State prepares for primary

On Tuesday, it's our turn.

On Tuesday, the national spotlight, the political analysts and the hopes of seven Democratic presidential candidates come to South Carolina.

But the Palmetto State will have to share the glare with six other states. And this past week, it looked as though the candidates would ignore the Grand Strand, thanks to its overwhelmingly Republican makeup and its relative remoteness from the well-worn campaign trail between Charleston and Greenville.

That changed as Wesley Clark supporters, including his wife, visited the House of Blues on Saturday and John Edwards, who leads in several S.C. polls, still planned a Georgetown stump today. Georgetown also had a supporting role in the state's primary earlier this month, as candidates seized on the closure of Georgetown Steel to propose their cure to the country's job woes.

As the Tuesday primary approaches, the candidates will focus their energies where they can reach the most potential voters - Charleston, Columbia, Greenville and the occasional barbecue stand in between.

With seven candidates in a hotly contested race, Democrats and Republicans across the Grand Strand, the state and the country are paying close attention to what happens Tuesday in South Carolina. Many say the state's primary will be a political bellwether for the rest of the South. The high interest in the primary will likely bring a record number to the polls.

The decision will be made by loyal Democrats, experts say, and in Horry County, they're a rare breed. The county's Democratic Party, charged with staffing all of the county's 108 voting precincts Tuesday, is struggling to find volunteers. The local campaigns have held a few sporadically attended events, mostly meetings at the homes of supporters.

Sally Howard, a Myrtle Beach resident and a member of the state party's executive committee, is backing Edwards. Howard has watched Democratic primaries for years and said this contest is attracting more interest than usual.

"It's very exciting for the state," Howard said. "The more candidates there are, the more interest there is. I'm predicting a pretty high turnout."

For months, analysts and the candidates themselves said South Carolina would be a key primary and would outshine the other six states holding contests Tuesday. But after U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt dropped out of the race after a poor showing at the Iowa Caucus, his native Missouri became Tuesday's hot contest, along with South Carolina, said Stuart Rothenberg, a national campaign analyst often seen on CNN.

Oklahoma, Arizona, Delaware, New Mexico and North Dakota also hold primaries Tuesday. At stake in the seven races are a total of 269 delegates, more than 12 percent of the 2,162 needed to win the nomination.

Most of the candidates, who have spent the past five days traveling from one primary state to another, insist that South Carolina is the contest to watch, their representatives say.

"Missouri may be the Show Me state, but South Carolina remains the showdown state," said Jenni Engebretsen, a spokeswoman for Sen. John Edwards' S.C. campaign.

Edwards has spent much of the past five days in South Carolina. Still, he will make rapid trips outside the state to campaign in the other states.

"The candidates are more dispersed than we expected," Rothenberg said. "It doesn't totally dilute the importance of South Carolina. It's one of the more prominent contests. But instead of being the most prominent battle, it now shares that title with Missouri."

The race's current front-runner - Sen. John Kerry, who has wins in Iowa and New Hampshire - suggested last week that a Democrat could win the White House without the support of the South. During last week's debate in Greenville, he backtracked somewhat, but Kerry's campaign hasn't done much here lately. Neither has the campaign of former front-runner Howard Dean.

Studies suggest that 35 percent to 50 percent of the voters casting a ballot Tuesday will be black, leading many analysts to predict a strong showing for the Rev. Al Sharpton, the only black candidate, Rothenberg said.

Most analysts say Sen. John Edwards will win the primary. He was born in South Carolina, represents North Carolina in the Senate and has campaigned more heavily in South Carolina than any other candidate.

Rothenberg said Edwards will likely drop out if he doesn't win the state. He also said Sen. Joe Lieberman should accept defeat unless he does well Tuesday.

Spokesmen for all the candidates remain confident their candidates will resonate with S.C. voters.

"South Carolina will be a litmus test for the South," said Barry Butler, S.C. campaign director for Sen. Joe Lieberman. "There's a more conservative base of Democrats here."

Other analysts backed away from generalizations and said any use of assumptions as a strategy may be unwise.

"I'm not sure South Carolina is a microcosm for anything other than South Carolina," said Coastal Carolina University politics Professor Edgar Dyer. "I always chuckle when national political analysts talk about the South, as if it was a giant voting block, or about the Black Vote, as if all African-Americans think the same thing and always vote alike."

Analysts said all campaigns act upon assumptions about voters. The campaign with the most accurate assumptions and the best message usually wins. In South Carolina, the candidates are buying ads on radio stations they think reach black voters; they're visiting areas like Georgetown to reach out to blue-collar workers, and they're visiting Charleston, Columbia and Greenville to take advantage of the media outlets there, which will spread their messages across the state.

Local Democrats have focused their energies more on ensuring all the precincts will be open, rather than advocating particular candidates.

"Right now, we've got our hands full just making sure all the precincts are open and manned and have all the ballots in place," said Greg McCollum, chairman of the Horry County Democratic Party.

Regardless of the victor, analysts and the campaigns agree Tuesday's primary is the highest-profile moment for the Palmetto State's Democratic Party in years. Even though more state residents will watch today's Super Bowl than cast votes Tuesday, analysts couldn't avoid the comparison.

"This is like the World Series or the Super Bowl," Dyer said. "This is history happening as we watch."