Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Politico:

Democrats are heading to the polls in South Carolina, ending a combative, race-tinged campaign that marks the first southern primary of the party’s presidential cycle.

Recent polls have shown Illinois Sen. Barack Obama leading the field, with New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards jockeying for second place. Tracking polls published in recent days have seemed to pick up a late surge by Edwards, a South Carolina native.

But after Clinton’s surprise victory in New Hampshire on Jan. 8 – a win neither public or internal campaign polls predicted – candidates, campaign aides and political observers will wait to see how South Carolina Democrats actually vote before confidently predicting any result.

South Carolina has a history of feisty campaigns that are not for the faint of heart. But in this cycle, the tough tactics have been imported, largely in the bigger-than-life persona of Bill Clinton, who has unleashed bruising criticism of Obama while serving as his wife’s chief surrogate in the Palmetto State.

Obama, particularly in the final days before the primary, has given as good as he got. After Clinton accused Obama during a Monday debate of having a relationship with a Chicago“slum lord, a photo of the Clintons and the person in question - real estate developer and fast-food magnate Antoin “Tony” Rezko – surfaced on the “Today” show Friday.

The issue of race has also been at the heart of the South Carolina campaign, even if not directly stated by the candidates.

More than half the voters in Saturday’s primary could be African American, potentially giving a major boost to Obama, who hopes to become the nation’s first black president.

But Bill Clinton spent the week seeking votes in South Carolina’s black community. And on Friday, his wife, surrounded by prominent black supporters, made an explicit appeal for black support in a speech at a historically black college in Columbia.

Stacey Jones, a Benedict College dean who described herself as “a woman, an African American, a size 9 wide and any other label you choose to use,” said she understood why many blacks might pause before voting for Clinton.

“For some of us it may take a very, very bold step to walk into that voting booth and focus on our community’s future rather than acting on pure emotion. Let’s do the right thing and elect Sen. Hillary Clinton president of the United States,” she said.

For Obama, the primary represents a crucial opportunity to post a second early-state win before a potentially game-changing showdown with Clinton on Feb. 5, when 24 states hold primaries or caucuses.

He has tried to downplay the issue of race, as polls have shown his share of the white vote in South Carolina getting slimmer as his numbers among African Americans rise.

“We have the largest percentage of Americans we’ve ever had who are literally aching to live in a post-racial future,” he said in Spartanburg Friday. People’s backgrounds are important, he said, and we “celebrate them but believe that our common humanity matters more.”

And for Edwards, the contest in his home state – where, as he notes, people talk like him – could be a final chance to redefine a race that has largely become a head-to-head between Clinton and Obama in recent weeks.

The Edwards campaign on Friday launched a radio and a television ad that focused on the “personal attacks” being traded between Obama and Clinton and tried to cast him as the “grown-up” who is more concerned about issues than “this kind of squabbling.”

On Saturday as voters went to the polls, Edwards said his campaign has been energized in South Carolina in recent days because Clinton and Obama have “spent an enormous amount of time trying to personally tear each other down. And, I think, that voters do not respond well to that.”

“I was way behind here, and I’ve clearly been moving this week,’’ he told MSNBC in a live interview from Charleston, S.C. “So, we’ll just have to see what happens today.”

Turnout is expected to be high, and state Democrats believe they could break their record of 290,431 set in 2004.