By Xinhua
Washington : US presidential hopefuls are to face crucial tests in the nomination contests in South Carolina and Nevada Saturday.
It’s the preacher vs. the patriot in the crucial South Carolina Republican primary.
Ever since Ronald Reagan in 1980, the winner of this contest has gone on to win the party’s presidential nomination, and often the presidency.
Meanwhile, in Nevada, two leading Democratic candidates used Reagan as a tool to bash another front-runner.
The absence of a unifying consensus Republican candidate is one reason that there have been separate winners in the three major primary and caucus contests this month.
The outcome in culturally conservative and military-minded South Carolina could say a lot about where the solid Republican South is headed in this uncharacteristically jumbled early primary season.
On the eve of Saturday’s vote, polls showed a tight competition between Sen. John McCain, the former Vietnam War POW who won in New Hampshire, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who rode a blend of populism and evangelism to victory in Iowa.
The Republican winner in South Carolina, meanwhile, could lay claim to the election’s son-of-the-South status and gain some momentum heading into Florida’s primary, Jan 29.
The three leading Democratic contenders in Nevada, meanwhile, had some of their sharpest exchanges of the campaign Friday as they made their final pitches before their party’s caucuses Saturday.
Nevada is playing a prominent early role in the party’s nomination process for the first time.
New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards jumped on Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who was quoted as saying that Republican President Reagan “changed the trajectory of America in a way that Bill Clinton did not” and that the GOP had been the “party of ideas” for the past 15 years.
Nevada is a vital, if not essential, prize for Obama and Clinton.
A victory for Obama would blunt Clinton’s upset in New Hampshire and help erode her leads in big states where primaries will be held Feb 5, especially neighbouring California.
For Clinton, a victory would salve the pain of a possible loss next week in South Carolina, where Obama enjoys a double-digit lead buoyed by overwhelming support among black voters.
Both campaigners are fighting hard in Nevada, but neither has invested the tens of millions of dollars they have poured into the first two contests, according to sources in both camps.
Democrats will caucus at 520 sites across the state, mostly schools, churches and community centres near residential areas, though there will be nine “at-large” caucus sites in casinos for shift workers.
In Nevada, Republicans will caucus at 100 sites scattered throughout the state, about one-third in metropolitan Las Vegas.
Party officials expect 30,000 to 40,000 participants to show up at the caucuses, which have not been held on the GOP side for 20 years.
Alone among the Republicans, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigned in Nevada in an effort to sweep the state’s neglected GOP presidential caucuses.
Romney’s strategists hope a Nevada victory would add to the perception of momentum from his decisive victory in Michigan last Tuesday.