Next: Sun Belt and beyond

In South Carolina, Democratic voters are worried about the loss of manufacturing jobs, and looking for a presidential candidate tough enough to take on President Bush.

Arizona Democrats, in contrast, live in a state that's optimistic and forward-looking - the epitome of the sunny New West.

Missouri, demographically, is a microcosm of the country as a whole. Democrats there are just getting over the political demise of their favorite son, Dick Gephardt.

Oklahoma is conservative. If Democratic candidates stressing their military record do poorly here, they may be in trouble nationwide.

Welcome to the kaleidoscope that is the next round of Democratic primaries. These states - and three others - all vote on Feb. 3.

The dramatic expansion of voting will test candidates in new ways, forcing them to confront issues they may have heretofore avoided and to campaign in regions they haven't visited much.

When it's over, Democrats will have a much better idea of the breadth of the top candidates' appeal - and whether any seems capable of a breakthrough in the crucial southern arc.

"No Democrat in this day and age is going to win the presidency without cracking the South," says Scott Huffmon, a political scientist at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C.

Not all Democratic party strategists agree completely with that assessment. It's within the realm of possibility that a Democrat might win the White House without Dixie, by making inroads in the West.

But there's no dispute that winning at least some Southern states would make victory for the Democratic nominee a lot easier - and that the type of candidate who appeals to Southerners is also likely to do well in the Plains states and other areas outside the Northeast.

Thus South Carolina may be the most crucial test on Feb. 3, particularly for Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. The vote will measure their appeal to both conservative whites and African-American voters, who were in short supply in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Where personality and electability took top billing in the campaign's first contests, issues - jobs and trade especially - are more important to the one stoplight towns and hunting grounds between Charleston and Columbia. One big question in South Carolina: whether voters will forgive and forget Mr. Kerry's decision to largely forgo campaigning here until now.

"It's a completely different election in South Carolina," says Carroll Doherty, a pollster with the Pew Research Center in Washington. "There's a large number of African-Americans and a lot more cultural conservatives."

There's also more economic unease. At the nine-mile marker between Chester and Carlisle, Brenton Feaster crosses his hands over an ample belly as he considers the race from a county recycling center.

Despite his belief that President Bush is a "good, Christian man," Mr. Feaster says he'll take a hard look at the Democratic candidates. He's looking for someone to ease his economic woes. The retired dye-plant worker lives in a trailer, draws a $31-a-month pension, and has to rely on a government disability check for his daily grits and eggs.

Too many people in South Carolina "are on the edge of nowhere right now," he says.

Both Kerry and retired Gen. Wesley Clark will be able to exploit their military careers here. The Rev. Al Sharpton is likely to do much better than in New Hampshire, where he drew under 400 votes. But the candidate with the most at stake here may be Sen. John Edwards. He's from neighboring North Carolina, his pitch for economic empowerment might play well here, and his accent is right.

Still, whoever the Democratic nominee turns out to be, the state is likely to go Republican in November.

But the type of Democrat who can win over Democrats in South Carolina may be the type of Democrat who can pick up one, maybe even two Southern states.

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