S.C. Democrats inhabit two different worlds

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

ALLENDALE, S.C. - In this tiny, rural town, a young staffer from the Barack Obama campaign sat Wednesday in a small office canvassing voters. She had only a desk, a chair, a laptop, two phones, some brochures and a map of Allendale County.

It's a barebones operation, but neither of Obama’s major rivals, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton, even has an office in this county, which has the second smallest population in the state.

“Our strategy from the start was to run a 46-county strategy,” said Jeremy Bird, Obama’s South Carolina field director. “There are lots of voters there who have never had a field organizer in their town, even for a state senate campaign.”

The 90-minute drive from Allendale to Hilton Head on the Atlantic Coast illustrates the two different electorates to which the Democratic contenders must appeal to win Saturday’s primary.

One electorate is made up of more affluent, out-of-state Democrats who have emigrated to Hilton Head and other places along coast over the past 20 years; another electorate is composed of native-born Carolinians who populate tiny rural towns like Allendale.

Democratic stronghold
Presidential candidate John Kerry won 71 percent of the vote in Allendale County in 2004, giving it the distinction of being South Carolina’s most Democratic county in percentage terms. (Statewide, Kerry won only 41 percent of the vote.)

The county is struggling economically. The downtown has a BP gas station, a Hardee’s fast-food eatery, a few churches, and little else.

Only one of the Democratic contenders, John Edwards, has stopped in Allendale during the campaign. He made a tour of the town back in April when he took part in the MSNBC debate in Orangeburg, a bigger town 45 miles northeast.

That visit earned Edwards the support of Air Force veteran Mark Lott. “He actually took the time to visit this community,” said Lott. “He had his wife with him; they seemed to be very down-to-earth common people. The day I met him, my mind was made up.”

Tom Curry / MSNBC.com Allendale, S.C. Democrat Mark Lott will be voting for John Edwards

Lott added, referring to Elizabeth Edwards being treated for cancer, “What really got me is that with her health condition most people would probably be at home resting; it means a lot that even with her health condition, they are concerned about other people as well as themselves.”

Of the skirmishing between the Obama and Clinton campaigns over the past two weeks, Lott said, “I could care less…. This media hype, it’s sad.”

He added, “It’s sad that Hillary and Barack are running against each other. I just wish they would have thought that thing out and one of them would have backed out — and it may hurt the Democrats.”

Another lifelong resident of Allendale, James Everett, a member of the town council, said, “I like what Barack Obama stands for.” Everett decries “all this mud slinging,” including the rumor that Obama is Muslim. “If I found out he was not a Christian, I would not vote for him,” Everett said.

A problem with Bill Clinton
Of Hillary Clinton, he said, “I don’t care for the baggage she carries — her husband. I think he did well when he was in there (as president). I don’t think he needs to be behind her trying to run the thing again.”

Obama, he said, “has a stable family with no history of what went on with her family. That’s a stigma not on her (Hillary Clinton), but on him (Bill Clinton).”

Everett said he is wavering between voting for Obama and voting for Edwards. But he was impressed that after he met Obama briefly in Myrtle Beach six months ago and told him – through one of his aides – that “Allendale was in dire need,” Obama himself called later on the phone to hear his concerns.

Tom Curry / MSNBC.com DeWayne Ennis will be supporting Barack Obama in Saturday's primary.

Obama supporter DeWayne Ennis, the town administrator of Allendale, said Obama “seems to be someone who is little bit more down to earth, relatively new to the political arena, not weighed on heavily by different lobbyists.”

Ennis wants the new president to make it easier for Allendale to get federal aid.

For HUD housing money or other federal grant programs, Ennis said, “If you’re in a poor area like here, you’ve got to put up matching funds. A lot of times those matching funds are every hard to come by. Here in Allendale we qualify for just about every kind of federal grant you can imagine, however, when you have to put in that 10 to 15 percent match to it, sometimes you can apply for only one at a time.”

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