COLUMBIA, SC – Ann Romney made her husband Mitt’s candidacy in South Carolina official today, handing his filing papers and a check for the $35 thousand filing fee to state Republican Party chairman Chad Connelly.  

She said that her husband would now be “actively campaigning” in the state (although candidates don’t need to have submitted papers to campaign here) and that they are “encouraged” by the support they’ve received in the state. 

She also commented on the state’s primary date. At that point this morning, Florida had not yet officially announced that it would hold its election on January 31st. 

“[The date] looks like it’s going to be moved up a little bit, everyone’s wondering when this state will be going, we don’t know that yet,” she said.

Connelly indirectly referred, as he has before, to the “drama” of states moving their primary dates up.“Our narrative needs to be that we need to make sure that Barack Obama is just the worst one-term president ever, and nothing else, no other drama needs to be involved,” he said.

Romney refused to take questions from the press, as her staff ushered her out of the conference room where the event was held. Just before the event, Romney spoke to a group of about 35 at a private fundraising breakfast for the South Carolina Republican Party. 

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- While it doesn’t receive the early attention that Iowa and New Hampshire get in presidential primary politics, South Carolina holds this important distinction: its winner has gone on to capture every Republican nomination since 1980.

The most recent Winthrop University poll, released less than two weeks ago, showed Texas Gov. Rick Perry leading with 31% and Mitt Romney a close second with 27.5%.

That might be surprising to some, who see South Carolina as not much more than a socially conservative state. But understanding the different kinds of conservatives who live here -- whether in the Upstate (dominated by social conservatives), the Midlands (the Republican power center with its mix of establishment Republicans and military voters), and Lowcountry (with its strong military presence and fiscally minded Northern transplants on the coast) -- are key to winning the Palmetto State’s GOP presidential primary.

“South Carolina is not a monolithic place,” said Mark Tompkins, a political science professor at the University of South Carolina. “It’s conservative for sure, but there are all these different strains of conservatism.”

As candidates try to outdo each other’s conservative credentials here, the 2008 South Carolina primary election serves as a reminder that it’s not always the most conservative candidate who wins the state.

“It helps to be able to appeal everywhere,” said Warren Tompkins, a longtime presidential campaign adviser, who is not affiliated with a candidate this cycle (and is no relation to the aforementioned Mark). “And, generally, whoever gets the plurality runs fairly decently across the board.”

Not always the most conservative candidate who wins
When John McCain won in 2008, he did so with just 33% of the vote -- and with a little help from Fred Thompson. McCain, a war hero, was able to dominate in the Midlands and Lowcountry.

Mike Huckabee, who finished second with 30%, won the biggest share of the state’s self-declared evangelical voters, which made up 60% of voters in 2008, according to exit polls, but Thompson siphoned off a crucial 15% of those voters -- and split the vote with Huckabee in the Upstate counties. Huckabee’s campaign argued at the time that Thompson’s 16% overall finish likely cost Huckabee the election.

“We got awful close,” Huckabee said in 2008 after the results were finalized.

The Upstate: Where God and country matter
It comes as no surprise that Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, was able to sell a Christian conservative message in the heavily evangelical Upstate. The region is home to Bob Jones University, which calls itself “the foremost fundamental Christian University.”

The Upstate’s focus on social issues was evident when Perry campaigned there recently. A woman congratulated him for saying evolution was a theory. “Well, God is how we got here,” Perry responded.

Romney, who finished fourth in South Carolina in 2008 with 15%, has largely kept his distance from the area. His religion -- he’s Mormon -- was a hurdle, especially in the Upstate, where he received as little as 8% in some counties. It remains to be seen if he rethinks sidestepping the state, given his standing in the Winthrop poll and Perry’s recent stumbles.

The Upstate isn’t just a key place for candidates to burnish their socially conservative credentials. It also contains some of the most voter-rich counties in the state. Republican consultant Chip Felkel, who worked on both of George W. Bush’s campaigns, pointed out that 52 percent of the 2008 primary vote came from seven counties – three of which are located in the region, including Greenville, which had the highest overall turnout.

