By Kirstyn Leuner
Congressional Quarterly

Electoral votes: 8

Delegates: 37

Chairman: Lt. Gov. Bob Peeler

Hotel: Best Western Center City (215) 568-8300

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

"South Carolina is Bush country," Republican Lt. Gov. Bob Peeler could confidently assert as his state's delegation prepared to head to the national convention. But that title was hard-won by Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who righted his then-wobbly presidential campaign by winning South Carolina's Feb. 19 primary.

That was no sure thing after Arizona Sen. John McCain - a Vietnam War hero with seeming appeal to South Carolina's large constituency of military personnel and veterans - trounced Bush on Feb. 1 in New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary.

McCain, with his image as a political maverick and emphasis on cleaning up politics, had been piling up support from independent voters who, in South Carolina, as in New Hampshire, were eligible to vote in the Republican primary.

But Bush went South and came out swinging. Portraying himself as the true Republican in the race, Bush directed his campaign at the conservative voters, including large numbers of social conservatives, who dominate the South Carolina Republican ranks.

Some of Bush's moves - a visit to controversial fundamentalist conservative Bob Jones University and his refusal to discuss the battle over the Confederate flag that then flew over the state Capitol - likely will be revisited by his Democratic foes this fall. But his primary campaign was a seminal success, as he defeated McCain by an 11 percentage-point margin.

South Carolina thus preserved its role as guarantor of Republican presidential front-runners that it has held since its first presidential primary in 1980. In 1988, Bush's father, then-Vice President George Bush, also got off to a stumbling campaign start. But with the aid of South Carolina native Lee Atwater, his top political strategist, the elder Bush carried the state and soon nailed down the nomination that sent him to the White House.

By winning in five of South Carolina's six congressional districts, Bush secured 34 of the state's delegates. Rep. Mark Sanford's endorsement helped McCain carry the 1st District and its three delegates.

The delegation is brimming with prominent current and former officeholders, including Peeler, the delegation chairman; former Govs. Carroll A. Campbell and David Beasley; U.S. Reps. Jim DeMint, Lindsey Graham and Floyd D. Spence; and state House Speaker David H. Wilkins. Also going to Philadelphia is state Republican Party Chairman Henry McMaster.

But by far the best known - and oldest - South Carolina delegate is 97-year-old seven-term Sen. Strom Thurmond, the delegation's honorary chairman.

Billed by fellow delegates as "the hero" of the South Carolina Republican Party, Thurmond is attending his 14th national convention and his eighth as a Republican.

Thurmond was at the last major party convention in Philadelphia in 1948. But it was the Democratic convention, held in the city after it had already hosted the Republican convention. And Thurmond was then a symbol of a stormy and bygone political era that might not be a favored topic of discussion at the first Republican convention of the 21st century.

In 1948, Thurmond - then South Carolina governor - was a member of the traditional conservative Southern wing of the Democratic Party. Voicing the states' rights position taken by many white Southerners at the time, he protested the inclusion of a strong civil rights plank in the Democratic party platform.

And when the convention that nominated President Harry S Truman was over, Thurmond broke away and accepted the nomination of a new third party - officially the States' Rights Party but widely known as the "Dixiecrats."

Thurmond finished a distant third behind Truman and Republican Thomas E. Dewey with 1,176,125 votes (2.4 percent of the total). He carried Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina for 39 electoral votes.

Despite the loss, the Dixiecrats' schism promoted the rupture between Southern white conservatives and the national Democratic Party, and would ultimately lead Thurmond in 1964 to become one of the first prominent Democratic officeholders to switch to the Republican Party.

Primary exit polls revealed that more than 30 percent of the state's Republican primary voters considered themselves religious conservatives. Among those representing that constituency is Roberta Combs, the state Christian Coalition chairman and a South Carolina delegate for the second consecutive convention.

Combs also is one of just six women in the 37-member delegation. The delegation is short of diversity in other ways. Only one African-American, Celestine Parker, is a member of the state contingent, and she is an alternate delegate. Parker directs the state Republican minority development program.

SOUTH CAROLINA NOTABLES: Lt. Gov. Bob Peeler, delegation chairman and spokesman; Sen. Strom Thurmond; Reps. Jim DeMint, Lindsey Graham and Floyd

D. Spence; former Govs. Carroll A. Campbell and David Beasley; state House Speaker David H. Wilkins; state Attorney General Charlie Condon; state Republican Chairman Henry McMaster; Roberta Combs, executive vice president of the Christian Coalition; former U.S. Rep. Thomas F. Hartnett; Robert A. Taylor, dean of the Bob Jones University College of Arts and Sciences.