After watching Sen. Ernest F. Hollings endorse Sen. John Kerry for president in Columbia on Thursday, Donald L. Fowler returned to his office and telephoned important Kerry supporters.
Fowler, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told them that the endorsement would mean little unless Kerry rebuilt his local organization, bought television commercials here and campaigned personally in the state in the week between next Tuesday's New Hampshire primary and South Carolina's balloting on Feb. 3. Among those he called was Hassan Nemazee, a New York financier and one of Kerry's chief fund-raisers.
In less than an hour, Fowler said, he received a call from Mary Beth Cahill, Kerry's national campaign manager, assuring him that Kerry intended to make a major effort in this state, the first in the South to hold a primary this year and the first with a sizeable black population.
The reassurance came not a second too soon for the senator's political well-being in South Carolina, where two other candidates, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who was born in the state, and Gen. Wesley K. Clark, currently seem to hold the advantage.
"If Kerry doesn't compete here," said Dick Harpootlian, the former state Democratic chairman who led the effort to move the primary up to Feb. 3, "it'll look as if he's writing off the South in the general election, the exact same mistake that Al Gore made four years ago. More important, it'll be a huge insult to African-Americans."
For most of the last week, rumors swirled in political circles in Columbia that Kerry intended to give the primary here a pass, perhaps to concentrate on Missouri, which has 88 convention votes to South Carolina's 55.
Missouri, which also votes on Feb. 3, went up for grabs when Rep. Dick Gephardt of St. Louis withdrew from the presidential race last week. The Kerry campaign immediately began sending aides there and inquiring about the availability of television time.
So far, Kerry is the only major candidate who has run no commercials in South Carolina. He has opened only two offices, fewer than his main rivals have, and he has only seven paid employees here, compared with 50 for Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, about 40 for Clark and nine for Edwards.
After sending six staff members to work with the state party in the 2002 election, Kerry seemed to assign South Carolina an important role in his campaign in September when he made his official declaration of candidacy with the aircraft carrier Yorktown as the backdrop.
"Then lights out," said Harpootlian. "One night his whole staff snuck out of town, almost every one, and he hasn't been spotted here since."
Most of the Kerry operatives who left South Carolina headed for Iowa, to help in the ultimately successful effort to rescue his candidacy by winning the caucuses there.
The candidate said Thursday in New Hampshire: "I needed the time to break through in other states. I will be down there in South Carolina, and I intend to come down there with a head of steam."
Along with Dean, Edwards, Clark and other candidates, Kerry is committed to taking part in a debate in Greenville on Thursday, two days after the voting in New Hampshire.