In order to win in South Carolina, “you don’t necessarily have to be ardent on the social issues like a [Rick] Santorum, but you have to have bona fides on the social issues in order to take care of those votes in the Upstate,” said Felkel, who is unaffiliated but would have worked for Haley Barbour if he had decided to run.

The region has also always been a business hub for the state, first with tobacco farming, then textiles, and now through companies like BMW, whose only American factory is in Spartanburg. That environment breeds a sort of libertarianism, inherited from farmers who were wary of, as Mark Tompkins put it, “pointy-headed bureaucrats in Washington telling us we have to do all these things about tobacco.” That fits well with the present-day Tea Party.

The Midlands: A GOP establishment power center
In addition to dominating in the Lowcountry, McCain made up for his shortcomings in the Upstate also by almost sweeping the Midlands, an area Mark Tompkins describes as a “melting pot.” It has a strong military presence, including Shaw Air Force Base and Fort Jackson, the Army’s largest basic training center, helping McCain win nine of the area’s 10 counties.

The Midlands is also home to the state’s capital city, Columbia, as well as the University of South Carolina, the flagship institution of the state’s college system. Columbia is also a stronghold for African-American Democrats. Black voters make up more than half of Democratic primary voters, and churches here were must-stops in 2008 for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who drew huge crowds. Two historically black colleges, Allen University and Benedict College, are also located in the capital city.

The Lowcountry: Beach, business, and the military
The Lowcountry has experienced an influx of Northerners -- largely retirees attracted to South Carolina’s home prices. For example, the population of Beaufort County, which includes the beach community of Hilton Head, surged by 34% over the past 10 years, according to the 2010 Census. Mark Tompkins characterized Lowcountry political strain as “business conservatism,” bolstered by “a bunch of rich Yankees in retirement homes.

As in the Midlands, the military has a big presence in the Lowcountry, with Air Force and Coast Guard bases, a Marine Corps Air Station and the Parris Island Marine Corps training grounds. That combination of military and older, more moderate voters helped McCain win six of the eight counties associated with the region.

Romney finished second in two of the counties, Beaufort and Charleston. His most recent of his infrequent trips to the Palmetto state this cycle took him, in fact, to Charleston. Charleston is also the home of a new Boeing plant, the subject of a National Labor Relations Board lawsuit alleging Boeing built the plant here in order to punish striking union workers in Washington State. Like all Republican candidates looking to curry favor with leaders in this non-union state, Romney railed against President Obama’s NLRB appointments, calling them “an egregious example of political payback.”

This time around, the region could be up for grabs -- if Romney decides to play in the state. He has the business experience, but Perry’s military experience (and Romney’s lack of it) is a hurdle.

The numbers coming out of the state are still “very fluid” and decisions about allocating resources in South Carolina and other primary states are ongoing, said Kevin Madden, an informal Romney adviser, who served as his 2008 communications director.

But, Madden added, “Rick Perry’s meltdown with conservatives around the immigration issue has hurt him there, and his positioning on Social Security is devastating with older voters and retirees. All of that makes it a competitive race.”

Romney will make more stops in South Carolina, but don't expect him to campaign here very heavily. Florida's primary is likely to be held just days later, and because of early voting, it's possible that as much as half of Florida's vote could be in by the time South Carolina's primary takes place.

The temptation to play here could also be a trap. Felkel believes Perry has the best chance to garner majorities from all corners of the South Carolina map.

“The state is tailor-made for Rick Perry,” Felkel said. “Because he gets the business community; he’s got military background, social conservatives like him, and he’s got that independent streak that Carolinians seem to like. Case in point, John McCain.”

NBC's Domenico Montanaro contributed reporting to this story. 

SIMPSONVILLE, SC – Ann Romney had some blunt words for those who don’t vote for her husband Mitt this time around.

“If they don't pick Mitt that's their stupid mistake, not mine,” she jokingly told a crowd at the city hall here, to laughter.

