COLUMBIA - Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Inez Tenenbaum is trying to jump-start her campaign, which leading S.C. Democrats concede has so far produced disappointing results.

With polls commissioned by the party showing her trailing her Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Jim DeMint, by about 10 points, Tenenbaum replaced her media consultant just before Labor Day and has launched herself into a grueling schedule of personal appearances.

"I think she's been struggling to gain momentum and to define her campaign," said former S.C. Democratic chairman Dick Harpootlian.

Tenenbaum and DeMint are competing for the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic incumbent Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings.

The present state Democratic chairman, Joe Erwin, said the Tenenbaum campaign is concentrating on "getting her out all over the state to meet more people and let them get to know this woman."

Erwin said: "She's got to create likability. That's not hard for her to do, because she is eminently likeable. But she's got to get more people to be aware of it, and frankly, her early ads didn't do a good enough job of that."

The two Democratic chairmen said Tenenbaum, who is in the middle of her second term as South Carolina's elected state superintendent of education, also must do a better job of attacking DeMint. Contrary to expectations, the low-key conservative congressman from Greenville has emerged as the high-energy candidate of change, while Tenenbaum has found herself defending the status quo on issues such as S.C.'s traditional textile manufacturing base and the federal income tax.

"She has got to show that Jim DeMint is the wrong guy to represent South Carolina in the U.S. Senate, because he's wrong on the issues that affect most South Carolinians," Erwin said.

Although S.C. members of Congress have traditionally supported the textile industry's efforts to fend off foreign competition, DeMint supports President Bush's free trade policies and says South Carolina's economic future depends on globalization and selling overseas.

Tenenbaum early on made a promise to protect S.C. jobs a centerpiece of her campaign. With textile mills and sewing factories in the state having shed nearly 21,000 jobs since January 2001, Democratic strategists said she saw the issue as a way to split some blue-collar voters in the manufacturing-heavy Upstate from their Republican voting habit.

TV ads being run on Tenenbaum's behalf by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee say DeMint has "forgotten real people who work for a living."

Tenenbaum, meanwhile, is concentrating on attacking an idea by DeMint to abolish the federal income tax and replace it with a national sales tax.

DeMint has made himself a favorite in national conservative circles by championing such controversial proposals for shrinking government, many of them originating in think tanks like the Heritage Foundation.

Tenenbaum's newest television commercial says that while she wants to cut taxes for the middle class, "it's Jim DeMint who has a plan for a new 23 percent sales tax. An extra 23 cents for every dollar you spend on almost everything you buy."

Harpootlian says he doesn't think Tenenbaum's ads are getting the job done. "I don't think they're hard enough," he said. "I don't think they're graphic enough."

He said, "All this positive (stuff), platforms, positions, don't matter. You've got to drive the other guy into the ditch."

He said a major reason Tenenbaum's campaign is struggling today, he said, was an ad sponsored by a shadowy independent group with ties to the insurance and health care industries. The ad said Tenenbaum had called for a $2 billion tax increase.

Tenenbaum did ask S.C. lawmakers to provide more money for public schools by either eliminating some sales tax exemptions or by passing a 2-cent increase in the sales, cigarette, gasoline or beer/wine tax. But the ad's $2 billion figure was bogus because it added all the increases together.

But no matter what kind of ads she runs or which strategy she adopts, most political observers say Tenenbaum's greatest problems stem from things beyond her control, not the least of which is that South Carolina is one of the nation's most heavily Republican states.

Although there is no official voter registration by party, Democratic polls show that among white voters, Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 2-1. Black voters are solidly Democratic, but make up only about 25 percent of the electorate.

A Democrat hoping to win a statewide election must get at least 70 percent of the independent vote, which is virtually all white. But most of those voters are people who generally lean Republican, said Earl Black, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston, who is an authority on Southern politics.

"It's probably compounded this year by presidential politics," Black said. "I can't imagine that John Kerry is an asset for her -- a kind of classic Massachusetts liberal with no real feel for the South. That presents too many opportunities for the Republicans to tie her to that part of the Democratic Party."

Tenenbaum has tried to inoculate herself against such attacks by taking positions opposite to those of most liberals on several social issues. She supports the death penalty, agrees with President Bush's decision to invade Iraq and supports bans on gay marriage and on the procedure known as "partial birth abortion."

So far, it hasn't seemed to work. DeMint's polling shows him leading 50 percent to 37 percent, a margin that Democratic chairman Erwin said is fairly close to that of Democratic polling. Tenenbaum even trails Kerry, who has slightly over 40 percent in Democratic polls.

Tenenbaum's campaign slogan, "an independent voice for the people of South Carolina," drew a laugh from professor Black.

"When an ideology needs to be disguised, it is a sign of real weakness," he said. "She's fighting larger trends than herself."