As Democratic presidential candidates have crisscrossed South Carolina, downing barbecue and campaigning for the Feb. 3 primary, one has been noticeably absent — Howard Dean.

The former Vermont governor — and national front-runner — has made only one public visit to South Carolina since the Democrats’ first nationally televised debate, May 3 at USC.

“We haven’t been here that much,” Dean said during that Oct. 3 trip to Charleston. “We need to be here more, and we’re going to do that.”

But Dean hasn’t been back since, and his lack of attention to the state has frustrated party officials and fueled rumors he is sitting out the first-in-the-South primary.

Dean’s campaign says that talk should subside.

Dean recently hired a state director, Don Jones, who arrived just days ago. Jones said Dean would open a Columbia office within the week and would hire eight staffers and open a Charleston office by next month.

S.C. party leaders are pleased with the news. “It shows they’re interested in competing in our primary,” executive director Nu Wexler said.

Jones said Dean is taking the primary seriously, adding, “We’re going to win South Carolina.”

Recent S.C. polls show Dean in the middle of the pack, usually polling in the single digits.

Jones said the Dean campaign waited to open an S.C. office because it wanted to line up the right people and locations.

“Even though we were the last to open,” Jones said, “if you give us a call by Christmas, we will be the best-organized down here ... because we waited to do it correctly.”

ROCKY RELATIONSHIP

S.C. Democrats have had a rocky relationship with the Dean campaign.

All the other major campaigns have opened offices, hired professional campaign workers and begun building state organizations.

The five other major candidates — Wesley Clark, John Edwards, Dick Gephardt, John Kerry and Joe Lieberman — have multiple staffers in South Carolina, where the primary could decide who gets the nomination.

Dean made several trips to South Carolina early in the year, calling on black leaders and lining up support. Then his national campaign picked up in the summer, and his trips to the South became less frequent, Democrats say.

State Rep. Brenda Lee, D-Spartanburg, who endorsed Dean early on, said last week that she could not even get his Vermont-based campaign on the phone.

She said she was so frustrated she was thinking of backing Gephardt, Dean’s biggest rival in the Iowa caucuses, instead.

“There’s no way in the world I would ask somebody to support me and then not show their face again,” she said. “If you want to win, you have to put a face on your campaign.”

Jones said he had not spoken to Lee, but he planned to call her.

Several S.C. Democrats, including former chairman Dick Harpootlian, also fingered Dean’s campaign for planting rumors in the national media that the state will have to cancel its primary because it was having trouble raising money to pay for it.

South Carolina is one of two states that requires political parties to organize and pay for their own presidential primaries.

Jones denied the Dean campaign is behind the rumors.

HOPING FOR BIG MOMENTUM

Some political experts say Dean might be doing exactly the right thing by waiting.

Edwards and Clark are both Southerners; each needs to win in South Carolina.

But six other states will hold presidential contests Feb. 3.

“I would suspect the plan would be to try to neutralize Edwards ... by emphasizing the importance of other primaries that day,” USC political scientist Blease Graham said.

University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato said Dean knows he will do well in South Carolina only if he does well in Iowa and New Hampshire. If Dean wins or places highly in the first two primaries, that momentum will carry him on Feb. 3, Sabato said.

“At that point, he won’t need an organization,” Sabato said.

Jones said Dean has been building grass-roots support in South Carolina all along. In the past few weeks, he said, Dean volunteers have campaigned door-to-door in Columbia and Orangeburg.

Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi also visited Charleston on Friday to talk about grass-roots organization.

Even though Dean is not a Southerner, he can win South Carolina, Jones said.

“South Carolina’s a state of good Democrats, and Howard Dean is the only candidate who is the viable option to George Bush.”

Reach Talhelm at (803) 771-8339 or jtalhelm@thestate.com. Staff writer Lee Bandy contributed to this report.