Romney added that she felt more positively about campaigning now than she did when her husband first ran in 2008. (Romney finished fourth in South Carolina, pulling all of his resources out of the state just a few weeks before the primary vote) 

“I’ve had a totally different mental change from the last round. And that is, I’m going to enjoy this. A lot. It’s not like I didn’t enjoy it last time. It wasn’t all horrible, really,” she joked. “But I was worried all the time.”

“I'm not worried anymore! Mitt's going to win!” she said to applause.

“I’m going to enjoy meeting all you folks. I’m going to enjoy my trip in the airport. I’m going to enjoy all of it,” she continued.

While she did not defend the former Massachusetts governor on any policy specifics, Romney did say that she gets frustrated when she sees “how things get misrepresented.”

“I am a she-lion when it comes to anyone attacking him, you better look out! I get very, very upset at his being misrepresented.” 

She praised her husband as a “turnaround expert,” saying it was time to “get somebody in there who actually knows how to bring about change and how to actually fix things that are broken.”

The rest of her speech was focused on the closeness of her family: she talked about her late father-in-law George Romney, whom she says she misses; her father and great grand-father, Welsh coal miners who emigrated to the United States; and her sixteen grandchildren.

She also told an emotional story about how her husband motivated her to overcome her depression after she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, in 1998.

“I thought, ‘my life is over. I’m finished. This is awful. I can’t spend the rest of my life just being in bed,’” Romney told the crowd of about 60 here. “And Mitt was really amazing during this time. My most difficult time in my life. He would put his arm around me, he’d say, ‘look. There are worse things in life.’”

She said he would say, “We’ve got to remember one thing. You’re still here. We’re still together. Everything’s going to be okay.”

She added that his support “did something to me mentally and emotionally that made me want to fight. And it kicked me into a different gear. I stopped feeling sorry for myself, I stopped being depressed, and I started to fight.  

“I’m so grateful for Mitt for being the kind of husband that pulled me through a real crisis in my life,” she continued. 

She suggested the anecdote revealed more about her husband’s character than the jobs he’s held. “The job we do doesn't matter, it's who you are.” 

Romney will be in South Carolina tomorrow as well, attending a fundraising breakfast for the South Carolina Republican Party and submitting her husband's primary filing paperwork with the state party. 

State treasurer Curtis Loftis, a Romney supporter who campaigned with Mrs. Romney all day, said that "people love her" and that "she really humanizes the governor." He said he'd like to see her in South Carolina as much as possible. 

By NBC's Ali Weinberg 

COLUMBIA, SC -- Rick Perry and Mitt Romney are running neck-and-neck among Republicans who are planning to vote in next year's South Carolina primary, according to a new Winthrop University poll released today.

Perry gets 31% and Romney 27% -- within the poll’s margin of error.

Poll director Scott Huffmon said the results suggest that Perry has been making strong inroads (especially with Tea Party supporters) since getting into the race in mid-August, and that Romney’s support in the state extends beyond his initial name-recognition strength.  

“Rick Perry has a lot of attention down here. I think Mitt Romney has a little more support than people are giving him credit for,” said Huffmon, a political science professor at Winthrop. “Both should be looking at [these numbers] as a way of trying to tweak their strategy and grow their base.” 

Romney has been far less present in South Carolina than Perry, whose wife Anita will be here tomorrow presiding over the Perry headquarters’ ribbon-cutting ceremony.

While Huffmon advised against overstating the “bandwagon effect,” he noted that South Carolinians do tend to coalesce around the nationally anointed candidate, given that it has voted for every Republican nominee in the primary since Ronald Reagan in 1980.

“In general, things that are liked by conservatives in New Mexico or in Wyoming are the same kinds of things that are liked by conservatives in South Carolina,” he said.

The Winthrop poll showed no other GOP candidates with double-digit support, with “Not Sure” being the next-highest choice at 11% in the trial heat. Businessman Herman Cain received 8% (a six-point jump since the last Winthrop poll in April) and Sarah Palin got 6%.

Neither the Perry nor the Romney campaign would comment on the poll’s results.

Among the rest: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich got 5%; Rep. Ron Paul 4%; Rep. Michele Bachmann 3% (about where she was in April); and both former Sen. Rick Santorum and former Gov. Jon Huntsman at 2%.

