In the Right

He will face primary opposition -- state Sen. Nikki Haley announced five weeks ago that she, too, is a candidate for the GOP nomination, but her image as Sanford's choice puts her behind the eight ball for now, at least, and she recognizes it -- on Wednesday evening, her web master pulled a photo of Gov. Sanford off the front page of her web site.

Other GOP gubernatorial contenders include state Attorney General Henry McMaster and Congressman Gresham Barrett.

But as the incumbent, Bauer would have the upper hand.

As the state's new governor, he would be able to command media attention any time he wants, and use it to drive his name identification and favorables to heights unreachable by his opponents without the expenditure of huge sums of money.

In addition,, as the man who replaced the disgraced former governor, he would be the beneficiary of both a honeymoon and the electorate's desire for stability (think LBJ in 1964 -- less than a year after the assassination of President Kennedy, there was no way in the world the American electorate was going to vote into office its third President in so short a time frame); there wold be a strong aspect of "let's let things settle down for a while" defining the 2010 election in South Carolina.

Third, he would enjoy all the perks of office that an incumbent governor enjoys -- including the ability to dole out state funds to political players who play ball, and to threaten to deny state funds to those who won't.

In the general election, of course, there's always a chance that the Democrats could recapture the Governor's Mansion they held from 1999-2003, but let's face it -- Republicans have won five of the last six gubernatorial elections in South Carolina, and there doesn't appear to be a Democrat on the horizon who could seriously challenge that.

So if -- and I'd say when -- Sanford resigns his position and thrusts Bauer into the job early, the early betting on the outcome of the 2010 race for governor in South Carolina should be a victory for Bauer in the GOP primary, followed by a victory for Bauer in the general election.

That would mean Andre Bauer would be the incumbent Republican governor of South Carolina during the 2012 GOP presidential nominating contest.

And that would be good new for Huckabee, because Bauer has already endorsed Huckabee for president -- he did it on Thursday, January 17, 2008, two days before South Carolina's 2008 primary.

(Sanford, who, as a congressman, had endorsed McCain over Bush in 2000, remained silent in the 2008 GOP sweepstakes.)

Bauer's having endorsed Huckabee once before is no guarantee that he'll endorse Huckabee again, of course; but Bauer would have to have a pretty good reason to reverse himself in 2012, else he would risk looking a bit flaky on just the kind of decision that tends to be remembered by GOP primary voters in future primary campaigns -- like his own, for reelection, in 2014.

So, how crucial could an endorsement from a Governor Bauer be to a candidate Huckabee in 2012?

It could mean everything.

When it comes to the waging and winning of Republican presidential nomination contests, no state matters more than South Carolina.

In every nomination fight that's taken place since 1980 -- when South Carolina took its position as the first-in-the-South "gateway" primary -- the candidate who won the GOP primary in South Carolina emerged as the nominee.

And we're not talking "eventual" victor, either -- I'm saying that in all these contested nomination fights, the South Carolina primary contest effectively ended the campaign for the losers. They may have continued to campaign, limping from state to state, but everyone who could count knew the ball game was over.

Reagan ended John Connally's candidacy in 1980 in South Carolina, and dealt George H.W. Bush a mortal blow; Bush used the South Carolina primary in 1988 as his stepping stone to the Super Tuesday Southern "firewall" primaries that would take place three days later; Bush, after suffering a scare in New Hampshire, defeated Pat Buchanan in South Carolina in 1992; Bob Dole walloped Buchanan and Steve Forbes in 1996; George W. Bush effectively ended John McCain's candidacy in South Carolina in 2000; and McCain himself used his victory over Huckabee and Mitt Romney in 2008 as a springboard to victory in Florida ten days later, and across Super Duper Tuesday a week after that.

(Of course, that winning streak could conceivably have ended in 2012 in South Carolina -- if Sanford hadn't had his affair, and had decided to run for the GOP nomination in 2012.

(It's at least possible that, as happened to Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin in 1992 -- who threw his hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination, largely on the basis of his belief that a win in his home state's caucuses would catapult him into New Hampshire, but found out instead that because a home-state guy was on the ballot, everyone else (including the media) decided to take a pass on the state -- Sanford could have planned a 2012 candidacy predicated on an expected win in his home state's primary, only to find out that everyone else was taking a pass.

(But now we'll never know.)

Lee Atwater ran South Carolina for Reagan against Bush and Connally in 1980, and managed the national campaign for Bush against everyone else in 1988.

He was the guy who came up with the idea of South Carolina as the "gateway to the South" -- and he made sure, in 1988, that his ally, South Carolina Governor Carroll Campbell, positioned the South Carolina primary on Saturday, March 5, just three days before the March 8 Super Tuesday contests in 16 mostly Southern states.

And just how valuable is an incumbent Republican governor's endorsement in the South Carolina primary?

Extremely.

No candidate for the GOP presidential nomination endorsed by the sitting Republican governor of South Carolina has ever lost the South Carolina primary.

Ever.

Governor Huckabee, get your call into Andre Bauer now. He's about to become very popular.

For a full (and fascinating) history of the South Carolina Republican primary, check out this piece by Ken Rudin, NPR's "Political Junkie."

DISCLAIMER: When I write about the politicians in my past, CQ Politics says I have to turn the cards face-up. In the 1988 campaign, Atwater hired me to serve as the Bush campaign's liaison to conservatives.

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