COLUMBIA - Inez Tenenbaum says getting 44 percent of the vote for U.S. Senate last week has made her "a viable candidate for other races."

In all probability, that means Tenenbaum, the Democratic state superintendent of education, is thinking of running for S.C. governor two years from now against incumbent Republican Mark Sanford, political observers say.

"She now has strong name recognition and an identity as an articulate spokesman to run against Sanford," said David Woodard, a Clemson University political science professor and Republican activist. "She's set herself up real well to run for governor."

But for Tenenbaum - or any other Democrat - to win, she would need the same kind of help from Sanford that then-Gov. David Beasley gave to Jim Hodges in 1998, said former state Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian.

"I don't know how you cobble together a Democratic majority without a very unpopular Republican candidate," Harpootlian said.

After four years in office, Beasley was so unpopular that one out of five Republicans voted for Hodges, the Democrat.

Since then, however, the GOP has extended its domination of S.C. politics to levels not seen since post-Civil War Reconstruction. Sanford turned Hodges out of the governor's mansion in 2002, Republicans won majorities in both legislative chambers, and now, both of South Carolina's U.S. senators are Republican.

This year, in the only statewide race on the ballot, U.S. Rep. Jim DeMint of Greenville defeated Tenenbaum for the Senate seat being vacated by longtime Democratic incumbent Ernest "Fritz" Hollings.

Tenenbaum, who had been the top vote-getter in the 1998 and 2002 state elections, was generally considered to be Democrats' best hope to hang on to the seat, by virtue of her popularity and her moderate political stands.

The national Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and independent Democratic-leaning groups spent more than $5 million on TV advertising for her.

Although some polls had showed a tight race, DeMint's 10-point margin of victory was pretty much what S.C. Republicans have gotten used to enjoying.

"She tried to run as a Democrat and, at the same time, say she didn't buy into the national Democratic positions on a lot of issues," Harpootlian said. "Fritz Hollings could say it because he had a history of doing it. But you can't come fresh on the scene and say it."

As the returns came in Tuesday night, the several hundred GOP faithful who partied in the Adams Mark Hotel ballroom in downtown Columbia seemed rather blase for an election-night crowd.

"We used to get so excited; we couldn't believe we'd won," said Gay Suber, the S.C. Republican Party's executive director during its formative years, 1968 to 1976. "Now, it's more just a feeling of satisfaction. We kind of expect to win."

At the heart of the Republican success in South Carolina is the state's bedrock conservatism.

As an example, Harpootlian pointed to opinions that DeMint expressed during the campaign that homosexuals shouldn't be teaching in public schools.

"There was a calculation by the rest of the country that the statement somehow would hurt him," Harpootlian said. "The fact that not only did it not hurt him, but probably helped him, speaks volumes about the average voter in South Carolina."

President Bush carried the state on Tuesday by a 58 percent to 41 percent margin over Democrat John Kerry.

The residual Republican strength in the state made Tenenbaum an underdog from the start. But her TV advertising barrage, which zeroed in on a national sales tax bill that DeMint had co-sponsored in Congress, brought her almost even with him by early October.

DeMint fought her off by using a two-pronged strategy of attacking her and identifying with President Bush.

"We had let her get away for a long time with saying that she was an independent and a moderate," said DeMint's campaign manager, Terry Sullivan.

"But then we held her accountable, and said, 'The first vote you make in the Senate is going to be either for a person who is going to block judges the president nominates, or for someone who is going to help them along.'"

That was a clear signal to mobilize conservative evangelical Christians, said Danielle Vinson, a political science professor at Furman University in Greenville.

"They're very savvy about social issues, and they certainly understand the role of the courts," she said.

Vinson said that despite Tenenbaum's loss, this year wasn't really a true test of whether the Democrats can remain competitive within the state.

S.C. state officials are elected in nonpresidential years. "That makes it a little easier for a Democrat," Vinson said. "You can have the campaign just be about your ideas and your opponent's ideas. It doesn't have to include national issues."

On Wednesday, one day after her defeat, Tenenbaum said, "I think this race has made me a viable candidate for other races." Vinson agreed.

"She's shown she can raise money, she has been able to talk about some issues other than education, and voters know her better now," Vinson said.

"This was not one of those losses that you lose and your career in politics is over. She was the underdog, it's a Republican state, and she got over 40 percent of the vote. She's credible."