Political scientists study campaigns and voting behavior. From our studies, we develop theories that, when applied to the real world of politics, sometimes do not play out successfully. However, the Inez Tenenbaum-Jim DeMint senatorial race in South Carolina is evidence, to me, that some of our scholarly studies do reveal what happens in the practical “press the flesh” realm of political reality.

Tenenbaum, as a Democrat, was not only running against the potential coattails of the voters who were solidly for President Bush and would enter the booth to vote the straight Republican ticket. She also was running against a well-entrenched “traditionalistic political culture” and gender stereotypes, many of which are not even acknowledged by the individual casting the vote. There are scholarly studies that show evidence of both of the characteristics visible in this race.

Daniel J. Elazar, writing as early as the 1960s and updating his theories well into the 1990s, described the “traditionalistic political culture” of the Deep South states (including South Carolina) as a culture with a paternalistic and elitist conception of government and society. He describes this political culture as one that “functions to confine real political power to a relatively small and self-perpetuating group drawn from an established elite who often inherit their ‘right’ to govern through family ties or social position.” This culture would tend to identify the man as the linkage between the family and the political world.

Elazar compares this culture with what he dubs a “moralistic political culture,” which he describes as “political culture in which both the general public and the politicians conceive of politics as a public activity centered on some notion of the public good.” Elazar identifies a third political culture as an “individualistic political culture,” which “holds politics to be just another means by which individuals may improve themselves socially and economically.”

Elazar goes on to describe California and New York as primarily combinations of the moralistic political culture and the individualistic political culture. These last two cultures would be, as I see it, more open to women and other minorities serving in public office. For example, California and New York are states in which women have been elected to the U.S. Senate — Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. Culturally speaking, a woman would not be as advantaged in running for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina as she would be in a state such as California or New York.

So, one could question, would the political culture of South Carolina (still paternalistic and dwelling somewhat in the past, as far as the role of women in higher political office) not provide quite a challenge for a woman seeking to be the first female U.S. senator ever elected here? Would some voters rather have voted for a male candidate who, according to the news reports, made several major gaffes (gays and unwed, pregnant women should not be schoolteachers) and offered tax plans that plausibly would have hurt the middle class, than break the voting patterns of the past and cast a vote for a qualified woman who indicated she would “work across the aisle” if elected?

There are also other studies that reflect that voters still struggle with sex stereotypes, in which one tends to identify female candidates with specific issues — i.e., education, child care, health issues and the like — while associating other issues (war and the military) with male candidates. Thus, one could argue that Tenenbaum faced a different kind of campaign as she ran for the U.S. Senate (a national office with potential decision-making involving foreign policy and conflict abroad) than she encountered as she successfully ran for South Carolina’s superintendent of education. That is: Would voters tend to think more positively of her in the education race than perhaps some did in the U.S. Senate race?

Despite the outcome of the Tenenbaum-DeMint race, one has to be encouraged by the significant 44 percent of the vote she gained despite the negatives. She has helped build a bridge that will permit other qualified women within the state to cross over into higher political offices, some of which already have been achieved by women in less traditional states.

Her accomplishments in her quest for a senatorial seat in South Carolina offer hope for other women to challenge the obstacles facing them running for public office and move forward. This Senate race is an important one for the female candidates who surely will follow her in South Carolina.

Ms. Duke Whitaker lives in Columbia. She is a professor of political science at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro. The fourth edition of her edited book, Women in Politics Outsiders or Insiders? with Prentice Hall will be on the shelf in June 2005.