COLUMBIA, S.C. - Less than a week after announcing his intention to seek the presidency, retired Gen. Wesley Clark is turning his attention to South Carolina, a key Southern state with an early make-or-break primary.

Campaign officials for the Democratic candidate and state political observers say Clark, the 10th to enter the race for the White House, still has time to make a showing in the first-in-the-South Feb. 3 primary.

"It's a key state for everybody. I think any Democratic candidate that hopes to win in November has to win in the South," said Mark Fabiani, a paid adviser for former President Clinton's 1992 campaign and now for Clark's. "I think that was a lesson we learned in 2000, despite the strength of the economy, despite the strength of the Clinton-Gore administration."

Clark is wasting little time getting to know South Carolina voters. He will address cadets at The Citadel on Monday.

He plans to meet with folks at a restaurant in downtown Charleston before he heads to the state's military college, where his campaign has rented a large hall to address Citadel cadets about the role of the military in America.

The general had planned his first campaign stop in South Carolina on Thursday - a day after he officially declared his candidacy - but Hurricane Isabel concerns scrapped those plans, Fabiani said. "That's a good indication of the priority, I think, we place on the state," he said.

Clark has surrounded himself with other key advisers, including Donnie Fowler, who was former Vice President Al Gore's national field director for the 2000 presidential bid and son of former Democratic National Committee Chairman Don Fowler of Columbia.

Steven Goldberg, a 35-year-old Charleston attorney who was part of a summer drive to convince Clark to run, said supporters are lined up to help with the campaign in the state.

Dick Harpootlian, a former South Carolina Democratic Party chairman, said Clark has an impressive resume as a Rhodes Scholar, top of his class at West Point, former NATO commander and a former foreign policy analyst for CNN.

But as a politician, "he's unproven, untried, untested," Harpootlian said. "Can he project himself as somebody people can feel good about?"

Goldberg thinks South Carolinians can relate to the 58-year-old Clark from Arkansas.

"He has the kind of spirit and the kind of emotion that Southerners have," Goldberg said.

It remains to be seen how veterans in the state will react to Clark's stance against the war in Iraq, which he tried to clarify during a campaign stop in Iowa on Friday.

There was controversy about a comment he had made en route to a campaign appearance in Florida where he said he "probably" would have voted to authorize use of force in Iraq.

"Let's make one thing real clear, I would never have voted for this war," Clark said. "There was no imminent threat. This was not a case of pre-emptive war. I would have voted for the right kind of leverage to get a diplomatic solution, an international solution to the challenge of Saddam Hussein."

Winthrop University political scientist Scott Huffmon said that kind of talk may be easier to swallow coming from Clark. A "four-star general has more currency than a Northeastern former governor," Huffmon said, referring to rival Howard Dean who is at the top of many polls.

Despite Clark's late entry in the race, he still has time to impress South Carolina voters.

Until now, only political experts and the media have closely followed candidates crisscrossing early voting states, but the public is starting to pay attention, Huffmon said.

"We've been watching every click up the hill and this roller coaster is about to start going," he said.