South Carolina crushed the Republican presidential candidate's hopes in 2000

South Carolina crushed the Republican presidential candidate's hopes in 2000. This time, he has a new battle plan -- and a 'truth squad.

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- John McCain, riding high from his victory in the New Hampshire primary, got a hero's welcome Wednesday as he arrived at sunset at South Carolina's elite military college, where he was lavishly introduced by pillars of the GOP establishment.

In an auditorium at the Citadel, silver-haired veterans waving small American flags greeted the former Navy fighter pilot. Fresh-faced cadets in crisp gray uniforms stood at attention onstage as the compliments poured forth from the state's House speaker and attorney general and from U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
"This man has seen it all face to face. He knows the world and the world knows him," said Atty. Gen. Henry McMaster.

Could there be a more unlikely setting than South Carolina for McCain's victory lap?

In his maverick 2000 presidential bid, South Carolina was McCain's Waterloo, where he was crushed by the state establishment's favorite, George W. Bush.

The senator from Arizona now returns to that blood-soaked political battlefield hoping to prove his appeal to the conservative party regulars he needs to keep his resurgent campaign on track for the long haul.

But South Carolina remains littered with political land mines for McCain. There are more evangelical conservatives here than in New Hampshire, and they view him with suspicion. And no one has forgotten the 2000 battle, which featured scathing personal attacks from both sides.

"There's some lingering resentment that sticks in your mouth," said David Woodard, a pollster at Clemson University who supported Bush.

McCain kicked off the new phase of his campaign Wednesday in economically troubled Michigan, a state he won in 2000.

GOP primary rules in Michigan allow independents to vote. That could make it possible for him to outpoll former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney -- whose father was a popular GOP governor there -- by assembling the same coalition of independents and Republicans that brought him victory in New Hampshire.

But in South Carolina, an all-Republican primary will test McCain's ability to compete with more-conservative candidates like former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has been leading in recent polls; Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee senator who is banking heavily on a strong showing in the state; and Romney, who came in second in New Hampshire.

Republican candidates fanned out across the post-New Hampshire political map Wednesday. But all of the major candidates will converge in Myrtle Beach, S.C., tonight for a debate to be broadcast by Fox News (at 6 p.m. PST).

McCain plans to remain in the state through the weekend. He is inaugurating a very different campaign than the one he conducted here in 2000, underscoring changes in his style, and in the country, in the last eight years.

He is better-organized, reflecting his decision -- criticized in some quarters -- to temper his maverick style with outreach to the establishment.

His signature issue is no longer campaign finance; that has been eclipsed by the war in Iraq and immigration.

South Carolina's 2000 primary was a turning point for McCain, coming on the heels of a surprising victory over Bush in New Hampshire. Bush fought back hard. The state was flooded with negative ads and mailings and phone-jamming calls from both campaigns. The most personal slam -- coming from anonymous sources -- was a rumor that McCain had fathered a black child. He and his wife have an adopted dark-skinned daughter from Bangladesh.

"We were literally stunned the last time by some of that," McCain said early this week, reflecting on the ferocity of the campaign. "To think that people would be making phone calls to say that -- did you know that we have a black baby? -- I mean, that was beyond belief."

This time McCain's campaign has formed a "truth squad" to respond to any attacks on the candidate. Addressing another perceived shortcoming, McCain worked hard to build the institutional support he lacked in 2000, heavily courting the top party leaders and former Bush fundraisers.

His team is led by Graham, McMaster and Bobby Harrell, speaker of the state's House of Representatives, where more than half of the members have endorsed McCain.

That support may not be enough to blunt the opposition he will meet over his controversial proposal that would provide a way for illegal immigrants to become citizens, which critics deride as amnesty for lawbreakers. Sentiment runs so strong that when Graham, a McCain ally on the issue, discussed it at a state GOP convention, he was booed.

McCain lately has distanced himself from the bill. But Tuesday, even before McCain made his victory speech in New Hampshire, the South Carolina group Columbia Christians for Life fired off an e-mail urging conservatives to expose "John McAmnesty McCain's" immigration record before the state's primary.

McCain also faces trouble from the state's sizable faction of religious conservatives -- a group that was a potent force in Huckabee's victory in Iowa. He has tried to mend fences with those he had alienated in a blistering 2000 attack on evangelical leaders. McCain spokesman B.J. Boling sees progress in New Hampshire exit polls that showed McCain split the vote of born-again Christians there with Huckabee almost evenly.

Still, hard feelings linger. Drew McKissick, a South Carolina Romney backer, said McCain's record since 2000, especially his position on immigration, had made the senator even less palatable.

"His level of support among religious and social conservatives is abysmal," said McKissick, a member of the Christian Coalition's national board. "It was not good in 2000, and he's done nothing but aggravate conservatives since then."

McCain's advisors acknowledge that they face a difficult race with Southerners Huckabee, who is a Southern Baptist minister, and Thompson.

But they believe McCain is now a far stronger candidate than in 2000 because of the public's focus on war and national security issues.

McCain's camp plans to lean heavily on veterans -- especially some of the men McCain was held with in a North Vietnamese prison camp -- on the campaign trail.

"The fundamental difference between South Carolina today and South Carolina eight years ago is that we're in a war with hundreds of thousands of men and women, many of them from South Carolina, deployed in harm's way in Afghanistan and Iraq," said McCain advisor Steve Schmidt.

"That resonates in South Carolina."

At the Citadel rally, McMaster appealed to the local community's respect for the military in making the pitch for McCain.

