After January, it's goodbye South Carolina

By Lee Bandy
SouthCarolina Insider

(1/4/07) South Carolina’s role in helping pick the 2008 presidential candidates for the two major political parties is about to end.

On Jan. 16, the state will hold the first-in-the-South primary to select a GOP presidential candidate.

Democrats will follow with their own state presidential primary on Jan. 26.

And that’ll be all she wrote.

“It’ll be good-bye” South Carolina, said Francis Marion University political scientist Neal Thigpen.

With the national media, camera crews, political consultants, volunteers, observers and campaign staffers gone, the state will look like a ghost town come Jan. 26, the end of the presidential primaries in South Carolina for 2008.

Candidates will depart en masse, carrying their campaigns to new, fertile territory that they hope will lead them to the promise land.

But it’s highly unlikely any of them will return to South Carolina for the general election.

The reason?

The GOP has a lock on South Carolina. It’s one of the most Republican states in the nation in presidential election years. It ranks right up there with Utah and Idaho.

So, why waste money and other resources on a state the party already has the election in the bag, Republicans say.

Democrats offer a similar argument for not returning but for an entirely different reason. Why spend funds in a state the Democrats have no chance of winning? they say.

In the last presidential contest, neither party spent money in South Carolina, thus freeing up scarce funds for more competitive states.

South Carolina has been on edge for weeks as the primary contest draws nigh.

With this being one of the early-voting states in the nation, all eyes are focused on what happens here. It could signal the candidate who becomes the next president.

Since the primaries and caucuses have been pushed up early in the calendar, what happens here could sway the results in other states.

Republican and Democratic candidates alike have been hopscotching non-stop across South Carolina in search of votes.

The race has been tense. It has been the longest campaign session in memory.

The lines have been drawn. Polls show an extremely tight race between U.S. Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Clinton and former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.

The Republican contest between former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona remains a nail- biter.

“There isn’t any reason for candidates to hang around here once the voters have had their say,” said Thigpen.
“The general election is a foregone conclusion.”

One remembers the 1988 election when then Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis was the Democratic nominee. Both the Republican and Democratic parties shut down their S.C. campaign headquarters.

For all practical purposes, that election had already been settled in South Carolina.

“That’s what going to happen here after January,” Thigpen said. “We’re going to be lucky to see anyone here come fall…After the primary it’ll be good-bye.”

“This will be the last time you’ll see these candidates until 2012,” said Winthrop University analyst Scott Huffmon.

The general election battle is going to be fought out on the battlefields of states like Michigan and Ohio, he said.

And what will politicos in South Carolina do during this time?

“We’ll probably go back into hibernation,” said Clemson University professor Dave Woodard.

“The closest a candidate will come to this state is when they fly over South Carolina 15,000 feet in the air on the way to another state,” he quipped.

The S.C. GOP primary will likely be called upon to play the role is has repeatedly been asked to play and that is to sort out the muddled Republican field by the time it gets here in a couple of weeks.

South Carolina will be a major player and probably serve as a launching pad for the leading Republican candidate heading into the round of 22 primaries on Feb. 5.

South Carolina will have its 15 minutes of fame on Jan. 16 and 26, the date for its two primaries.

If the voters want to meet and rub shoulders with the presidential candidates, they’d better do it now. Because after January, the candidates won’t even set foot in this state.