In S.C., campaign mud arrived before Santa

Among Republicans, Mike Huckabee is a target of attacks from two groups in particular. Perhaps the most emotionally charged attacks are television advertisements from a group called Victims Voice, whose political connections are not known. The spots feature the mother of a young woman who was raped and killed by a convict who was paroled while Mr. Huckabee was governor of Arkansas and whose prison release Mr. Huckabee had agreed to.

The commercials are being broadcast in South Carolina and on the Internet and were shown during a Fox News debate. On them, Lois Davidson, the mother, says, “If not for Mike Huckabee, Wayne Dumond would be in prison and Carol Sue would be with us.”

In addition, the Club for Growth, an antitax group based in Washington that has spent $780,000 so far in anti-Huckabee television spots in primary and caucus states, held a news conference in front of the State Capitol on Wednesday. In it, Dick Armey, the former Republican House majority leader, assailed Mr. Huckabee as a “misguided populist” and not a true conservative.

In response, a planeload of Arkansas businessmen flew here to hold their own news conference to praise Mr. Huckabee and attack the Club for Growth as a tool of the Romney campaign, a charge that the club denies.

Citing donations from Romney supporters to the club, the businessmen issued a news release saying: “What does $585,000 buy you? It bought Mitt Romney backers a smear job against Mike Huckabee orchestrated by Beltway insiders.”

With so many charges and countercharges flying around, Mr. Huckabee’s campaign, like Mr. McCain’s, has even set up a so-called Truth Squad section on its Web site to respond to each attack. As of Wednesday evening, there were 17 responses on the site.

“Any time there is something that is not true,” said Mike Campbell, chairman of the Huckabee campaign in South Carolina, “we go out and put up the actual facts.”

The Romney campaign braced itself for the rough-and-tumble politics of South Carolina by hiring Warren Tompkins, a legendary tough-playing Republican strategist, as its South Carolina adviser. Mr. Tompkins worked for the Bush campaign in South Carolina in 2000 and was often blamed for the anti-McCain smears.

In an interview on Tuesday, he repeated his denial of any involvement in the attacks.

Yet while Mr. Tompkins is no stranger to hardball politics, he counseled the Romney campaign to remain silent when the bogus Christmas cards began circulating in South Carolina.

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“He had already made his speech on religion, and the less that was said, the better off he was,” Mr. Tompkins said, from his office with its expansive view of the State Capitol. “If you have a perceived liability, why bring attention to that perceived liability when you have already taken steps to mitigate against it? Not talking about religion was better for us.”

There are signs that South Carolina voters, weary after years of these attacks, may be tuning them out.

“I just don’t like it,” said Donna Watson, a Republican voter from Columbia. “It’s a waste of money. I’m not stupid. I don’t need to be reminded of all this stuff. All of us have skeletons in our closet. Let’s leave them there.”

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