Given the deflation of some candidates who might siphon off Perry support -- especially Bachmann -- Huffmon suggested the Romney camp would be wise to recalculate its “wait and see” strategy in the Palmetto State.

“I think Romney was sitting back, hoping that Tea Party supporters would tear each other apart in the Perry vs. Bachmann vs. Palin vs. Cain camps. But this may be a sign that he may need to wade in and take some of the air out of Perry’s balloon.”

The poll also found that more primary voters would make their selection based on ideology rather than electability. When asked whether it was more important to pick a nominee who can beat President Obama in 2012 or one who shares the voter’s beliefs, 60% said “match beliefs” while 33% said “beat Obama.”

Huffmon said those percentages should not be surprising, given that most Republican primary voters assume that Obama will be defeated regardless of the nominee.

The poll also tested GOP support for South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who holds a coveted primary endorsement. Her approval rating among Republicans is 69%, with 18% disapproving.

Regarding South Carolina Republicans’ views on President Obama, a majority -- 74% -- said the term “socialist” described him well.

Huffmon said that demonstrated more that the language of “conservative elites” like pundits and radio hosts were trickling down to everyday Republicans, rather than voters’ beliefs that Obama fits the textbook definition of a socialist. 

Moreover, 30% of Republicans in the poll also incorrectly said they believed Obama belonged to the Muslim faith. And 36% said they thought Obama was probably or definitely born in another country. Yet that percentage decreased since the last Winthrop poll in April, taken before President Obama released his “long-form” birth certificate.

The Winthrop University poll was conducted from September 11-18 and surveyed 1,552 registered voters from South Carolina. For the majority of the questions, which were asked only of Republicans and independents who lean Republican, the results came from 596 such voters and the margin of error was +/- 4.01%. For those questions asked only of those who “definitely” plan to vote in the 2012 primary, the margin of error was +/- 4.57%.

The specter of Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s attempted HPV vaccine mandate looms particularly large in South Carolina, where the state’s current governor, Nikki Haley, co-sponsored a similar bill as a state representative in 2007. 

According to a CNN story earlier this week, Haley later voted against the bill after fierce opposition arose. She did not, however, request to be removed as a sponsor of the bill.

According to a statement on Haley’s website, she voted against the bill when “it became clear to me that an opt-out provision was not going to be included in the bill and it sought to mandate that middle-school girls obtain a vaccine – and strip parents of the right to make the choice for their daughter." 

Two opt-out amendments were in fact later added to the bill, but Haley voted to table both of them according to legislative records.

When asked about Haley’s position on the bill yesterday, South Carolina Rep. Tim Scott declined to comment but said he opposed the concept of a vaccine mandate.

“I think the very most important thing to do on that question is ask Nikki Haley. Because I’m not going to be a spokesperson for Nikki Haley,” Scott said. “I can tell you however that giving parents the options to take care of their family and their children is the most important decision the government can make, which is to stay out of the way.”

A spokesman for Haley told NBC that the governor's statement speaks for itself. 

Former Sen. Rick Santorum, campaigning in South Carolina yesterday, said he believed that Haley had good intentions when she first supported the bill.

“I think what Nikki would tell you, and I’m sure she will tell you herself, a lot of people looked at that initially, you see this is an anti-cancer drug and this is a very could be a very helpful thing to eliminate that.”

Santorum said he took issue, however, with the idea of “taking parents’ rights away for having their children be vaccinated for something without really full consent and knowledge.” 

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint said that he would not be making an immediate endorsement of any of the six candidates participating in tomorrow’s Palmetto Freedom Forum, which he is hosting.

“I’m not counting any of them out at this point,” DeMint said on ABC's "This Week." A nationally regarded leader among Tea Party supporters, DeMint added that he would not use the forum to “anoint any one particular candidate” as the standard-bearer of that group.

Earlier on CNN’s “State of the Union,” DeMint said that “there's no one in the group that I couldn’t support as our nominee, and there’s no one who would not do a better job than our current president.”

