Political analysts probably will pounce on the fact that the first major presidential candidate for 2008 to visit Horry County is a Democrat.

U.S. Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wowed the crowd Monday at the Galivants Ferry Democratic Stump.

Gubernatorial candidate Civil War Gen. Wade Hampton campaigned, or stumped, at Galivants Ferry in 1876. Hampton won, putting a Democrat in the S.C. governorship for the first time in several years. As in most Southern states, Republicans had ruled after the Civil War. Hampton's victory commenced a century of Democratic dominance.

So who can blame modern S.C. Democrats for being at least a bit upbeat about Joe Biden's appearance Monday at Galivants Ferry? Jimmy Carter is the most recent presidential Democrat to carry the state, in 1976.

Since Ronald Reagan's election as president in 1980, the expression "Solid South" has meant a Republican South, not a Democratic region.

In his speech Monday, Biden touched on some of the reasons Southern states are Republican strongholds. Democrats have allowed Republicans to stake claim to family values, including religion.

Republicans, Biden told the crowd, have made it seem like Republicans are somehow more people of faith than others. "They use religion as an organizing tool; we see it as a road to redemption."

Nationally and in South Carolina, Democrats will have to convince voters that they can better lead and govern. Other stump speakers Monday included the three Democrats seeking the party's gubernatorial nomination. The Democratic candidate will challenge incumbent Republican Gov. Mark Sanford - or whoever wins that party's primary - in this November's off-year election.

With public opinion polls showing President Bush's popularity at a low point, an increasingly unpopular and enormously costly war in Iraq and oil prices seemingly having no limit, it is hardly necessary to point out that Republicans will face some challenges in retaining the White House and Congress in two and a half years.

Joe Biden has a long way to go to become the Democratic presidential candidate. However, as noted by Neil Thigpen, an astute commentator on Republican matters, Biden's appearance at Horry County's famous stump shows Biden "intends to test the waters" in South Carolina.

Democratic tradition also democratic

The Galivants Ferry Stump, held on the Horry County side of the Little Pee Dee River for 130 years, is a wonderful piece of Americana.

The Democratic tradition, a kickoff for the political party's primary campaign, is also trying to be a lower case "d" celebration of democracy.

By tradition, Republicans do not speak at the stump, which doesn't seem to bother the many Republicans who attend to work the crowd and socialize.

Members of the Holliday family, fourth-generation organizers of the event, invited everyone - Democrats, Republicans or not politically affiliated.

An event with such a big tent is fitting for what perhaps is the nation's oldest continuing event of its kind.