SCDems News
Obama to set up shop in South Carolina; In unusual move, staff hopes to swing the state to Democrats
July 7, 2008
A team of paid staffers for Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama will be dispatched to the Palmetto State in coming weeks.
Obama's campaign is mum on how many staffers are coming and how much they'll spend in the state.
But it's part of an unconventional move by Obama — sending staff and money into Republican strongholds, including the Carolinas.
Already, hundreds of S.C. volunteers for Obama, organized into various groups around the state, are hosting Obama events and registering voters.
Their goal?
Registering African-Americans, young people and transplants from other states to put traditionally Republican states into play.
In neighboring North Carolina, nine paid staffers and about 150 volunteers are already on the ground, according to media reports.
Obama's atypical campaigning has made some S.C. Democrats hopeful of turning the state purple and also helping Palmetto Democrats seeking office.
It's risky and unconventional.
Leading up to the 2004 general election, for example, U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic nominee, did not place any staff in South Carolina.
S.C. Republicans scoff at the suggestion that Obama could carry the Palmetto State.
"It's a pipe dream," said S.C. GOP chairman Katon Dawson.
'A BIT OF A LONG SHOT'
Typically, presidential campaigns focus on energizing their base and winning over independents in a dozen or so battleground states. Registering new voters is a sideline.
States like South Carolina — won by only one Democratic presidential candidate, Jimmy Carter, since 1960 — generally are ignored by Democrats.
But, still high on Obama's landslide S.C. primary victory, some Democrats think many more Palmetto State voters are ready to embrace their party.
"To carry the state is a bit of a long shot for Obama," said Don Fowler, former Democratic National Committee chairman and a S.C. superdelegate to the Democrats' national convention in August. "But it's not completely improbable. He attracted a diverse group in the primary. He has an appeal that's indefinable."
The key, Fowler said, will be registering African-American voters, who vote Democratic about 90 percent of the time, and chipping off more white and independent voters.
Consider:
• Obama's S.C. primary win was powered by record turnout. The number of African-Americans voting more than doubled.
"You go to a (Democratic) political meeting today in this state, and it's three times as big as it was," said Phil Noble, a member of the presumptive Democratic nominee's S.C. steering committee and president of the S.C. New Democrats. "You have to strain to find the old guys."
• While no figures exist on how many eligible black South Carolinians are not registered to vote, a rough estimate puts the number at more than 100,000, according to census and state election data.
• Another 225,000 African-American South Carolinians are registered to vote but did not do so in 2004, according to the state Election Commission.
The last two, taken together, equal more than 300,000 new black voters in a state that George W. Bush won in 2004 by about 276,000 votes.
That's a stretch, but intensive voter registration events in African-American communities nonetheless could boost the election hopes of S.C. Democrats running in other races, including Anton Gunn, the Democratic candidate for House Seat 79.
"The Obama campaign invested heavily in South Carolina leading up to the primaries, training volunteers, registering voters, organizing," said Gunn, who was Obama's S.C. political director. "That infrastructure is still in place and will help all Democrats."
'A BAD BUSINESS DECISION'
The GOP's Dawson is unfazed.
"For Obama to set up a $2 million operation in S.C. would be a bad business decision,"Dawson said, adding the state's Republican Party and its congressional candidates have enough cash on hand to match that level of spending, dollar for dollar.
The S.C. GOP alone has nearly $642,000 to spend on federal elections, making it the second wealthiest Republican Party in the nation. Kentucky tops the list.
In contrast, the state’s Democratic Party has $94,000 to spend.
Add to that South Carolina's many military vets, who tend to vote Republican, and a war hero at the top of the GOP ticket in U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, and Obama faces an uphill battle in South Carolina.
"Plus, Barack Obama's campaign rhetoric and his record are against the grain of most general election voters in South Carolina," the GOP's Dawson said. "Issues like partial birth abortions, raising taxes. Those ideas have never been popular in this state."
History says Dawson is right.
In the last general election, Republicans won eight of nine statewide races. The GOP's only loss was in the state superintendent of education race.
'BRINGING THEIR POLITICS'
However, Democrats say they also can tap into another growing group of S.C. voters: new residents.
"They are vastly different from the conservative people who moved here in the '60s and '70s from the Rust Belt," said Bud Ferillo, a Columbia Democratic consultant and Obama supporter.
No comprehensive studies exist on the political leanings of the state's newcomers. But they are coming in droves from the Northeast and Midwest frost belts as well as California, an average of 150,000 new South Carolinians each year, said Pat Mason, co-founder of Carolinaliving.com.
"They're not just bringing their laundry. They're bringing their politics," said Democrat Ferillo.
"They're more progressive politically, and we've found many of them in the various Obama organizations around the state."
The State
