SC Ping
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Posted on 06/24/2004 10:48:34 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Expect ‘real war’ in Senate race
By LEE BANDY
Staff Writer
Now comes the tough task — winning the U.S. Senate seat in November.
Nothing is guaranteed.
Whoever wins will have to earn it.
The challenge for both Democratic nominee Inez Tenenbaum and Republican victor Jim DeMint is to win a lion’s share of the state’s 280,000 swing voters.
Those voters are going to determine this race. There are not enough Democrats or Republicans to elect one of their own to statewide office.
According to most recent exit polls, 40 percent of South Carolinians call themselves Republicans, 32 percent Democrats and 28 percent independents.
“The swing vote is critical,” Francis Marion University political scientist Neal Thigpen says. “You’ve got to have them. They hold the balance of power.”
Both sides plan an aggressive outreach to those independent-minded voters.
“We’ll win the bulk of them,” says Terry Sullivan, campaign manager for DeMint.
Swing voters are mainly suburbanites who don’t identify with either political party. They are highly educated, tend to be economic conservatives and reject ideologues. They typically don’t turn out in primaries and recoil from strong negative campaigns.
Also, they are disproportionately women, concentrated mostly in the Midlands. Fifty-six percent of the registered voters in South Carolina are women.
But before Republicans can start thinking about reaching out to swing voters, they must first heal wounds left open from their spirited primary contest.
State GOP chairman Katon Dawson sees no problem.
“Inez Tenenbaum and John Kerry are the single most unifying factors we have,” he says.
Being the early underdog in this race, the Tenenbaum campaign plans to fight on every front. It will have an extensive air war and ground operation that will include an aggressive, door-to-door grass-roots effort.
DeMint’s campaign plans much the same.
Tenenbaum plans to spend $4 million in her effort to capture the nomination. DeMint has budgeted $8 million.
So batten down the hatches. The main event is about to begin. It will not be for the fainthearted. At stake is control of the U.S. Senate, where Republicans have a two-seat advantage. This race has national implications, with both parties expected to spend millions.
“The general election between DeMint and Tenenbaum will be a real war,” Thigpen predicts.
Although South Carolina leans Republican, GOP officials are worried about DeMint. He has failed to energize rank-and-file Republicans. Party officials concede Tenenbaum is a more dynamic candidate and that this race could be very close — closer than one would expect for an open seat in the Palmetto State, says Charlie Cook, a Washington-based political analyst.
Republicans plan to tar and feather Tenenbaum as a liberal out of step with conservative South Carolina. They will attack her stance on abortion, noting that she is “pro-choice,” meaning in most cases she favors a woman’s right to chose whether to end a pregnancy.
“We’re going to peel the bark off and reveal her for what she is,” says Rick Beltram, chairman of the Spartanburg GOP. “Once it becomes known she is pro-choice, she will suddenly fade as a threat in November.”
Tenenbaum, in anticipation of the organized attacks, moved early to stake out an independent course for her candidacy. She supports President Bush on his handling of the Iraq war, favors a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages, supports the death penalty and opposes partial-birth abortion.
“They can scream that she’s a liberal, but it won’t work. They’ve got to do more than that,” Winthrop University political scientist Scott Huffmon says.
Tenenbaum understands the state’s terrain. She is not going to get caught out there tagged as a liberal Democrat, Thigpen says.
Her goal is to energize the Democrats, gain support of swing voters and attract Republicans disenchanted with DeMint.
DeMint, though hardly exciting, should be better positioned to benefit from the expected Bush coattails in South Carolina.
“We get to run with Bush. His popularity is still off the charts in South Carolina. She gets to run with Kerry. I’ll take those odds any day in South Carolina,” Dawson says.
Overall, given Bush’s likely landslide in the state, “it will be a major election-night surprise if the Republican nominee does not win the Senate seat,” says Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
Reach Bandy at (803) 771-8648 or lbandy@thestate.com.
Jim will win by the biggest margin a Republican has gotten in the South since Reconstruction.
Not possible, I believe that K.B. Hutchison got over 85 percent of the vote in TX in 2000.
I stand corrected.
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This same guy is quoted in almost every article The State does on political matters. Don't any of the other state universities have Poli-Sci departments?
It wouldn't be so bad if he had something meaningful to say. I am sure it's a real shock to us that the swing voters, those that don't identify themselves as either rats or republicans, are important.
Hey, Neal! What about the base? What happens if either party's base stays home? Do you think John F'n Kerry or Inez Tenenbaum are going to really motivate the rat base?
My wife and I are teachers here in SC. My wife is a swing voter. Since 98 or so I have turned Republican. Neither one of us likes Inez because we don't agreee with what she has done as head of the department of Education. I think DeMint has an opening there as well.
Clemson's PolySci Professor David Woodward is widely considered the state's best political guru.
Unfortunately, he is a rabid conservative, so the media doesn't give him a microphone much anymore.
When I was there, he offered the class taught by then Rep. Gingrich via television, which later got Newt in a little bit of trouble.
First, what is/are "the Midlands" as the term is used in the article?....is it a geographic, economic, or racial catagorization?
Second, how does Inez compare to the the guy that Graham beat last time out, as far as being "liberal" and other positions? As I recall, vaguely, up until the election, he was touted as being able to make it a close race....didn't pan out..
Thanks..
It doesnt take much to motivate the RAT base just a piece of cheese on a string and a motivated Liberal so called "Mainstream Media".
Tenebaum?
The movie or the song one?
The Midlands are the Columbia area. Fairfield, Lexington, Newberry and Richland counties are considered the "midlands".
In 2002 Graham beat Alex Sanders, whose anti-death penalty ("capital punishment is contrary to the will of God") yet pro-choice ("abortion is a legitimate choice that a woman makes") stance is typical of the Left's moral relativism.
Thanks for the info....I was aware of Sanders' positions....my point was that up until the lection, the Dems were all saying he had a great chance to win.."they lied"..how does INEZ compare to Alex?
Inez Tennenbaum is the true conservative in that she believes that the government should stay out of people's private lives. And nothing is more private than a woman's right to decide whether and when to bear children, free from the heavy hand of government.
DeMint on the other hand advocates the ultimate type of government intrusion by trying to strip away a woman's most basic right to reproductive freedom. People in South Carolina don't like the idea of their rights being taken away which is exactly what DeMint wants to do by forcing women to risk their lives in filthy, back alley abortions because he wants to outlaw a woman's right to choose safe, legal reproductive services. DeMint's hypocrisy is glaring in that he wants the government to interfere with womens' wombs by outlawing our most basic right to receive safe, medical abortion services but yet claims to advocate "limited government". It is truly sickening by how he wants the government to interfere with our private lives like this. This is the ultimate example of government intrusion into people's private lives. DeMint is no conservative because of his radical views on this issue.
Furthermore, Inez Tennenbaum is the "true" conservative because she advocates the death penalty for evil murderers and opposes same sex-marriage unlike DeMint's flip-flops on true "conservatism" (by how he opposes reproductive choice). Additionally, the fact that Inez Tennenbaum has accomplished so much in improving South Carolina's education system through her work as superintendent is something that South Carolinians truly value. She is highly respected statewide because of her fantastic accomplishments. Ms. Tennenbaum will win this race because South Carolinians understand that she is more in tune with their practical everyday needs and values than the alternative.
troll..troll..troll...conservatives value life, you liberals are pro-death, why can't one of you admit it?
Wait, didn't I see in an early post that Inez is AGAINST PBA? I guess her "conservatism" only goes so far!
Go away, twerp!
See ya.
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