For White House runners, South Carolina's toxic brew awaits
by Porter BarronWed Jan 9, 10:06 AM ET
With no clear frontrunners yet in the race for the US presidency, the next big battlefield will be South Carolina, a southern state with a potent mix of race, religion and cut-throat politics.
Last week's Iowa caucuses delivered handsome victories to Democrat Barack Obama, bidding to be the first black president, and Republican Mike Huckabee, a Baptist preacher and former governor banking on doing well in South Carolina.
But Tuesday's New Hampshire primaries muddied the waters by handing the Democratic spoils to former first lady Hillary Clinton and to Senator John McCain for the Republicans.
As the presidential field decamps from New Hampshire, candidates from both parties are trumpeting their own brands of "change" en route to South Carolina, where that cause has not always been embraced.
Nonetheless, something different appears to be afoot, as campaigns trafficking in optimism brace for the time-tested machinations that typify this state's no-holds-barred politics.
"White, college-age kids in South Carolina are flocking to work for Obama, and this was happening before he became popular," said local historian Walter Edgar, acknowledging the lingering racial divide in this former slave state where blacks account for about half of Democratic primary voters.
"These kids' parents are all Southerners. They are card-carrying Republicans," he said.
South Carolina, one of the more impoverished states in the union, has just over four million people, nearly 30 percent of whom are African-American.
The state's black establishment had been firmly for Clinton, but Obama's win in overwhelmingly white Iowa changed the calculus for many.
"There had been this thinking that Obama was not electable. What that translates to is white people would not support him," said Bruce Ransom, an authority on South Carolina's black electorate at Clemson University.
When Obama gave his Iowa victory speech surrounded by white supporters, "for black South Carolinians, that was a powerful image."
Ahead of the state's Democratic primary on January 26, an average of polls by RealClearPolitics.com has Obama besting Clinton by 13 points while John Edwards trails in third, despite being born in South Carolina.
But Clinton's spirits are back up after her morale-boosting victory in New Hampshire, and she is also looking to take Michigan on January 15 and Nevada four days later.
However, Michigan has been stripped of its Democratic convention delegates for bringing forward its primary, while Nevada has fewer delegates than South Carolina (33 to 54), and is less of a pointer to future battles.
Among South Carolina's Republicans, an evangelically minded lot who hold their primary on January 19, Huckabee has pulled ahead of the pack with a lead of nearly 13 points in the RealClearPolitics average.
McCain and Mitt Romney are vying for second place, followed by Fred Thompson and Rudolph Giuliani.
"There will not be just one winner in South Carolina. There will be the top two or top three," a Columbia-based Republican insider said.
Then the Republican race will continue to Florida, on January 29, where ex-New York mayor Giuliani is banking on a victory to fuel his campaign through to "Super Tuesday" on February 5, when New York, California and other big states vote.
Prudence in prognostication is catching on, given the confounding aspects of this election cycle, but long-time observers say South Carolina's mercenary approach to politics remains inevitable.
"There will be a lot of campaigns who look at us as the make-or-break primary, and one of them will be so concerned about it that they will wind up doing something that will be the typical dirty politics," the Republican insider said.
In 2000, false rumors were spread in South Carolina that the high-flying McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child. George W. Bush went on to win the state and the Republican nomination.
This time round, a Christmas card falsely purporting to be from the Romney family was sent to South Carolina mailboxes. The card cited controversial passages from the Book of Mormon, including a line about God having taken multiple wives, in a bid to undermine Romney through blackening his faith.
"It's already started down here," said political science professor Scott Huffmon of Winthrop University. "I'd say the knives have already been pulled out, and the meat cleavers and chainsaws are being sharpened."
Copyright © 2008 Agence France Presse.
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