As the campaign for South Carolina’s first-in-the-South

Republican presidential primary enters its final week, many GOP

activists and analysts in the state warn against portraying the

state as an ultraconservative bastion dominated by single-minded

evangelicals.

WASHINGTON – As the campaign for South Carolina’s first-in-the-South Republican presidential primary enters its final week, many GOP activists and analysts in the state warn against portraying the state as an ultraconservative bastion dominated by single-minded evangelicals.

While true in some ways, they say, such a simplistic depiction ignores shifting demographic, religious and historical trends that belie pat predictions about the outcome of Saturday’s voting.

“We’ve got a lot of different Republicans,” said Danielle Vinson, a political science professor at Furman University in Greenville, S.C.

“The national stereotype is they’re all religious conservatives. There’s some truth to that, but we’ve also a military contingent, a strong business establishment and evangelicals who don’t always vote in a bloc. A lot of them are looking at who can win against Obama and not necessarily who’s a reflection of their own religious beliefs.”

As recently as the 2000 primary, Bob Jones University, the influential fundamentalist school in Greenville, released a statement detailing why Roman Catholics aren’t true Christians.

“If there are those who wish to charge us with anti-Catholicism, we stand guilty,” the university said. “But we are not Catholic-haters.”

Now, two Catholic candidates, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Sen. Rick Santorum, are competing for evangelicals’ votes. And recent polls show that a Mormon, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, also could capture a sizeable portion of their support.

With more than six of 10 likely Republican primary voters describing themselves as evangelicals, the candidates’ stands on abortion, school prayer, illegal immigration and other of their core issues definitely matter.

Yet Republicans in past presidential primaries here have picked winners _ including relative moderates Bob Dole and John McCain _ over true believers or hard-core conservatives such as the Rev. Pat Robertson or former TV commentator Pat Buchanan.

Since the South Carolina GOP’s first presidential primary in 1980, voters have chosen their party’s eventual nominee in all six contested races.

Three of the victors – Ronald Reagan in 1980, George H.W. Bush in 1988 and George W. Bush in 2000 – went on to become president.

“That is something that we cherish,” said Glenn McCall, one of the state’s three members of the Republican National Committee and one of two African-Americans on the RNC.

“We know how to pick conservatives, but we also know how to pick the nominee for our party,” said McCall, who has not endorsed a candidate because of his party post. “Folks are not looking for purity. Purity is not a winning strategy in this election.”

That kind of talk buoys Romney, who finished fourth in South Carolina’s 2008 primary, far behind McCain.

Gingrich, a former U.S. representative from Georgia who served as speaker of the House, hopes that the election’s focus on the country’s economic problems will prompt South Carolina voters to favor his experience confronting complex federal budget issues and his reputation as an ultra-smart creator of innovative solutions to difficult problems.

That reputation is likely to help Gingrich with the state’s large group of tea party supporters, who think federal spending is out of control and view the government’s mounting debt as a crushing burden.

Gingrich is counting on tea party and other GOP activists being willing to overlook his two divorces, his extramarital affair with his current wife, Callista, when she was a congressional aide, and his consulting payments of $1.6 million from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose lending practices some Republicans blame for the subprime mortgage collapse.

“It does bother me, but I can’t expect perfection from anyone,” Joe Dugan, state coordinator for the South Carolina Tea Party Coalition, said of Gingrich’s past lapses.

“I feel that Speaker Gingrich underwent a transformation in his life in 2009, and he’s a different person now,” Dugan said. “If I’m going to do a proper vetting of the candidates, I have to look beyond their mistakes in the past and emphasize the good they can do in the future.”

Not everyone is so forgiving. The Rev. Marshall Watkins, associate pastor of the Sanctuary Southern Baptist Church in Greenville, is among them.

“If I’m going to be consistent with the way I thought of (President Bill) Clinton and what he did (in the Monica Lewinsky scandal), I feel like I can’t condone Gingrich on moral and family issues,” Watkins said. “His baggage is just too much for me.”

Watkins, who is leaning toward Santorum over former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, said he can’t support Romney because of his faith.

“Although they’ve tried to put up a face of being family-oriented like evangelicals, there are still Mormons who hold to the old views of having more than one wife,” Watkins said. “I just can’t deal with that. And Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists believe in the Holy Trinity; the Mormons don’t believe in the Trinity.”

A number of analysts and GOP activists in the state are baffled by Gov. Nikki Haley’s endorsement last month of Romney.

“I have no earthly idea why she did it other than she just thinks he’s the best-organized and has the most money,” said David Woodard, a political scientist at Clemson University in Clemson, S.C.

In declaring her support for Romney, Haley cited his strong executive experience in the private and public sectors, and his ability to defeat President Barack Obama.

Haley, a former state legislator, was elected South Carolina’s first female governor in November 2010 on a wave of strong conservative support, boosted by an endorsement from Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and McCain’s 2008 running mate.

But Haley’s support could prove a mixed blessing for Romney. Her approval ratings have fallen as low as 34 percent in a Winthrop University poll last month.

• James Rosen, MCT Campus