Saguaro
11-10-2007, 03:56 PM
COLUMBIA, United States (AFP) - Two fierce 2008 election showdowns are shaping up in South Carolina, the southern state where blood sport politics will test the mettle of even the toughest White House hopeful.
Campaigns here wallow in a nervous cocktail of race and religion, which has spawned some of America's hardest-headed election operatives and the most brutal and personal negative attacks.
In their respective races for their parties' nominations for the 2008 election, Republicans are squabbling over disaffected Christian conservatives while the democratic race appears hinged on who can best mobilize African American voters: Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.
South Carolina is witnessing a fissure in the mighty Republican "religious right" bloc, which helped put George W. Bush in the White House but lacks a clear favorite in 2008.
"They are divided up," said Neal Thigpen, a political science professor at Francis Marion University.
"God, gays, guns, all that stuff is still around, but it isn't the kind of thing that gets talked about much this year."
Polls show voters are more concerned with Iraq and the economy than social issues that mobilized Republicans in the past, but candidates will ignore social issues at their own risk ahead of the "first in the South" primary in January, which follows contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.
"For 28 years, everyone who has won the nomination in South Carolina has gone on to win the Republican nomination," state Republican chairman Katon Dawson said.
"Anyone who does not pay attention to the social conservative voters in South Carolina would do so at his own peril."
Consequently, Republican hopefuls are grabbing for the movement's splinter factions.
For Mitt Romney, the former governor of liberal Massachusetts, the state may dictate whether suspicious evangelicals will accept his Mormon religion.
Former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani leads national polls but struggles to court the same voters who are put off by his liberal stands on abortion and gay rights.
South Carolina might be a first and last stand, meanwhile, for ex-screen star and southerner Fred Thompson.
A Winthrop/ETV poll of South Carolinians released last week had Romney in a surprising statistical tie for first place with Giuliani and Thompson.
No candidate has tried harder: Romney has attended 57 events across the state and spent more than a million dollars on advertising, direct mail and consultants.
Latecomer Thompson entered the race in September, but as a Christian conservative southerner he does well in the polls, though his lackadaisical style has several insiders predicting Giuliani and Romney will pull ahead.
The Democratic primary also promises to be a bellweather.
Here again, candidates are feuding over an important, though less predictable, voting bloc -- African Americans, likely to account for up to 60 percent of the primary turnout.
Clinton and Obama look set to divide the vote, although third place John Edwards has some residual support from his 2004 presidential campaign.
Polls by ARG and Winthrop/ETV last week showed Clinton up by 10 to 20 points, but no one considers she has a lock on the race, given the reach of Obama's grassroots network and the state's reputed resistance to accurate polling.
To win black votes, Clinton has relied on her ex-president husband Bill's civil rights record and relationships with the community forged over a decade-and-a-half of national politics.
Obama, vying to become America's first black president, has reached out through African-American-run barbershops and beauty salons, which double as neighborhood hangouts, and gospel concerts.
Amaya Smith, Obama's state press secretary, said the goal is to "involve people who have never been involved in the process before."
"You see older African Americans talking to the press, saying, 'Yeah, I met Obama.'" Smith said.
The Democratic primary is expected on either January 19 or 29, depending on whether national organizers agree to the earlier date.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071110/ts_alt_afp/usvote2008scarolina_071110173840;_ylt=AjpKEdQtduBZ ONgjyMIFmfPkbeRF
Campaigns here wallow in a nervous cocktail of race and religion, which has spawned some of America's hardest-headed election operatives and the most brutal and personal negative attacks.
In their respective races for their parties' nominations for the 2008 election, Republicans are squabbling over disaffected Christian conservatives while the democratic race appears hinged on who can best mobilize African American voters: Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.
South Carolina is witnessing a fissure in the mighty Republican "religious right" bloc, which helped put George W. Bush in the White House but lacks a clear favorite in 2008.
"They are divided up," said Neal Thigpen, a political science professor at Francis Marion University.
"God, gays, guns, all that stuff is still around, but it isn't the kind of thing that gets talked about much this year."
Polls show voters are more concerned with Iraq and the economy than social issues that mobilized Republicans in the past, but candidates will ignore social issues at their own risk ahead of the "first in the South" primary in January, which follows contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.
"For 28 years, everyone who has won the nomination in South Carolina has gone on to win the Republican nomination," state Republican chairman Katon Dawson said.
"Anyone who does not pay attention to the social conservative voters in South Carolina would do so at his own peril."
Consequently, Republican hopefuls are grabbing for the movement's splinter factions.
For Mitt Romney, the former governor of liberal Massachusetts, the state may dictate whether suspicious evangelicals will accept his Mormon religion.
Former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani leads national polls but struggles to court the same voters who are put off by his liberal stands on abortion and gay rights.
South Carolina might be a first and last stand, meanwhile, for ex-screen star and southerner Fred Thompson.
A Winthrop/ETV poll of South Carolinians released last week had Romney in a surprising statistical tie for first place with Giuliani and Thompson.
No candidate has tried harder: Romney has attended 57 events across the state and spent more than a million dollars on advertising, direct mail and consultants.
Latecomer Thompson entered the race in September, but as a Christian conservative southerner he does well in the polls, though his lackadaisical style has several insiders predicting Giuliani and Romney will pull ahead.
The Democratic primary also promises to be a bellweather.
Here again, candidates are feuding over an important, though less predictable, voting bloc -- African Americans, likely to account for up to 60 percent of the primary turnout.
Clinton and Obama look set to divide the vote, although third place John Edwards has some residual support from his 2004 presidential campaign.
Polls by ARG and Winthrop/ETV last week showed Clinton up by 10 to 20 points, but no one considers she has a lock on the race, given the reach of Obama's grassroots network and the state's reputed resistance to accurate polling.
To win black votes, Clinton has relied on her ex-president husband Bill's civil rights record and relationships with the community forged over a decade-and-a-half of national politics.
Obama, vying to become America's first black president, has reached out through African-American-run barbershops and beauty salons, which double as neighborhood hangouts, and gospel concerts.
Amaya Smith, Obama's state press secretary, said the goal is to "involve people who have never been involved in the process before."
"You see older African Americans talking to the press, saying, 'Yeah, I met Obama.'" Smith said.
The Democratic primary is expected on either January 19 or 29, depending on whether national organizers agree to the earlier date.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071110/ts_alt_afp/usvote2008scarolina_071110173840;_ylt=AjpKEdQtduBZ ONgjyMIFmfPkbeRF