Slow and Steady May Win the Race in South Carolina

It’s the tortoise versus the hare in Tuesday’s South Carolina primary, the first Southern showdown for the Democratic presidential contenders. And, as in the fable, the tortoise might turn out to be the best bet.

The hare in the race is Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, who made several high-profile stops in South Carolina early last year, formally announced his candidacy outside Charleston in September and then vanished, neither appearing nor advertising in the state until last week.

Now, boosted by his victories in New Hampshire and Iowa, Kerry is trying to sprint to a come-from-behind victory.

The tortoise is Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who visited South Carolina 20 times before last Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary and has barraged the state with television advertising for months.

The effort reflects the stakes for Edwards in the South Carolina vote: He has acknowledged that if he does not win, he cannot continue his candidacy.

Edwards, who was born in the state, for months seemed to be running in place. But now, his solid campaign foundation -- combined with a boost from his second-place showing in Iowa last month -- has made him the leader in several recent South Carolina polls.

What remains uncertain, however, is whether the state’s many undecided and loosely committed voters will be swayed by the wave of momentum and publicity generated for Kerry by his wins in Iowa and New Hampshire.

“That’s one of the wild cards -- a lot of the allegiances are shallow,” said James Guth, a political scientist at Furman University in Greenville.

Edwards’ advantage and the opening for Kerry were evident in polls released in recent days. A Los Angeles Times/CNN survey conducted Wednesday through Friday found Edwards with 32% support, followed by Kerry at 20% -- a lead just outside the survey’s margin of error.

Retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio trailed far behind.

A survey released Friday night by CBS found virtually identical results. But a MSNBC/Reuters/Zogby tracking poll released Sunday showed Edwards clinging to only a 1 percentage point lead over Kerry.

Campaign itineraries are probably the best gauge of the candidates’ expectations in South Carolina. Neither Kerry, Clark nor Dean plans any more stops in the state, though Kerry’s staff doesn’t rule out the possibility of a last-minute visit. Only Edwards and Sharpton, who has campaigned extensively in African American churches, have been in South Carolina since Friday.

But the Times/CNN poll showed that nearly one-fourth of likely voters remained undecided, and about two-fifths of those who had picked a candidate said they could change their minds. That’s a large enough pool to encourage Kerry and Clark to join Edwards in continuing television advertising in the state.

Dean has spent more than $600,000 on TV ads in South Carolina, but the polls indicate that his support here, as in many other places, has collapsed. “We’ve had an implosion,” acknowledged Sam Howell, a professor at Francis Marion University who supports Dean.

Lieberman may have received late help when leading newspapers in Greenville and Columbia endorsed him Sunday.

But few disagree with John Moylan, Edwards’ state chairman, who said: “It’s a two-man race.”

Kerry’s South Carolina campaign has benefited from late endorsements by two of the state’s most prominent Democrats: Sen. Ernest F. Hollings and Rep. James E. Clyburn.

Clyburn was deployed Sunday to campaign in predominantly black churches. Hollings, meanwhile, has sought to assuage fears that Kerry is too liberal to compete in the South.

“Don’t give me that stuff about liberal from Massachusetts,” Hollings said at a Kerry rally in Columbia on Friday. As an example, he cited Kerry’s work with him on legislation to reduce the federal deficit in the 1980s.

Yet these endorsements may lack some punch because they came so close to Tuesday’s primary. Hollings announced his support on Jan. 22; Clyburn didn’t endorse Kerry until Thursday, and his backing came only after his initial first choice, Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, withdrew from the race.

“We don’t have time to rev up any kind of organized stuff,” Clyburn said Friday. “All we can do is swoop in here for three or four days, focus on a message and pray for a good result.”

The contrast with Edwards’ approach was evident when he spoke at Francis Marion University the same day. Standing in the crowd was Benjy Rogers, the mayor of Bennettsville, a small town about 45 minutes away. Rogers signed on with Edwards last April, when the candidate spoke in his town and spent the night at Rogers’ home. “He’s put the shoe leather in,” Rogers said.

Edwards opened his state campaign headquarters in July, had nine full-time staff members in South Carolina by late last year and had spent almost $450,000 on television through late January. Kerry did not buy his first South Carolina ad until after his win in New Hampshire.

