Politics on the Hudson

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was once considered the inevitable presidential nominee of the Democrats, but a win today by Sen. Barack Obama in South Carolina would restore some uncertainty to the outcome.

“This is not one of those inevitability years,’’ pollster John Zogby told C-Span in a televised interview last night,

Polls showing that she might finish third could have brought Clinton back to the state Thursday, Friday and today, Zogby indicated. Former President Bill Clinton served as Hillary’s primary surrogate campaigning around the state every day this week while she visited states that will vote on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5.

At a campaign stop in Florence last night, Obama complained that he has been the target of “all kind of negative attacks.’’

“That’s what Washington does,’’ he said. “You guys have been getting some e-mails probably saying Obama’s a Muslim. Now I’ve been a member of the same church for 20 years praising Jesus. And I respect the religion of Islam. I just don’t like people lying about my religion. Want me to say that again? I respect other people’s religions. Just don’t lie about mine. People saying I don’t pledge allegiance to the flag. I lead the Senate in the pledge of allegiance when I open up the Senate on C-Span. I’ve been saying the pledge since I was three years old. So don’t believe all that stuff. They are trying to mess with your mind. Trying to bamboozle you. Hoodwink you. That’s what they are doing.’’

At least half of today’s voters are expected to be black, with Obama benefiting from the bulk of their support.

Polls opened at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. today. The state does not register voters by party, so any of the approximately 2 million of the state’s 2.4 million registered voters who did not participate in last week’s Republican primary are eligible to vote today.

Carol Fowler, chairwoman of the South Carolina Democrats, expects at least 300,000 voters and perhaps as many as 350,000 to cast their ballots in today’s presidential primary. The record for a presidential primary was 293,000 in the 2004.

Obama, who won the Iowa caucuses but since then has finished behind Clinton in New Hampshire and Nevada, has a double-digit lead in most polls. Clinton also won Michigan, but Obama and Edwards pulled their names off the ballot there because the state had moved its primary date ahead in violation of national party rules.

Edwards has been moving up in the daily tracking polls here since Monday night’s debate in Myrtle Beach in which the other two bickered and tossed personal attacks at each other. He is within striking distance of finishing second in a state where he was born and raised in the onetime mill town of Seneca. He won the state in 2004

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