December 27, 2007
One month from their Jan. 26 showdown, South Carolina Democrats are ahead of -- or behind -- the national curve.
Some polls suggest a statistical dead heat in South Carolina between Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Nationally, they paint a starkly different picture, that of a lopsided Clinton edge.
But there's a cautionary note for Clinton: Her lead nationally is shrinking and has evaporated in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first states to vote.
The lone constant in the polls is Seneca native John Edwards. The former North Carolina senator, winner of South Carolina's 2004 primary and John Kerry's running mate, is a consistent and distant third in virtually every poll, whether it's for his native state, Iowa or the United States as a whole.
Forget the national polls, says Carol Fowler, the state Democratic Party chairwoman, because it's the early states where the numbers reflect reality.
"The voters in the early states have looked at the candidates," Fowler said. Elsewhere, it's name recognition.
"You would expect it to close up as they get to know candidates that they didn't know before," she said.
It's a contest tinged with racial, gender and class overtones.
Nearly 56 percent of South Carolina's registered voters are women, a critical segment for any candidate, but especially for Clinton. Blacks are expected to constitute up to 50 percent of the Democratic primary turnout, and how well Obama, the only black in the field, does there can determine the outcome.
Clinton, a former first lady and second-term senator, has pushed her experience. Obama, only in his third year in the Senate after a stint as a state legislator, has focused on change.
Where Republicans concentrate on taxes and immigration, Democratic candidates have emphasized health-care reform, an issue uppermost on the minds of South Carolina Democrats, surveys have shown.
The biggest split is on Iraq.
Clinton has cautioned against both a quick withdrawal from Iraq and setting a timetable, but Obama and Edwards have called for an immediate pullout.
Edwards has pursued a populist strategy, pitting his vision of the needs of everyday folks against what he has portrayed as greedy corporations that control their lives and destinies.
Steve Wainscott, a Clemson University political scientist, described Edwards' failure to catch on as the campaign's biggest surprise.
He attributed it to Edwards' shifting to "almost a William Jennings Bryan strong, strong populist route, us against them, that narrowed his appeal."
Independent pollster John Zogby assessed the varying appeals of the frontrunners lasts week on his Web site.
"Obama and Clinton appear to have staked out territory in different wings of the party not just by age but also by ideology -- Clinton leading among liberals and moderates, where most of the Democratic votes are found, while Obama leads widely among the most liberal, or progressive, Democrats," he wrote.
The five other candidates, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel, and U.S. Sens. Joseph Biden of Delaware and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, have widely varying platforms, but barely register with voters, overshadowed by the star power of Clinton and Obama. Age gap
Last week's CBS News Poll of South Carolina Democrats reflects a race-driven reverse gender gap in which "Clinton leads with men, and Obama with women. Black women choose the black candidate, not the woman, voting for Obama by more than 2-to-1. Black men are voting for him too, but by a smaller margin."
Much of the campaign's behind-the-scenes maneuvering has been for the support of politically active black clergymen.
Clinton and Obama and, to a lesser extent, Edwards have won over segments of locally influential clergy.
Zogby's polls found that nationally "Clinton is strongest among older Democrats, holding wide leads among Democrats over age 50, but Obama dominates among younger voters. Among college-aged Democrats aged 18-29, Obama enjoys a 60 percent to 20 percent edge over Clinton. Among those ages 65 and older, Clinton leads with 48 percent compared to 10 percent for Obama and 11 percent for Edwards."
His mid-month poll shows Clinton with a 40-32 lead, down from an 11-point margin in November. Edwards held steady at 13 percent.
Whatever the outcome, heavily Republican South Carolina has seen an outpouring of Democratic candidates, even though they haven't spent as much time or money in the state as their GOP counterparts. Why South Carolina?
The timing of the primary coupled with the state's size, location and diversity, compared to Iowa and New Hampshire, has them flocking here.
Iowa's caucuses are set for Jan. 3, and New Hampshire's primary is Jan. 8. South Carolina Republicans will vote on Jan. 19.
Michigan Democrats will vote Jan. 15, but that big industrial state's impact is questionable. The primary was moved ahead in violation of party rules, so the Democratic National Committee stripped Michigan of its 156 delegates and candidates agreed not to campaign there.
In terms of sheer numbers, nothing any of the Republicans have done in South Carolina matches the 3,500 turnout for Obama at McAlister Square in Greenville or the 29,000 at Columbia's Williams-Brice Stadium for his endorsement by Oprah Winfrey.
Democrats aren't expecting a repeat of 2004 when the field headed elsewhere the Friday before the primary in the face of Edwards' growing lead.
This time, the hometown guy isn't the favorite.
Fowler said she's pleased with the attention shown South Carolina so far, attention that has "been maybe more than I expected this early."
Joe Erwin of Greenville, former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, who has endorsed Obama, expects an intense period in South Carolina, once the dust settles in New Hampshire, beginning the morning after, as the survivors head south. Intensity ahead
South Carolinians can soon expect a full-fledged onslaught of candidates, surrogates, broadcast commercials, mailers and robo-calls "at a level that we've never seen before," Erwin predicts. "In that short window, when we're the only game in town, they will camp out in this state and not go much of anywhere else."
Erwin said that "it's interesting to observe the shift of the major networks and Internet sites over the last few weeks. It was this out of Iowa and that out of New Hampshire; now it's Iowa, New Hampshire -- and South Carolina. Things really have changed."
Erwin, a staunch advocate of a primary system to which his party is a relative newcomer, said that for now, the candidates have to be in Iowa "because the game is so momentum-driven."
However, South Carolina will be center stage for the post-Iowa and post-New Hampshire survivors.
For Republicans, that translates into Jan. 9-19, and for Democrats, Jan. 9-26. The GOP's nationally televised debate Jan. 10 and the Democrats' on Jan. 21, both from Myrtle Beach, are likely to draw the biggest in-state audiences yet.
To Fowler, the primary campaign has been a boost to her beleaguered party.
"So many Democrats are engaged and interested and eager," she says. "I talk to Democrats in little counties all around the state, and they know all about these candidates, they've met them, seen them. They are raring to go. It's been good for Democrats, and not just in the major media markets."
After Jan. 19, when Republicans vote here and Nevada holds its caucuses, "it'll be all Democrats, all the time," she said.
