By Kirstyn Leuner
Congressional Quarterly

Electoral votes: 8

Delegates: 52

Chairman: Gov. Jim Hodges

Hotel: Holiday Inn Select (310) 553-6561

1996 Election:
Dole – 50%
Clinton – 44%
Perot – 6%

Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic presidential candidate, draws solid support from members of South Carolina's 52-member delegation to the national convention in Los Angeles.

But they also are realists: Their home state, with its strong Southern conservative leanings, has become about as sure a thing for Republican presidential candidates as any state in the nation.

In fact, state Senate Majority Leader John C. Land III, a Democratic convention delegate, said he saw no reason for Gore to spend any time this fall campaigning in South Carolina at all.

Although John F. Kennedy - nominated in 1960 at the previous Democratic convention held in Los Angeles - narrowly carried South Carolina, the state changed direction four years later, when it was one of six states that backed Republican Barry Goldwater over President Lyndon B. Johnson.

In the past nine presidential elections, the Republican candidate has carried South Carolina in eight: The only exception was in 1976, when Democrat Jimmy Carter of neighboring Georgia carried the state.

The state's schism with the Democrats actually began earlier, in the 1948 election, when Strom Thurmond - then South Carolina's Democratic governor - ran for president on the conservative States' Rights ticket and carried his home state. Thurmond, elected in 1954 to the Senate seat that he holds today, switched to the Republican Party in 1964.

The South Carolina Democrats' presidential primary this year illustrated the importance of timing.

Their state Republican counterparts pushed their primary up to Feb. 19 and got reams of publicity, as Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Arizona Sen. John McCain staged one of the climactic battles in their fight for the GOP presidential nomination.

But state Democrats - who were blocked from moving their primary up to the same date by national Democratic Party officials trying to prevent further "front-loading" of the nominating calendar - settled for a March 9 date.

As it turned out, even that seemingly early date was too late for the South Carolina Democrats to garner any attention. It came two days after Gore's multi-state primary sweep essentially guaranteed him the Democratic nomination - and the same day that Gore's only rival, former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, dropped out of the race.

Although seemingly out of reach at the presidential level, South Carolina Democrats take comfort in a major 1998 victory that stemmed the state's Republican tide. Former state Rep. Jim Hodges unseated one-term Republican Gov. David Beasley that year, claiming the governor's mansion for the Democrats for the first time in 12 years.

Hodges is chairman of the state's delegation to the Democratic National Convention. Also attending are the three Democratic members of the state's congressional delegation, Sen. Ernest F. Hollings and Reps. James E. Clyburn and John M. Spratt Jr.

National party efforts to increase diversity are manifest in this year's delegation. Delegates agree that the delegation meets the party formula established for minority representation, gender equality and economic diversity.

Clyburn is the most prominent among a large contingent of African-Americans who represent a constituency that makes up about one-third of the state's population and an even larger percentage of the Democratic voting base.

Though demographically diverse, delegates mainly carry the centrist ideology of traditional Southern Democrats. National party tenets such as gay rights, abortion rights and gun control do not fare as well among South Carolina's Democratic adherents.

Delegate involvement in organizations that include the NAACP, South Carolina Democratic Women's Council, Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood and National Rifle Association reflect the broad spectrum of the delegation.

State Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum and state Rep. Bessie Moody-Lawrence said they plan to use their positions as delegates to highlight South Carolina-specific issues of education and economic development at the convention.

SOUTH CAROLINA NOTABLES: Gov. Jim Hodges, the delegation chairman; U.S. Sen. Ernest F. Hollings; U.S. Reps. James E. Clyburn and John M. Spratt Jr.; state Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian; state Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum; state Comptroller General James A. Lander; Columbia Mayor Bob Coble, who headed the state's 1996 convention delegation; former Democratic National Committee Chairman Donald Fowler; state Senate Majority Leader John C. Land III; state House Minority Leader Gilda Cobb-Hunter; Debbie Dorn, daughter of former U.S. Rep. William Jennings Bryan Dorn and the unsuccessful 1996 Democratic nominee in the 3rd Congressional District.