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You can listen to me discuss the South Carolina primary on the Shaun O Mac radio program on Blog Talk Radio with Shaun Daily at 9:00PM Eastern. I also believe Nate from will be on the show as well.

Just watched the debate and though I need to get to sleep (man its late) I wanted to make one point.

It is clear John Edwards is the free agent. He saw blood in the water early on with Obama and he struck. In the ABC debate after Iowa he pounced on Clinton hoping to knock her out. It didn’t happen. He knows he won’t win South Carolina but the plan seems obvious. Pick up delegates and pick off whomever he thinks he can. That means he gets to attack both whenever it is convenient and it makes the debates that much more interesting.

Obviously Edwards is ideologically closer to Obama but is ready to hit whomever, whenever he hears what he doesn’t agree with or what he thinks will help him out. Great to watch!

84% REPUBLICANS: SOUTH CAROLINA…

MCCAIN… 33%
HUCKABEE… 29%
THOMPSON… 16%
ROMNEY… 15%
PAUL… 4%
GIULIANI… 2%

[techtags: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, John McCain, Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, South Carolina]

ABC News is reporting early exit polls suggest that McCain & Huckabee are in the running for first place in South Carolina with Romney and Thompson competing for third.

Update: MSNBC is reporting 58% of respondents in SC identified themselves as evangelicals.

Full South Carolina exit poll results.

[techtags: South Carolina primary, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, South Carolina exit poll, evangelical]

From CNN:

“We have received reports from Horry County that voters are being turned away from the polls, because electronic voting machines are not working and paper ballots are not available,” Buzz Jacobs, McCain’s South Carolina state director, said in a statement. “Some voters say they are being instructed to return at a later time. We are disturbed by these reports and hope that this issue is resolved immediately. We encourage any voters who were turned away from the polls to return again to their polling place this afternoon to exercise their constitutional right to vote.”

Schedule for tomorrow’s Democratic and Republican caucuses in Nevada and the South Carolina Republican primary from ABC Sneak Peak found via Mark Halperin:

Nevada Republican caucuses:

Begin at 9 am PT (12 pm ET)
Straw vote begins at 9:15 - 9:45 am PT (12:15 - 12:45 pm ET)
Precints are asked to conclude at 10:00 am PT (1:00 pm ET)
First results posted 10-10:30 am PT (1-1:30 pm ET)
Results likely known by Nevada Republican Party by 12:30 PT (3:30 ET)

Nevada Democratic caucuses:

Begin at 11:30 am PT (2:30 pm ET).
Preference groups form at 12 pm PT (3:00 pm ET)
Second alignment begins at 12:15 pm PT (3:15 pm ET)
Results start coming into Nevada Democratic Party at 2 pm PT (5 pm ET).

South Carolina GOP primary: polls open statewide from 7 am to 7 pm ET.

From Bloomberg:

In the last week before its Jan. 19 primary, the Palmetto State is awash in stealth e-mail attacks, fake polling calls and other dirty tricks reminiscent of the scurrilous rumors that scuttled John McCain’s candidacy in 2000.

The dubious tradition stretches back to native son Lee Atwater, the Republican operative who invented many of the modern techniques of negative campaigning, including the 1988 ad that linked Democratic presidential hopeful Michael Dukakis to the parole of murderer Willie Horton and contributed to the victory of President George H.W. Bush that year.

“Many understudies of Lee Atwater are still in this state, in the political-consulting business,” said Blease Graham, a scholar of Southern politics at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.

Among Republicans, the shenanigans this year include automated telephone pseudo-surveys trashing former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson’s stance on abortion, mailings claiming Arizona Senator McCain turned his back on fellow prisoners of war in Vietnam and a phony Christmas card from former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney extolling polygamy.

With anti-mormon Christmas cars hitting Romney to calls against Thompson saying he voted for abortion and gay marriage while in the Senate, dirty tricks seem to be taking hold in SC. Will it matter? Is it as bad now as its been in the past?

Eight years after the issue popped up in the 2000 campaign John McCain is once again faced with the confederate flag in South Carolina. Used as a wedge issue by George W. Bush against him, in 2000 John McCain did not call for the removal of a confederate flag that flew over a South Carolina statehouse. It was a decision he later admitted was fueled by politics and not personal belief, the one issue he claimed he was dishonest about in a campaign that was run under the guise that McCain was the “straight talk” candidate.

After the election McCain admitted his real belief that the flag should be taken down, it eventually was.

Today McCain was faced with protestors who waved the rebel flag outside stops in Greenville and Spartanburg. The protestors also handed out literature reminding voters of McCain’s position in 2000.

The Arizona Senator said in response that he was pleased with the “majority” of South Carolinians who agreed the flag should have been taken down and said he believed voters did not want to dredge up the old issue.

Here are the latest results from a FOX/News Opinion Dynamics poll of 500 likely South Carolina Republican voters.

John McCain - 25%, Huckabee 18%, Romney 17%, Thompson 9%, Giuliani 5%, Paul 5%, Hunter 1%
Undecided or (Don’t Know( is at 19%

Margin of error +/- 4%

Of those who said they would vote for a candidate 58% say they are certain they vote for John McCain while 57% the same for Romney and 60% say the same for Huckabee. Meanwhile 20% of respondents named Huckabee as their second choice, 19% John McCain, 14% Romney, 13% Giuliani, 10% Thompson, 4% Paul and 1% Hunter. 17% did not know who their second choice would be.

The economy is the most important issue with 17%, Immigration and the Iraq war tied for second with 16% each, Homeland security was fourth with 15%, meanwhile health care and social issues tied for fifth with 10%.

The #1 most important quality SC surveyed said was important for a leader was “He stands up for what he believe in” with 47%. Next is “He is a true conservative” with only 21% of the vote.

McCain won out on “honest & trustworthy” with Huckabee second and Romney a distant third. McCain won out as as a “strong leader” with 35% with Romney a distant second at 20% and Huckabee won out as a “true conservative” with Romney coming in a close second.