“This will be a true test of the value of bounce, because bounce is all Kerry has in South Carolina,” said Moylan, the Edwards aide.

Kerry’s camp would dispute that statement. They are emphasizing his service in Vietnam to court the state’s substantial veterans’ population, and are banking on Clyburn to help him gain a respectable piece of the black vote. Yet most analysts agree Kerry’s best asset in the state is that so many voters are tuning in to the race just now, when he is dominating the headlines.

Against that current, Edwards has been stressing his local ties. At his campaign appearances, he stands before a banner that reads “Bringing it Home.” An ad on trade his campaign began airing Friday spotlights his experience growing up in small textile mill towns to demonstrate his empathy for South Carolina workers hurt by foreign competition.

“I have seen up close what it means when trade policy causes factories to close, when it causes textile mills to close,” Edwards said Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation. “And so I think that ... is the reason that I connect with these folks. I mean, I think they know that for me, this is very personal.”

That connection clearly resonates with many Democrats here. Still, typical of many voters may be Josh Martin, a 22-year-old history major who stopped at a Kerry rally at the University of South Carolina in Columbia Friday.

“I’m still kind of shopping around,” Martin said as he rushed to class with a Kerry poster under his arm. “I guess I’ll get on the Net and start reading some more and cram like I do for any other test.”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

South Carolina profile

Tuesday’s South Carolina primary will be the first test of Democrats’ mettle in the South. The contest’s significance lies in the state’s large number of African Americans -- about half of Democratic voters in the 2000 election -- combined with moderate to conservative voters, offering a more accurate reflection of the nation’s electorate than Iowa and New Hampshire do.

*

Snapshot+

Population

Statewide: 4 million

Urban residents: 60.5%

Residents 65 and older: 12%

Median household income: $37,082

Families below poverty line: 10.7%

Families with preschool children below poverty line: 18.4%

*

Ethnicity

White: 66%

Black: 30%

Latino: 2%

Asian: 1%

Other: 1%

+Data based on U.S. census 2000 and Almanac of American

*

Politics

Registered voters: 2,116,745

Registered voting-age population: 71%

(Voters do not register by party)

*

Occupation

Management/professional: 29.1%

Sales/office: 25.2%

Production / transportation of goods: 19%

Service: 15%

Construction: 11.5%

Farming, fishing and forestry: 0.6%

*

Top exports

Cars and other passenger vehicles, tires, auto parts and gas turbine parts

*

Presidential primary history

Percentage of votes

1980

Democrats

Jimmy Carter (incumbent)

Republicans

Ronald Reagan: 54.7%

John Connally: 29.6%

George H.W. Bush: 14.8%

Other: 0.9%

1984**

Democrats

Gary Hart: 12%

Walter F. Mondale: 10%

Unpledged: 53%

Jesse Jackson: 25%

Republicans

Ronald Reagan (incumbent)

1988**

Democrats

Jesse Jackson: 54%

Al Gore: 18%

Michael Dukakis: 7%

Dick Gephardt: 2%

Unpledged: 19%

Republicans

George H.W.Bush: 49%

Bob Dole: 21%

Pat Robertson: 19%

Other: 11%

1992

Democrats

Bill Clinton: 66.9%

Paul Tsongas: 18.3%

Tom Harkin: 6.6%

Jerry Brown: 6.0%

Bob Cunningham: 1.2%

Unpledged: 3.1%

Republicans

George H.W.Bush: 66.9%

Pat Buchanan: 25.7%

David Duke: 7.1%

1996**

Democrats

No Democratic primary

Republicans

Bob Dole: 45.1%

Pat Buchanan: 29.2%

SteveForbes: 12.7%

LamarAlexander: 10.4%

Other: 2.6%

2000

Democrats

Al Gore: 91.8%

Bill Bradley: 1.8%

Unpledged: 5.3%

Republicans

George W. Bush: 53.4%

John McCain: 41.9%

Other: 4.7%

*

**Caucuses

Most percentages of votes were rounded off to the nearest tenth; figures for 1984 and 1988 were rounded to the nearest whole number.

South Carolina does not have a fixed primary date. The state parties choose dates and decide whether they will hold caucuses or a primary.

Sources: U.S. census 2000, Congressional Quarterly, www.gwu.edu, www.fec.gov,

Times reports - Researched by Susannah Rosenblatt