PROSPERITY - For many voters, Decision 2004 is already Decided 2004. They know whom they will vote for in the Democratic presidential primaries.

But millions of other Democrats aren't nearly as certain. Some still will be trying to make up their minds as they walk into their polling places.

Their conclusions could help decide the Democratic Party's nominee, with a Jan. 18-20 poll of Democrats nationally showing 19 percent of respondents undecided, according to Rasmussen Reports.

One potentially crucial battleground is South Carolina, where the Feb. 3 Democratic primary will be the season's first in the South and the first for a state with a substantial African American population.

Undecided but concerned

You can grow up in Prosperity, work more than half your life -- 33 years -- for one company and still end up cleaning toilets just to have a job.Roger Ruff doesn't waste time bemoaning this turn of events. He took a $2 an hour pay cut and a janitor's job to stay on at the textile mill, while hundreds of others lost their jobs completely when the mill cut back.

"I didn't like it," the 62-year-old widower said, "but it was the only thing left."

Now, Ruff is biding his time to see what choices for U.S. president he'll be left with.

He'll vote in the primary, he says, but he just hasn't bothered to learn the names of most of the candidates or to consider their campaign promises yet. He didn't hear how candidates did in the Iowa caucuses.

"I'm going to try to catch the next one," he said. He's waiting for the pack of hopefuls to be whittled.

His issues are those that hit close to home. The youngest of his four children wants to get a degree in business or computers after graduating from high school this year. She would be the first of his children to attend college, if the family can find a way to pay for it.

"We'll make it some kind of way," Ruff said. "With God's help we'll make it."

But he has broader, more immediate concerns for the candidates, like why do American companies -- which depend on American consumers -- eliminate jobs in the United States and send more work overseas?

"It don't make any sense," he said.

He's not sure, though, that a Democrat as president would provide the solutions. And he's skeptical of the campaign promises he knows he'll hear.

"They say this stuff but they are not going to do it after they are elected because they can't do it by themselves," he says. "They'll say anything until they get into the chair."

Finding another favorite

LITTLE MOUNTAIN -- Jana Jayroe likes Dick Gephardt, even though she had trouble following him.

"He refers back to legislation and acts in Washington. I feel like unless you are from Washington, you really don't know what he means," said Jayroe, who has a master's degree from the University of South Carolina.

No matter, now. After a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses, Gephardt dropped out of the race, and Jayroe is looking for a new candidate.

"I like (Howard) Dean, but I'm afraid my reasons for liking him aren't the best in the world," she said. "It's because he is so outspoken about some of Bush's policies that I don't believe in."

But Dean seems too inexperienced to handle the political and management hardball of Washington, she said.

John Kerry's Iowa win surprised her.

"Unfortunately, I had not listened to him as openly as I should have. Apparently he had a lot more to his message than I realized," she said of the Massachusetts senator.

Now, she said, she is going to think more seriously about Kerry and Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who finished second in Iowa despite Southern roots she thought would be a hindrance.

Her biggest concern, though, is beyond the scope and resources of most town councils. The nation needs to keep good jobs, Jayroe says.

From her perch between the Little Mountain Barber Shop and the Little Mountain Quilt Shop, where she works as an accountant at her husband's CPA firm, she has a close-up view of local economic worries: A secretary who lost her job at a law firm when the economy slipped. Clerks in stores who were let go. Retirees whose portfolios shrank with the rest of the stock market. The woman who closed a favorite meat market in a nearby town as people spent less.

Jayroe will keep those snippets of local life in mind as she listens to the presidential candidates.

"I try to assume they are really going to do what they say," she said. "And I try to think about how it will affect everyday life for my family and my community."

3 voters rethink options

CLEMSON -- In Laura Olson's Political Science 442 class, "Political Parties and Elections," the day's subject is an overview of presidential primaries.

There are giggles when presidential hopeful Al Sharpton is mentioned. In this Clemson University class, he isn't considered a serious candidate.

Clemson's student body is overwhelmingly Republican, students say. But there are always anomalies, and three of them sit in Olson's class.

Chris Long, Sean Luther and George Holman all plan to vote as Democrats. And each of them is struggling to decide who should win his vote.

They thought their choice wouldn't be swayed by whoever did well in the Iowa caucuses.

"We're smart enough to know that changes the media perception, but not who the candidates actually are," said Luther, a 21-year-old from Pittsburgh who, like his two friends, is a political science major.

But it took less than a day for the three of them to start factoring in Iowa's results. Edwards moved up in their considerations after his second-place finish.

"I figured he'd drop out by now, but since he is back in it, I'm rethinking him," said Holman, a 20-year-old from Greenville.

Luther had favored former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean before the caucuses, but thought he might end up voting for Gen. Wesley Clark, believing Clark had a better chance of beating President Bush.

But now Luther is giving a closer look to Edwards and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Iowa winner. "My primary concern with picking a candidate is electability," he said.

Both Long and Holman say Dean's over-the-top concession speech in Iowa hurt his image with them.

"I thought it was awfully tacky," Holman said. "He showed a lack of poise, which I think you need as president."

Holman said Dean "went from front-runner to being on the back burner. He's probably not going to be anywhere in a few weeks."