Declared candidates Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul, Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich are participating.

Each candidate will take the stage individually and in alphabetical order, first making introductory remarks and then answering questions from DeMint, Republican Rep. Steve King (IA) and Dr. Robert George, the founder of the conservative group American Principles Project and a Princeton University professor.

On ABC, DeMint cut Perry some slack when asked if he was concerned Perry’s political past as a Democrat who supported Al Gore for president in 1988.

“We know people change,” DeMint answered. “Reagan was a Democrat, and I want to look at what the governor has done, as governor as Texas.”

Rep. Steve King (R-IA), reached by telephone earlier this week, said he had some questions about Perry’s record as well.

“Hopefully we’ll get some real position statements out of Governor Perry,” King said, specifically noting “quotes that showed up sometimes back in 2001,” the year Perry signed into law the Texas DREAM Act, which allows in-state tuition for college students born to undocumented parents.

Former South Carolina GOP chairman Barry Wynn, who is also on the forum’s advisory committee, said Perry’s two big appearances this week -- first at the forum and then at the NBC/Politico debate in California on Wednesday -- will both be crucial for Perry as the first time many voters will see him explain his policy positions.

“I think the performance in South Carolina and two days later in California will really be the first time a lot of people say, ‘Oh, well I like this guy, now how does he perform? So I think this is going to be very important for him,” said Wynn, a top fundraiser for George W. Bush, who also served as Rudy Giuliani’s South Carolina chairman in 2008.

DeMint said on CNN that the forum was a chance for him to “find the candidates who understand the principles of American exceptionalism and have the character, the courage, and the confidence to actually lead the greatest nation in the world.”

King said he’s particularly interested to ask candidates about their specific plans for the economy. He said that while he’s ”hearing from each of the candidates on what’s wrong with Obama has done economically,” he’s not seeing the full package.

“What would be all the steps, how would they flesh this out, where are all the components of an economic policy?” he asked. “That’s not been addressed very well by any of the candidates at this point.”

From NBC's Ali Weinberg:
Endorsing Jon Huntsman for president today, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson stressed what he said would be the former Utah governor’s ability to connect with voters in a general election.

While he said “there are a lot of wonderful people running for president,” Wilson, the son of Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., said that Huntsman can “take that conservative message to the folks in the general election to your independent voters, to your moderate, formerly known as Reagan Democrats.”

“It’s no good to be a conservative if you can’t sell a conservative message in a general election. I believe Governor Huntsman has the ability to do that,” he said, speaking at the South Carolina statehouse.

Huntsman said that Wilson’s endorsement made him the state’s first constitutional officer to endorse a candidate, which gave him reason for optimism in the nation’s first-in-the-south primary.

“This puts us in a position in South Carolina I begin to like our odds, I begin to like our chances in this state,” he said, adding that he would be seeing more of the South Carolina press corps as he continues to come through the state for “retail politics.”

He said that he believed the South Carolina primary would come down to “who has what it takes, the old shoe leather, walking the streets, the person-to-person interaction capability to go the distance.” 

Huntsman was also joined by state Sen. John Courson, who has endorsed every eventual Republican nominee since Ronald Reagan in 1980 and endorsed Huntsman back in April.

Courson said with this endorsement he was going “six for six.”

“We’re not going to let you down, buddy” Huntsman responded.

Before the announcement at the statehouse, Gov. Huntsman met with the editorial board of The State newspaper, according to a tweet from State reporter Adam Beam.

BACHMANN: “Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann said Thursday that President Barack Obama has moved too late and with too little force in response to Syria's crackdown on dissent,” the AP reports of Bachmann’s speech in Columbia, South Carolina yesterday. 

The Florence County Republican Party, who hosted Bachmann’s second event of the day, called Bachmann “the cosnervatives’ conservative,” according to Carolina Live.

PERRY: Texas Gov. Rick Perry will be in South Carolina today and tomorrow, stopping at a Florence restaurant and hospital, then going to a $75-per-person luncheon in Columbia to raise money for the South Carolina GOP. 

NBC’s Ali Weinberg contributed to this report.