moving its American headquarters across the state line from Charlotte to Fort Mill, S.C., were doing their best to salve those old wounds. They’d put together a pretty good deal and were negotiating their way towards something that rivaled South Carolina’s cash-upfront deal when news surfaced that the Brunswick County site selected by Continental’s site search consultant was owned by a bunch of big money Democratic Party donors. Governor Bev Perdue’s son Garrett was even involved. He works for a law firm involved in the site search and selection.

That all might have been all right, but it either smelled bad to Republicans, who didn’t want to soil themselves with Democratic dirt (that’s the high road view); or it smelled good to Republicans, who saw it is a chance to rub a little eau d’scandal on Perdue, a governor who appears vulnerable to them in 2012, even if it meant costing the state 1,700 jobs (that’s the cynical, low-road view, but hey, this is politics we’re talking about). Whatever the case, Republicans said they couldn’t support the proposed incentive package for a deal that greased so many Democratic palms (the investor’s group figured to turn a $2.5 million profit on the 1,129-acre site), so they balked. That they did this publicly likely raised some eyebrows at Continental’s world HQ in Germany. The smell of taint drives major corporations crazy, so Continental dropped the fumbling Tar Heels like an overheated tire iron.

Meanwhile, back in South Carolina, Democrats and Republicans were singing kum-by-yah together and holding a big bag of cash in their hands. To the Germans it was irresistible.

In the aftermath over out Tire War victory, some of our ink-stained brethren in the Old North State are lauding the wisdom of Tar Heel legislators for passing up so expensive deal. Just wasn’t worth it, they say.

Maybe, but that sounds like a lot of irrational rationalization to me. Those Sumter jobs, the effect of which will almost certainly spill over into Florence and other neighboring counties, will probably be around long after those incentives are forgotten.