With no incumbent in the race, candidates vying for the mantle of frontrunner spent more than $20 million in the state in the nine months leading up to the Republican and Democrat primaries.

"Honestly, I don’t know how high the dollar figures will go when all is said and done, but I can tell you this: When those figures are finally tallied, the conventional wisdom about what needs to be spent to compete in South Carolina will go entirely out the window," said U.S. House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C.

A wide-open race

Spending by candidates in 2004 was considerably less. Including incumbent George W. Bush, 12 candidates were running, and total presidential campaign expenditures in the state were slightly less than $3.4 million.

The absence of an incumbent president or vice president from the race and the compressed primary schedule were the most significant factors driving candidates’ spending.

Political consultant Bill Greener, a former deputy chief of staff for political operations at the Republican National Committee, said in light of those realities, candidates spent money nearly as quickly as they raised it, all out of a desire to ensure that what they spent was sufficient to win the race.

"See, it’s not a massive demonstration and display of resources that matter, otherwise (former Massachusetts Gov.) Mitt Romney would have run away with the thing," he said. "What matters is what you spend and how you spend in light of where you are in the minds of the voters and what else you’ve done in the contests leading up to the primary."

The absence of an incumbent likely encouraged several candidates to run who might not have otherwise done so, and the months-long campaign prior to a series of back-to-back electoral contests gave them time to spend in an effort to introduce themselves to voters, Greener said.

Romney started buying television spots in South Carolina in February 2007. But by Sept. 30, Romney had already spent $2 million on TV ads to raise his name recognition in the state, said Evan Tracey, chief operating officer of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, a leading provider of data and analysis for political, public affairs and issue advocacy advertising.

But if the results of the state’s two primary contests hold a lesson for future campaign strategists, it’s that money alone won’t turn the tide.

Voters still have to be drawn to the product.

In the case of South Carolina Democrats, that was Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who garnered 55.4% of the vote and spent $1,657,454, compared to New York Sen. Hillary Clinton who got 26.5% of the vote and spent $1,467,731. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards spent $592,081 and received 17.6% of the vote.

And they reward those who invest the time to personally ask for their vote. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee spent only $106,626 in South Carolina leading up to the hotly contested Jan. 19 Republican primary, but he came in second with 29.8% of the vote, beating out Romney, who spent 10 times as much, $1,229,937, and received 15.3% of the vote.

Even the GOP winner, John McCain, spent less than Romney with $1,122,027. He received 33.1% of the vote in South Carolina.

By the time the state’s primaries were held, the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary had winnowed the field of contenders considerably.

Among those who were gone by the time South Carolinians headed to the polls were:

• Connecticut Democrat Sen. Chris Dodd, who spent $242,732 in South Carolina.

• New Mexico Democrat Gov. Bill Richardson, who spent $283,906.

• California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, who spent $140,212.

• Delaware Democrat Sen. Joe Biden, who spent $172,537.

• Kansas Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, who spent $74,382.

• Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who spent $347,402 in South Carolina, was also a nonfactor, abandoning the state for what he hoped would be a sure win in Florida’s Republican primary and taking 2% of the vote.

"Depending on how they fared in the earlier contests, South Carolina was seen either as the state to solidify a lead and create a firewall around one’s candidacy or to try and save one’s campaign and slingshot into the Feb. 5 Super Duper Tuesday contests," Tracey said. "In other words, it’s where campaigns tried to stop the bleeding or seal the deal."

That dynamic, Greener said, helped push advertising dollars toward television with frontrunners also bolstering their spending in support of campaign workers on the ground.

 "If you’re somebody trying to make up a lot of ground quickly, most would say you put your money into television and personal appearances," he said. "If you’re trying to seal the deal and you have name recognition, then your investments probably revolve around your organization and get-out-the-vote apparatus."

A showdown on the airwaves

Spending on television advertising in January was "ridiculous," said Georgia Brown, national sales manager for WCIV, the ABC television affiliate in Charleston.

