S.C. Primary A Week Away
WHITFIELD: South Carolina's primary is exactly one week away. It's the first contest in the South and one that could dramatically change the presidential race. The candidates are all over the state today. CNN political reporter Peter Hamby is live in Greenville, South Carolina. So Peter, a new American Research Group poll shows Gingrich running neck in neck with Romney in South Carolina, Gingrich just four points behind Romney right now. So is it, I guess, too early to say that the Lowcountry is becoming kind of Gingrich country as well?</s>PETER HAMBY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: You know, there's - a lot of people in South Carolina frankly saw this poll and wondered if - you know, how spot on it was. Polls have been kind of all over the place here in South Carolina. Our CNN poll last week, which is an eternity ago in politics, had Romney with a much larger lead. Look, I think Romney is probably lower than polls - some polls show him to be. He's still the frontrunner here. Gingrich and Santorum, Rick Santorum, are those two conservative candidates vying to be the challenger. If Gingrich becomes that person and beats Romney here, it could have a profound impact on the race because, look, voters - Republican voters against Romney have been looking for someone to beat Romney at some point and be that viable anti-Romney challenger. If Gingrich does beat him here in South Carolina, maybe it becomes a two-person race between Romney and the anti-Romney down the road and maybe conservatives can find a way to derail Mitt Romney, Fred.</s>WHITFIELD: Is it that social conservative vote that's going to make the difference here?</s>HAMBY: I think it probably will. In a six-person race someone like Mitt Romney can win with 25 percent of the vote, but six in 10 voters here call themselves Born Again Christians or Evangelicals. I'm here in the upstate of South Carolina, in Greenville County, which is the biggest Republican county in the state. Rick Santorum was here earlier today campaigning, and he made the case that conservatives really need to get behind him to stop Mitt Romney. Take a listen.</s>RICK SANTORUM (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The problem is, the person who's leading in the polls in the - in the primary is someone who can't make that case because he passed a bill similar to Obamacare, and said - and still says today it was the right thing to do. Well, if it - he said it was right for Massachusetts. Well, what do you think Obama's going to do with that? Oh, it's right for Massachusetts, and - and he said at times it was - it would be right for the country. They're going to destroy him. That issue will be gone.</s>HAMBY: So that's the case to social conservatives that Rick Santorum is making, and again, it's a compelling case to a certain segment of the Republican Party. The problem for Santorum and for Newt Gingrich is that social conservatives like both of them and by consequence are dividing up the conservative vote, again giving Mitt Romney the space to possibly cobble together a win here without getting a majority of Republicans as he did in the other primary and caucus states, Fred.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. You know, Peter, let's talk about what's going on in Texas today. There's a big gathering of Christian conservative leaders there. What is this two-day meeting all about?</s>HAMBY: Yes, this is a similar topic. You have some anxiety among conservative leaders, among religious leaders, among party activists about Mitt Romney. Is he conservative enough for us to get behind? A lot of conservatives feel burned by John McCain last time. They thought he didn't represent a bold enough contrast to the Democratic nominee and he couldn't really rally the Republican base in a general election and that's why they lost. So in Texas you have people like former Focus On the Family leader James Dobson, Don Wildman - a host of conservative leaders gathered there to kind of strategize about should we get behind a single candidate in the race. They say this isn't against Romney. We're just trying to find the best candidate for conservatives to get behind. But again, we're still looking to see whether these conservatives might pick either Santorum or Gingrich. They seem to be the two candidates that they're talking about.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, Peter, you're covering a lot of ground, but this is, you know, really do or die in this stage of the presidential race. Let's talk about Virginia now and a judge's ruling, a federal judge's ruling against four GOP candidates that want to be on that ballot on March.</s>HAMBY: Yes. This is my home state, Virginia, and they have very, very tight ballot rules there. You need 10,000 signatures to get on the ballot, 400 signatures in each of the Congressional districts in the state. Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum did not make the cut. Most of them submitted the petitions but they were thrown out because there were some flaws in their signatures. Basically this means that on Super Tuesday Virginia has 46 delegates at stake and the only two candidates on the ballot are going to be Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. And there were jokes on Twitter all day yesterday that, well, it looks like Mitt Romney just won the Virginia primary because, you know, he's - he's the frontrunner in that state and most other states and frankly, compared to him and - if you compare him and Ron Paul, more Republicans view Romney as electable than Ron Paul. So it could be a walk in Virginia on March 6 for Mitt Romney, Fred.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, Peter Hamby in Greenville, South Carolina, thanks so much. Appreciate that. And of course you want to join us every Sunday afternoon at 4:00 Eastern Time, when we dedicate an entire hour to the presidential contenders in this 2012 election. All right, meantime, coming up today at 4:00 Eastern Time, we'll talk to Tony Perkins. He's the moderator of that big conservative Christian gathering in Texas. We'll ask him which candidate the group just might be backing for president. And straight ahead, race, religion and the removal of a body from a cemetery. Our legal guys will be weighing in on that case, straight ahead. Next, how to tackle credit card debt. Our Christine Romans has an action plan to help you.