Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Something about South Carolina brings out the beast in U.S. presidential campaigns.

In the last week before its Jan. 19 primary, the Palmetto State is awash in stealth e-mail attacks, fake polling calls and other dirty tricks reminiscent of the scurrilous rumors that scuttled John McCain's candidacy in 2000.

The dubious tradition stretches back to native son Lee Atwater, the Republican operative who invented many of the modern techniques of negative campaigning, including the 1988 ad that linked Democratic presidential hopeful Michael Dukakis to the parole of murderer Willie Horton and contributed to the victory of President George H.W. Bush that year.

``Many understudies of Lee Atwater are still in this state, in the political-consulting business,'' said Blease Graham, a scholar of Southern politics at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.

Among Republicans, the shenanigans this year include automated telephone pseudo-surveys trashing former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson's stance on abortion, mailings claiming Arizona Senator McCain turned his back on fellow prisoners of war in Vietnam and a phony Christmas card from former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney extolling polygamy.

With the Republican race more open than ever, South Carolina is a magnet for third-party groups uninhibited by campaign-finance limits and eager to sling mud.

McCain Attack

Unlike in Iowa, where participants in the Jan. 3 caucus punished Romney, 60, for attacks on former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's record on taxes and spending, South Carolina has a history of rewarding those who use negative campaigning. In 2000, McCain's candidacy unraveled in South Carolina after anonymous opponents spread false rumors that he had fathered an illegitimate black child.

To counter such attacks this year, the McCain campaign has formed what it calls a ``truth squad'' of four high-level state officials including South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, who are acting as a rapid-response team against misleading information.

``We've learned from experience,'' said B.J. Boling, South Carolina communications director for McCain, 71. ``We know what happened here in 2000 and we felt it was very important to be prepared if the campaign did take a negative turn.''

Christmas Card

The dirty tricks began in December, when some South Carolina voters received Christmas cards purportedly from Romney, a Mormon. The card quoted controversial passages from the Book of Mormon that describe God as a polygamist and refer to the Virgin Mary's white race. The mailing targeted South Carolina's large evangelical population, many of whom regard Mormonism as a cult.

McCain, meanwhile, has been attacked in phone calls to voters that describe his support for campaign-finance legislation as ``a restrictive assault on free speech.'' The calls also say he ``voted for a law that would have allowed unborn babies to be used for medical research'' by backing a bill allowing embryonic stem-cell research.

``A lot of nasty things are going on,'' McCain said outside his state headquarters yesterday in Columbia.

The calls were funded by Common Sense Issues Inc., a non- profit group that aims to build support for Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, among South Carolina's social conservatives.

Abortion

Similar methods have been used to attack Thompson, 65. His supporters have reported calls that falsely claim he voted to allow partial-birth abortion and same-sex marriage.

Deb Russell, a 33-year-old stay-at-home mother from Summerville, said she received a 45-second automated call Jan. 16 that disparaged Thompson and promoted Huckabee, 52. ``It said it was a survey and it turned into a political ad,'' she said.

Democratic candidates have also been targeted. The campaign of Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, 46, is preparing a fact sheet to rebut an e-mail campaign falsely alleging that he is a Muslim.

While the practice of negative campaigning stretches back to Atwater -- who before he died of cancer in 1991 said he regretted linking Dukakis to Horton -- it is also related to the Republican Party's dominance of the state, Graham said.

``There's a tradition in South Carolina of politics of personality as opposed to politics of issues,'' Graham said. ``That's based on the tradition of one-party politics where the issues weren't as important as the personal impact of the candidates.''

`Blood Sport'

``Politics in South Carolina has been, from the very beginning, since colonial times, kind of a blood sport,'' said Trey Walker, who served as the state's Republican Party executive director from 1993 to 1999 and is now a consultant for McCain. ``South Carolina is a small state and everyone knows each other, and it becomes very personal.''

Some practitioners of the dark political arts defend these tactics. In 2004, Warren Tompkins, a veteran South Carolina political strategist who worked the Bush campaign in 2000, was asked why operatives spread false rumors about McCain in that race. ``It worked, didn't it?'' said Tompkins, who now works for Romney.

Still, Tucker Eskew, a Republican strategist who was George W. Bush's campaign spokesman in 2000, said the state's reputation for dirty politics is more myth than reality.

``Some people want to make the case that South Carolina is some sort of backwoods or cockfight-ring kind of place,'' said Eskew, a Greenville native. ``It is neither: All the current attention we're getting is because we have a first-in-the-South primary.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Heidi Przybyla in Charleston at hprzybyla@bloomberg.net; Edwin Chen in Columbia at echen32@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 18, 2008 00:18 EST