"Over the course of the first 26 days of the month, we took in somewhere in the neighborhood of half a million dollars from the candidates," she said. "Given that we typically take in between 45% and 50% of the campaign ad dollars in the market, that would suggest the first month of 2008 was a million (dollar) month in this market."

It would also suggest that, by Brown’s reckoning, that this year’s primaries were a $5 million January bonanza for television stations across the state, with the Greenville/Spartanburg and Columbia markets seeing a $1.75 million jolt to media companies’ bottom line and Myrtle Beach seeing a half-million cash infusion into station coffers.

That’s because, as she and other media insiders observed, Charleston media outlets typically take in roughly 20% of what candidates spend on television advertising in the state. The Greenville/Spartanburg market receives roughly 35% of presidential ads, Columbia gets 35% and Myrtle Beach takes in about 10%.

"It was a very, very significant event for us," Brown said.

A similar assessment was offered by David Tynan, general manager of WTAT-TV, the Fox affiliate, and WMMP (MyNet) in Charleston. Fox has far less news programming than its competitors in the market, which is a favorite time slot of campaign media buyers.

"Spending really began to pick up in the fourth quarter of 2007 when, according to figures I’ve seen, $1.012 million was spent in our market, of which we took in about $101,000," Tynan said. "Money follows tight races. If it’s not a highly contested race, they don’t spend as much, but this year, the perceived frontrunners were very aggressive."

Boots on the ground

From the earliest days, Obama’s campaign spent considerably on establishing a ground operation in the Palmetto State that was anchored by more than 60 full-time staffers, hundreds of volunteers and an overabundance of surrogate campaigners from the world of politics and show business.

Before most people were seriously paying attention to the race, Obama’s campaign had spent $775,079 in South Carolina.

Sizable expenditures were also made on rental space, including $45,000 paid early on to Liberty Properties in Greenville.

Terry McAuliffe, chairman of Hillary Clinton for President, said she also had a massive field operation in place, including an investment in six offices across the state, 50 to 60 paid staffers, and "hundreds of volunteers, most of whom came from out of state and had to be fed and housed and so forth while they were here."

Clinton’s expenditures in the state topped $1.46 million by the time of the primary, with the largest single expenditure being $135,785 paid to Sunrise Communications, a consulting firm owned by state Sen. Darrell Jackson, who also is the minister of one of the largest churches in Columbia.

The deal, part of Clinton’s effort to shore up support of the state’s black leadership, is said to have included payments of $10,000 a month to the consulting firm right through the primary.

"Investing in people on the ground is a critical factor," said McAuliffe, who served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2001 to 2005. "When it comes to allocating your resources, your goal is to have the operation in place to capture last-minute shifts in momentum and capitalize on them."

Ain’t nothing like the real thing

If any one candidate proved the value and cost-effectiveness of retail politicking in a state largely defined by television campaigns, it was John McCain, who was largely written off in the summer of 2007 thanks to an initial surge in the popularity of Giuliani.

"In a very real sense, McCain was at a point several months ago that a lot of candidates are finding themselves in now — they are running on fumes," said Fritz Wenzel, director of communications for Zogby International. "They raised a lot of money, but Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina were incredibly expensive."

McCain recognized that the greatest resource he had was himself, and he spent a tremendous amount of time in South Carolina, Wenzel said.

"The money that was well spent was money spent on ground organization, phone calls, things that went toward making that people-to-people connection," he said. "Potential voters respond best to someone they know or to someone they know is from their town. It’s personal, and it’s almost always a positive interaction."

In McCain’s case, his presence in South Carolina coincided with an autumnal increase in his fortunes as a fundraiser. He visited the state at least every other week starting in September 2007 and effectively lived here a week before the primary.

That’s why he was able to start investing strongly in television advertising starting in December, said Brown.

Greener said momentum gives a candidate an opportunity to improve fundraising, but the lag time between getting a pledge of support and collecting the money becomes a tactical decision.

"That biases your spending decisions, Greener said. "One of the dirty little secrets of politics is that even if you all of a sudden exceed expectations, as Huckabee did in Iowa, you’re all of a sudden confronted with the question of how to dispense the incoming dollars in a way that will have the most bounce."