South Carolina Contest Will Send Signals Beyond the South

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina Democrats will render a verdict on their party's presidential candidates on Saturday, a contest that is likely to reverberate beyond the South in the weeks ahead.

And while the contest here has narrowed, the outcome in this first test of Southern Democratic sentiments could help resolve some of the lingering questions about each of the remaining three candidates.

Can Illinois Sen. Barack Obama expand his appeal beyond African Americans and younger voters? Can New York Sen. Hillary Clinton win back black voters after the bruising, racially tinged contest here? And is this the end of the national political career of South Carolina native John Edwards?

The final polls before the voting Saturday show Obama with a comfortable lead over Clinton and Edwards, largely on the strength of support from African Americans, who make up half of the Democratic primary electorate.

But a new McClatchy/MSNBC poll holds warning signs for Obama, the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas. Despite leading Clinton 38-30 percent in the poll, Obama's support among white Democrats here has fallen from 20 percent to 10 percent amid all the discussion of race in the primary. The poll had a margin of error of 5 percentage points.

After losing New Hampshire and Nevada to Clinton earlier this month, "this is a must-win for Obama," said Bruce Ransom, a politics professor at Clemson University. Even so, "one is left with this notion that he might end up winning the state but be labeled as the 'black candidate,'" he added.

Obama won the Iowa caucus, the first event of the 2008 nominating, on the strength of support from whites, blacks, younger voters and women. But since then, he has managed to top Clinton only among African Americans and voters under the age of 45.

With a commanding lead among blacks – 55-18 percent over Clinton in the latest tracking poll by pollster John Zogby – Obama sought Friday to overcome his demographic weaknesses.

He held events in Charleston and Columbia, the state's two largest cities, with small groups of women in which he pledged to boost government spending on preschool, preventive health care and other social service programs.

At his Columbia stop, he also proposed that the federal government work more actively with states to prevent mortgage foreclosures. The mortgage crunch "impacts women more and minorities more, who were induced to take out loans that in the long-term were not sustainable," he said.

Clinton, too, sought to shore up the cracks in her campaign demographics, specifically, the loss of African American support in the weeks since remarks she made that blacks viewed as disparaging of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.'s legacy.

At Benedict College, an historically black college, in Columbia on Friday, Clinton got endorsements from two locally prominent black women who urged African Americans to vote with their heads instead of their emotions on Saturday.

"For some of us, it may take a very, very bold step to walk into that voting booth and focus on our community's future rather than acting on pure emotion," said Stacey Jones, a Benedict College dean.

Similarly, Richland County Councilwoman Bernice Scott said the decision Saturday should come down to which candidate can "feed the sheep." She added, "Senator Clinton has a record that can feed everybody. And we need to be fed."

For Clinton, it was a rare appearance before a predominantly black audience in South Carolina. But she sought to make the most of it, bringing with her two pioneer African-American politicians in the country – former New York Mayor David Dinkins and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel.

For Edwards, a third-place showing in South Carolina, where he scored his only primary victory in his 2004 campaign for the Democratic nomination, would seriously diminish his chances of success this year. He finished second in Iowa, a distant third in New Hampshire and an even more distant third in Nevada.

But since Monday night's debate in Myrtle Beach, dominated by squabbling between Obama and Clinton, Edwards has moved up 6 percentage points in Zogby's daily tracking surveys. On Friday, Edwards polled 21 percent, within striking distance of Clinton, at 25 percent, but well behind Obama, at 38 percent. The poll's margin of error was 3.4 percentage points.

"The real movement here is by John Edwards, whose support has increased every day since the debate," said Zogby.

Also, though, Edwards "has taken advantage to some extent the rise in interest in economic issues, (which) he's been campaigning on ... throughout the primary season," said Ransom.

"The question is whether he can get enough speed to change the dynamics of the line-up and move himself out of the third spot," added Ransom.

Edwards, campaigning Friday near Seneca, his birthplace, criticized Clinton and Obama for bringing their "New York and Chicago brand of politics" to South Carolina.

Later, speaking to reporters, Edwards said of his rivals: "While they're intent on tearing each other down, I'm intent on building up the people of South Carolina, giving them a real chance, focusing on jobs, health care, things that really affect their day-to-day lives."

South Carolina is the last major contest for the Democrats before the Feb. 5 round of primaries and caucuses in 22 states from coast to coast, a mega-election day that many party activists expect to result in the selection of the party's nominee.

But some party officials are now entertaining the prospect of a delegate-by-delegate fight among the remaining three candidates until Democrats hold their nominating convention this summer.

Clinton appeared to be preparing for such a fight when she issued a statement Friday calling for the convention to seat delegations from Florida and Michigan, states stripped of their delegates for scheduling primaries in January, in violation of party rules.

"I believe our nominee will need the enthusiastic support of Democrats in these states to win the general election, and so I will ask my Democratic convention delegates to support seating the delegations from Florida and Michigan," she said.

More than 350 delegates from the two states could be seated at the convention if the convention delegates allow it. Many Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have said they expect the nominee to unite the party by making the kind of request that Clinton made Friday.

The major Democratic candidates, in observance of party rules, did not campaign in Michigan earlier this month and have skipped Florida, which holds its primary Tuesday.

But Clinton, unlike Obama and Edwards, did not remove her name from the Michigan ballot and could claim most of its delegates because of her win in the primary there. Moreover, she has a 2-1 lead in polls in Florida, which had 185 convention delegates before the national party stripped them from the Sunshine State.

Clinton urged Obama and Edwards to join her in supporting the seating of Michigan and Florida delegates. Obama campaign manager David Plouffe dismissed Clinton's actions as political theater and pandering to Florida and Michigan voters.

"No one is more disappointed that Florida Democrats will have no role in selecting delegates for the nomination of the party's standard-bearer than Senator Obama," Plouffe said.

"Senator Clinton's own campaign has repeatedly said that this is a contest for delegates, and Florida is a contest that offers zero. Whether it is Barack Obama's record, her position on Social Security, or even the meaning of the Florida primary, it seems like Hillary Clinton will do or say anything to win an election," he added.