Batten down the hatches.

Next year’s lieutenant governor’s primary contest between Republican incumbent Andre Bauer and challenger Mike Campbell promises to be a real slugfest.

The race between two rising GOP stars won’t be for the fainthearted.

Detractors on both sides have been calling reporters, suggesting where they might go to dig up dirt on the candidates.

It’s not going to be pretty. Egos and reputations are on the line, and candidates will stop at nothing to protect both.

On the surface, Bauer, 35, and Campbell, 36, have been kind to each other. The two have been remarkably restrained in their comments, bending over backward to be courteous and to say positive things about one another.

“Mike’s a good man. I’d rather not run against him. He’s a good guy,” says Bauer.

“I have no personal animosity toward Andre,” says Campbell, son of former Republican Gov. Carroll Campbell.

But hear what their respective supporters have to say.

Bauer backers say Mike Campbell is no Carroll Campbell.

Campbell supporters describe Bauer as a political accident waiting to happen.

Campbell has been contemplating the race for some time. He thought about running for lieutenant governor in 2002 but decided not to run because, he said, the timing wasn’t right.

The second son of a well-known political family, Campbell has been exposed to politics since he was a small child. All his life, people would approach him and tell him that he’d be the next Campbell in politics. He didn’t believe it.

“I thought one Campbell in politics was enough,” he says.

But that all changed as he grew up, married and had two children.

“It changed my perspective in a lot of ways,” he says.

Bauer’s meteoric rise in politics began not long after he graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1991.

He was elected to the state House in 1997. Two years later, he won a state Senate seat. He served there three years before being elected lieutenant governor.

Repeatedly underestimated, Bauer worked hard to win all three races.

“Andre is not a sitting duck,” says Francis Marion University political science professor Neal Thigpen, a GOP activist. “He will campaign 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

Campbell is being criticized by some party members for challenging a Republican incumbent.

But he brushes that off: “You’re going to see more of this,” as Republicans dominate party politics in the state.

With Democrats fading and fewer of that party’s candidates seeking and winning office, the Republican primary can become tantamount to election.

Campbell says he’s not running against Bauer.

“It’s not so much about him being in this race; it’s about my message,” he insists. “I would be doing this no matter who was in this race.”

But Bauer is not happy about the challenge.

With Campbell entering the race so early, the lieutenant governor is being forced to gear up his own campaign sooner.

“We’re way too far out to be running,” Bauer grouses.

For now, Bauer says he’s focused on being lieutenant governor. “I want to help the governor get his agenda passed. This is a full-time job. It’s no longer a part-time job.”

It’s also a job that Bauer says he intends to hold onto.

Despite the cache of the Campbell name, give the early edge to Bauer. He’s been in the campaign trenches himself and has shown he can win despite the naysayers.