US Elections Analysis: Can Romney Wrap Up Nomination with South Carolina Win?

And so to South Carolina. After the first skirmishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, the Republican hopefuls for President move to the southern state for next Saturday's primary. When it is concluded with 11 delegates to the overall winner and 2 to the leader in each of the 7 Congressional districts, the process for deciding who will challenge President Obama in November will be 2.90% complete.

Even after the first "big state" primary in Florida on 31 January, only 5% of the delegates will be chosen. Yet the conventional wisdom of electoral pundits is that Mitt Romney, who was in a dead heat in Iowa with Rick Santorum and who easily won New Hampshire --- and who currently leads the polls in both South Carolina and Florida --- will secure the GOP nomination if he can win both these votes.

And it is hard to see past that analysis, despite the 95% of the delegates still in play. If Romney triumphs in South Carolina, he will have proved he can win in a state where 60% of Republican voters in 2008 identified themselves as evangelical Christians, thus negating the doubts that his Mormonism is a debilitating handicap. And by beating his more conservative rivals, in a state with a conservative-dominated Republican base, Romney will have shown that even his moderate past as Governor of Massachusetts is not enough to rule him out as the challenger to Obama.

The prospect of that Romney win was given a huge boost this week when home-state Senator Jim DeMint, one of the most influential conservative politicians, refused to endorse any of Romney's rivals. Although he did not endorse Romney, DeMint also held back from Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry, who had attacked Romney's record as a "vulture capitalist". And there was more: DeMint predicted Romney would win South Carolina, in an interview with radio host Mark Levin on Tuesday, and praised the former Governor's speech in New Hampshire, after winning the primary there, for “hitting a lot of the hot buttons for me about balancing the budget".

On Wednesday, DeMint further wounded the conservatives' chances of defeating Romney, by offering support to some of the views of libertarian candidate Ron Paul: "I'd like to see a Republican Party that embraces a lot of the libertarian ideas....You don't have to agree with everything he's saying, but if the other candidates miss some of the wisdom about what he's saying about monetary policy....that will be to our detriment."

A DeMint endorsement of one conservative candidate, e.g., Gingrich, would have shaken up this GOP race not only by tipping the South Carolina race, but by effectively ending the hopes of the other conservatives in the contest, leaving a straight Mitt vs "anti-Mitt" fight, with Ron Paul left as an interesting spoiler. The conservatives may still agree on one candidate to face off with Romney in Florida, but that choice is now on a weaker footing for the battle.

To illustrate: take a look at a poll of voter preferences from Wednesday. Romney is potentially vulnerable with only 23% support. But Gingrich (21%), Santorum (13.5%), Jon Huntsman (7%), Perry (5%) are splitting nearly 50% of voters who are opposed to Romney. At this point, the Mitt is riding to victory because of the multiple choices for conservative voters.

South Carolina may yet spring a surprise. It is an open primary, which means that all registered voters, including Democrats, can participate. Gingrich leads Romney among Independents and Democrats, according to Wednesday's poll, and a high turnout from those two groups could shift the result.

The biggest surprise, however, may come from the nature of campaigning in South Carolina, where politics is notorious for being a dirty business. Or as The State headlined: "Nasty, dark, dirty, ugly, sleazy, bloody, vicious". And "vicious" means not only "attack ads" but also unproven personal slanders.

Political push polls first appeared in South Carolina, pioneered by infamous Republican campaign strategist Lee Atwater. The most famous example of this now largely illegal electioneering method happened in the 2000 Republican presidential primary when voters were reportedly called by the George W. Bush campaign and asked, as part of a supposed poll, "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?"

McCain had not fathered an illegitimate black child, but the suggestion included in the question was enough to start a statewide whisper campaign that scuppered his election bid. A similar sleazy attack may not happen this primary year, but The State is ready to report it if it happened does. Their website homepage includes a prominent link, "Dirty Tricks", to “Share mailings, emails, robo-calls and other messages trying to sway your vote".

There are also two debates next week, and one potential problem for Romney at those events is the growing call to see his tax returns. There have been rumblings for a few weeks on the edges of the media that Romney should make details of his personal finances available, but on Wednesday The Washington Post raised the stakes with the editorial, "Why won’t Romney release his tax returns?" They insisted that Romney not only disclose his income tax returns, but also thedetails of who has donated to his campaign, arguing:

The imperative grows for the former Massachusetts governor to release his income tax returns and disclose the identities of the fundraising bundlers who have brought in millions for his campaign. Mr. Romney’s determined lack of transparency on these two fronts — the candidate and his campaign have said he has no plans to release either — represents a striking and disturbing departure from the past practice of presidential candidates of both parties.

None of Romney's rivals have raised this issue yet, but with the possibility of him wrapping up the nomination with a victory in South Carolina, one of them might deem it the opportunity to damage the favourite. There might not be anything too injurious in those income tax returns, but another refusal to reveal them, this time on national television, might just lead to a narrative that hurts Romney's chances.

Mitt is riding high after his victories in Iowa and New Hampshire. A win in South Carolina, who have elected the eventual nominee in every Republican primary since they were introduced in 1980, would further bolster his claim to be the only "electable" candidate in a contest against President Obama. But that victory is by no means a foregone conclusion.

And a loss would be disastrous for Romney. Not because he lost one state, but because whoever beat him goes into Florida as the sole conservative alternative to Romney. That is not a game which Romney wants to play.