How ready is South Carolina for Hillary Clinton?

Hillary Clinton will be in Atlanta on Thursday for a closed-door morning fundraiser. Her campaign would not provide any additional details on the event. Clinton’s first visit of this campaign is emblematic of Georgia’s status as a fundraising hub, as compared to South Carolina — a key early primary state.

Hillary Clinton arrives in South Carolina on Wednesday for her first visit of the 2016 presidential campaign cycle with universal name recognition and a 10-person paid campaign team already in place.

But the scars have not completely healed from an ugly battle in 2008 with Barack Obama in the early primary state, and key Democrats say Clinton will not be able to skate to victory here, even as they acknowledge her lack of substantial primary competition.

“Although a number of us are anxious to see her, until a lot of us do see her, nobody is going to be committing and running out to make sure she’s the nominee,” said state House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, D-Columbia.

“She’s putting together a great team here,” he said, “but we’re not used to doing this from afar.”

The Clinton camp expects nothing less and is eager to show its effort to win a primary that so far lacks a big-name challenger, while learning the lessons of 2008.

Former Obama aide in Clinton camp

Clinton hired Clay Middleton, Obama’s 2008 political director in South Carolina and a longtime aide to U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., to run her South Carolina campaign. The operation as of last week had secured commitments from more than 3,700 volunteers. Former Gov. Dick Riley, who was education secretary under President Bill Clinton, is the former first lady’s most high-profile supporter in the state.

Dwight Drake, a veteran lobbyist and Democratic fundraiser in the state, supported Clinton in 2008 and is doing so again. He said South Carolina voters will have plenty of opportunities to hear from the candidate.

“It’s always a challenge for a candidate running in multiple places to divide their resources and time,” Drake said. “But I’m confident Hillary will do what’s necessary to win and gain support here.”

On a recent Wednesday evening in Columbia 13 volunteers made calls on their cellphones to recruit Clinton supporters to hand out literature at farmers markets or host “house parties,” where they invite their friends to talk about the candidate.

Clinton launches grass-roots campaign

While Middleton is doing some fence-mending with Democratic leaders, the Clinton camp is taking an Obama-like grass-roots approach to the primary.

The phone-callers were a wide range of ages, including some who were born while Clinton was first lady.

Calvin Hallman, 21, said he knocked on doors for Clinton with his mother eight years ago. He recently had to drop out of the University of South Carolina and get a job for financial reasons, and he said he likes Clinton’s views on making college more affordable.

“I wake up in the morning and go like, ‘Oh my gosh. I’m about to go breathe Hillary to everyone I know,’ ” Hallman said.

South Carolina is on no one's list of general election battlegrounds, unlike fellow early states Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, all of which saw Clinton visit before South Carolina. For many Democrats pining for more from Clinton, it's about wanting a piece of the action, especially as Republican presidential hopefuls flock to the state in their wide-open primary race.

“I want them all to come, and I want them all to participate and I want us to have a good primary,” Clyburn said. “So I will not make any endorsements.”

Clyburn, who rose to the third-most-powerful position in the U.S. House when Democrats last controlled the chamber, is the most influential Democrat in South Carolina.

2008 campaign full of friction

Clyburn did not endorse before the 2008 primary, either, but he played a role in the drama that unfolded that year. After Obama won Iowa and Clinton won New Hampshire, South Carolina got heated.

Bill Clinton made comments that many in the African-American community saw as belittling to Obama, calling his positioning on the Iraq war "the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen" and comparing Obama's presidential campaign to Jesse Jackson's.

Clyburn told the former president to cool it. Obama eventually won the primary by double digits, a huge blow to Hillary Clinton's momentum that shaped the long nomination battle. Bill Clinton called late on primary night to berate Clyburn, but the 12-term congressman says it is all behind them.

“As far as I was concerned, there were never any scars,” Clyburn said. “I didn’t endorse eight years ago. I simply said we should be careful in what we say and what we do in these primaries because we don’t want the nominee to be put in a position of not being a viable candidate.”

Skeptic: ‘She’s not taking any chances or any risks’

There are plenty of Democratic Clinton skeptics in the state. Their bandwagon leader is Dick Harpootlian, the bombastic former chairman of the state Democratic Party and an avowed fan of Vice President Joe Biden — whom Harpootlian is pushing to run.

Biden, Harpootlian said, could get people excited the way Obama or Bill Clinton could. He compared Hillary Clinton’s campaign to a pre-shot clock basketball team playing stall ball.

“She’s not saying anything that stimulates anybody, and she’s not taking any chances or any risks,” said Harpootlian, who had a falling-out with the Clintons after endorsing Obama. “And she’s going to need to do that. I mean, really, based on that strategy do you win Colorado? Do you win Virginia? Do you win those swing states?”

Not to mention the scandals that seem to follow Clinton everywhere, from the Clinton Foundation’s donations from foreign governments to the deletion of her email while she was secretary of state to the continued congressional investigation into the 2012 Benghazi attack.

“She is the front-runner because of her ability to raise money and her experience and background. That’s a plus,” Harpootlian said. “She’s got all that (stuff) going on, and that’s a minus. And she can’t have the plus without the minus. And it’s coming home to roost.”

Challengers generate little heat

Harpootlian said he would push Biden to run, but the vice president has not made moves to get in the race so far. At this point, the Democratic competition for Clinton includes former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who plans to announce his candidacy this week in Baltimore, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, former U.S. Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee.

O’Malley, Sanders and Chafee attended the South Carolina Democratic convention last month, while Clinton appeared via video. Still, she’s the only Democrat so far with paid staff in the state.

O’Malley last year funded four staffers from his political action committee to help Democratic gubernatorial candidate Vincent Sheheen, a goodwill-building move he made in Iowa and New Hampshire, too. O’Malley’s team hopes to take advantage of Clinton skepticism in the state, or at least remind people there is more than one Democrat in the race.

O’Malley supporter and former state Rep. Boyd Brown said that aside from Middleton, Clinton’s South Carolina hires have come from out of state.

“I know her campaign is claiming they’re doing everything differently, but I have yet to see it,” Brown said.

“When I’m talking to Democrats out there, I remind them — and I’ve heard (O’Malley) say it, too — you remind them that everyone’s unbeatable until you beat ‘em.”