"This man is the only one who has worn the uniform," he said. "He's the only one who's been in battle; he is the one who is prepared to be the next commander in chief right now."

McCain said he hoped the 2000 campaign's bitterness was a distant memory for South Carolina's voters. "Eight years is a long, long time in politics," McCain said.

Source-http://www.latimes.com
By Maeve Reston and Janet Hook, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
January 10, 2008

THE ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE: BEYOND NEW HAMPSHIRE

Battles loom in Michigan and Nevada
Democratic race settles into two-person contest, while it's a wide-open competition for the Republicans

PAUL KORING

January 10, 2008

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Republican presidential hopes turned to Michigan, Democrats' to Nevada yesterday after tiny New Hampshire recast the race for the White House.

For Republican Mitt Romney, Michigan looms as a must-win, a home-field battleground where he grew up and his father was governor.

For the Mormon and former Massachusetts governor, who invested millions and months in Iowa and New Hampshire, only to lose both, a third defeat in Michigan could effectively finish his White House bid.

"It's just getting started," Mr. Romney, 60, insisted yesterday, but in an ominous sign, his free-spending campaign suspended television advertising in South Carolina.
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The Globe and Mail

For Senator John McCain, buoyed by his New Hampshire victory, a win in Michigan would make him the Republican front-runner, a remarkable turnabout for the 71-year-old former naval aviator and prisoner of war whose presidential bid all but collapsed last summer.

"Nothing is quite as invigorating as a win," Mr. McCain said yesterday on his arrival in Michigan, where the Republican primary is next Tuesday. "We won here in 2000 and we will win again in 2008."

Barack Obama said his disappointing second place in New Hampshire only adds resolve to his White House bid.

"We are the insurgent campaign," the 46-year-old black Illinois senator said after New Hampshire voters refuted the predictions of pollsters and pundits that his momentum was unstoppable.

"Over the last few days, because of our win in Iowa, I think that folks started to anoint us in a way that they were anointing Senator Clinton back in the summer - and that's always a dangerous place to be."

So treacherous is it that Mr. Obama lost, albeit narrowly, to the party-establishment machine headed by Ms. Clinton, 60, whose come-from-behind win in New Hampshire transformed the Democratic race into a tough, two-contender fight.

As if to demonstrate that, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson ended his campaign yesterday after twin fourth-place finishes that showed his impressive credentials could not compete with his rivals' star power.

He planned to announce the decision today, two people close to the governor said.

Ms. Clinton's victory in New Hampshire came at the hands of women, union members and bedrock blue-collar Democrats who turned out in record numbers to right her listing campaign.

She admitted it had been a wild final 48 hours since polls showed her trailing Mr. Obama by double-digits.

"It was an emotional roller-ride," she said yesterday.

"I'm up and I'm at it, and I'm going to keep going as we take on all the rest of the contests between now and Feb. 5." She was referring to Super Tuesday, when more than 20 states vote and more than half of the delegates that will select the presidential standard-bearer of each party are at stake.

The next Democratic contest is Nevada, where yesterday Mr. Obama picked up a key endorsement from the mostly Hispanic Culinary Workers Union, whose 60,000 members service the hotels and casinos in Las Vegas strip.

Beyond Michigan and Nevada looms South Carolina, the next major contest for Republicans on Jan. 19 and the Democrats a week later.

Former senator John Edwards, who was John Kerry's running mate on the unsuccessful 2004 Democratic ticket and who trailed a distant third in both Iowa and New Hampshire this year, must win in South Carolina or face political oblivion.

More than 50 per cent of registered Democrats in South Carolina are black and the primary will be the first head-to-head contest for that key bloc.

"I feel a lot more comfortable now understanding this is a victory we are going to have to earn, and the American people are not just going to hand over the keys to the White House," Mr. Obama said yesterday.

If the Democratic race seems to have settled into a two-person contest, the Republican field remains wide open.

In addition to Mr. McCain, Mr. Romney and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani is waiting in the wings after spending little time or money on the small, first states.

"I think his strategy is looking better and better," Paul Cellucci, the Giuliani campaign manager and a former ambassador to Canada, said yesterday.

"Six weeks ago, we were worried about Mitt Romney winning big in Iowa, winning big in New Hampshire."

Instead there have been "different winners in Iowa and in New Hampshire. We could have a different winner in Michigan," while Mr. Giuliani campaigns hard in Florida, and the big states are scheduled to vote on Super Tuesday.

***

The Republican voter

Exit polling of primary voters shows that John McCain is winning support from a broad spectrum of the electorate.

***

NEW HAMPSHIRE

SEX
McCain Romney Huckabee Other
MALE 35% 31% 10% 24%
FEMALE 38% 32% 13% 17%

***

AGE
McCain Romney Huckabee Other
18-24 27% 17% 15% 41%
25-29 37% 33% 11% 19%
30-39 38% 28% 12% 22%
40-49 35% 31% 12% 22%
50-64 38% 30% 12% 20%
65+ 40% 44% 7% 9%

***

FAMILY'S FINANCIAL SITUATION
McCain Romney Huckabee Other
Getting ahead financially 35% 32% 14% 19%
Holding steady 37% 32% 12% 19%
Falling behind 38% 26% 12% 24%

***

DECIDED WHOM TO SUPPORT
McCain Romney Huckabee Other
Today 36% 33% 12% 19%
Within three days of caucus 46% 29% 12% 13%
In the last week 46% 25% 8% 21%
In the last month 32% 32% 14% 22%
Before that 30% 33% 11% 26%

SOURCE: NEW YORK TIMES

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