Thompson, Huckabee Face Crucial South Carolina Test

CLEMSON, S.C. — For one of the Southerners seeking the Republican presidential nomination, Saturday's first-in-Dixie primary could be a last stand.

More than any other candidate, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson has a lot on the line when South Carolinians head to the polls.

It also will be a significant test for another son of the South, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who could have to explain how he lost a southern state to an older gentleman from Arizona.

On Thursday, Huckabee and Thompson played up their Southern roots as they campaigned around the state.

"Talking to the folks here is a lot like talking to folks in a large part of Tennessee," Thompson said at Columbia's Sunset Grill, a bass-on-the-wall kind of place.

Later Thursday, Huckabee, campaigning with actor Chuck Norris and wrestler Ric Flair, played bass guitar with a college band knocking out Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" in a Clemson University gym.

"South Carolina is a state we plan to win and we plan to win it because we know there are people in this state who have a whole lot more confidence in a guy who has governed a Southern state successfully and effectively rather than some guy who has been in Washington and we still got the same problems we had before," Huckabee said in a reference to John McCain.

Experts see a decisive primary here as South Carolina Republicans add their two cents toward deciding whether the nation will end 20 years of presidents who claimed southern states as home. Dating back to 1976, only Californian Ronald Reagan has broken the string of southern presidents.

Emory University political scientist Merle Black, a longtime student of southern politics, says Saturday is crucial for both Thompson and Huckabee, but potentially life-threatening to Thompson's campaign because "he has done so poorly in the previous contests and has spent a lot of time in South Carolina trying to catch up."

"He really needs a strong second or a close third or something like that," he said.

The Thompson camp defines "something like that" as a win or "close second," said campaign strategist Rich Galen.

The candidate knows it, too.

"We've had different winners in different states. And it's my turn. And it needs to be my turn," he said earlier in the week, calling South Carolina his entrance a "new ball game."

Black said Saturday could be game over for Thompson, who finished sixth with 1 percent in New Hampshire, tied for third with 13 percent in Iowa and came in fifth in Michigan with 4 percent.

"If he finishes fourth or a distant third than I think the Thompson campaign will be over," Black said.

Polls show that's where Thompson is headed.

A Clemson University Palmetto Poll conducted Jan. 9 through Tuesday showed Thompson running fourth at 10 percent, behind McCain's 29, Huckabee's 22 and Mitt Romney's 13.

An American Research Group poll conducted this week shows McCain at 33, Huckabee at 23, Romney at 20 and Thompson at 13.

For Huckabee, with an Iowa win and third-place New Hampshire and Michigan finishes in his pocket, a win here would be helpful but a solid second-place finish would keep his campaign moving toward the Jan. 29 contest in Florida, the first in which Giuliani really is competing.

The Huckabee-Thompson battle here is an intramural one.

"I think Huckabee and us are fishing out of generally the same pond," Galen said as he stood in front of one of the fish-on-the-walls at the Sunset Grill.

Thompson has gone aggressive on Huckabee, including branding him as a "moderate" on some issues and a "liberal" on others.

On Thursday, he linked Huckabee to "push polling" in which voters are told incorrect information about Thompson.

"It seems to be coming from one direction, but I won't call names, but Governor Huckabee says he doesn't know anything about it so I guess we'll have to take his word for it," he said, detailing calls he said misstate his position on abortion.

Huckabee pushed his southern bona fides this week by telling MSNBC, "South Carolina's a great place for me. I mean, I know how to eat grits and speak the language. We even know how to talk about eating fried squirrel and stuff like that, so we're on the same wave length."

Fried squirrel?

"When I was in college we used to take a popcorn popper, 'cause that was the only thing that they'd let us use in the dorms, and we would fry squirrel in popcorn poppers in my dorm room," he explained.

Thompson countered the cuisine offensive Thursday during his Sunset Grill appearance.

"It's good to be back in home territory where they know how to cook green beans and they're not crunchy. So we're feeling good and looking forward," he said.

As the balloting approaches, an issue from the past – the Confederate flag – resurfaced at a McCain event and on a radio ad.

The ad, paid for by the Atlanta-based Americans for the Preservation of American Culture, chided a comment by Romney that the flag "shouldn't be shown" and noted that McCain once said his southern ancestors were on the wrong side.

The ad praised Huckabee as "a southerner who understands why southerners value our heritage, that honoring the flag is honoring our heritage. And he says it's our issue and it should be up to us to decide."

The flag was an issue in the 2000 primaries as the state debated whether to remove it from the Capitol. It later was taken down and put elsewhere on the Capitol grounds.

On its Web site, Americans for the Preservation of American Culture has posted video clips of McCain, Romney and Thompson speaking against displaying the flag and accused them of a willingness to "pander to the politically correct."

During a Wednesday town hall meeting, McCain was confronted by a man who didn't like McCain's stance on the flag.

In 2000, McCain said it was a state issue. He now says his position was an "act of cowardice" and he should have spoken in favor of removing the flag.

"Sir," he told the questioner, "I cannot be more proud of the overwhelming majority of the people of this state who joined together taking that flag off the Capitol dome, putting it in the place where it belongs, of the many people of South Carolina who have made the decision to settle this issue against people like you, sir."

During a November debate, a Houston man asked the candidates if they view the Confederate flag flying on the grounds of his home as "the symbol of racism, a symbol of political ideology, a symbol of southern heritage — or, is it something completely different."

Thompson said he knows "that everybody who hangs the flag up in their room like that is not racist."

"I also know that for a great many Americans it's a symbol of racism," he said. "He's free to do whatever he wants to in his home. As far as a public place is concerned, I am glad that people have made the decision not to display it as a prominent flag, symbolic of something, at a state capitol."

Huckabee didn't weigh in, but said Thursday in Myrtle Beach that it's a state issue.

"You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag," he said. "In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell 'em what to do with the pole, that's what we'd do."

The Thompson campaign insists it's a non-issue.

"The only people that care about the flag issue here are reporters who come in and ask about the flag issue," Galen said.