Anonymous attacks, sleazy tricks, blatant deceit and over-the-top smear campaigns have become the norm in South Carolina, but it never ceases to amaze reporters outside the state. The latest such journalist article to tackle the “dirtiness” of Palmetto State politics is Michael Crowley and his article “Low Country,” which will run in The New Republic Monday, does a tolerable — but at times sloppy — job characterizing the way S.C. politicos play.

Just before a March GOP straw poll in Spartanburg, someone using the e-mail address upstaterepublican@gmail.com mass-mailed a missive titled, “Mitt Romney has a family secret he doesn’t want you to know.” “Those dark suspicions you hide deep inside yourself about Mormonism are trying to tell you something, ” it read. “Trust your instincts! … The light of truth will burn through the smoke and mirrors of Mitt Romney’s movie star looks and crafty words!” The e-mails arrived around the same time as another anonymous letter, a six-page diatribe titled “Mitt Romney: Say anything to get elected,” which ripped the former Massachusetts governor for his positions on abortion, gun control, and “conservative values.”

Romney is hardly the innocent victim, though. In September, just as Fred Thompson was preparing to enter the Republican presidential field, PhoneyFred. org appeared. The website was equal parts sophomoric parody and character assassination. Its home page featured an absurd image of Thompson in a period costume with a frilly scarf and gilded jacket (presumably from an acting role). Another photograph featured a grinning shot of the Tennessean surrounded, via Photoshop, by several women to whom he’s been romantically linked. The site directed viewers to dirt on Thompson via links with such titles as HOLLYWOOD FRED, WASHINGTON FRED, TRIAL LAWYER FRED, MORON FRED, and PLAYBOY FRED. “[W]e figured it was about time that we did a little research into what Fred Thompson (not Arthur Branch) really stands for,” explained a welcome message on the site, referring to the character Thompson plays on “Law & Order.” But The Washington Post did a little research, too, and traced the site to the consulting firm of Warren Tompkins, perhaps the top political operative in South Carolina–and a consultant to the Romney campaign. [...]

As the 2008 Republicans trudge toward this political Mordor, they do so bracing for what threaten to be new lows of attack politics. John McCain’s reputation was slandered (and his candidacy ruined) here in 2000–and he was a war hero. By contrast, the current leaders of the GOP field–Romney, Thompson, and Rudy Giuliani–seem almost tailor-made for the state’s smear machine. Romney’s opponents are salivating over his Mormonism. Giuliani’s marital history, gay friends, and past appearances in drag are all ideal fodder for dead-of-night windshield pamphlets. And one upstate county Republican chairman has already sneered publicly at Thompson’s “trophy wife.” “It’s gonna be brutal, ” chuckles state Democratic chairwoman Carol Fowler. For the 2008 Republicans, then, winning South Carolina may be less a matter of pulling off a clear victory than simply getting out alive.

Eight years ago, George W. Bush’s supporters, apparently backed by the state’s GOP establishment, dragged John McCain’s name through the South Carolina mud. Church fliers declared him “the fag candidate.” A fringe veterans’ group denounced him as a traitor. Anonymous “push-poll” phone calls told voters that he had an illegitimate black child. One Bob Jones University professor even sent a mass e-mail falsely stating that McCain had “chosen to sire children without marriage.” Challenged on CNN, the professor responded, “Can you prove that there aren’t any?” (Who says BJU isn’t academically rigorous?) [MICHAEL CROWLEY - The New Republic]

Our only problem — and it’s a pretty big one — with this article is that it doesn’t seem like Crowley did much first-hand research. He basically just ripped off material from the article “Making Mitt Romney: How to fabricate a conservative,” which will run in November’s Harper’s Magazine.  And on top of that, this article reads like it was written entirely by Rod Shealy; he’s probably the only person who considers the Lizard’s Thicket a place where “S.C. operatives tend to congregate.”

You read the article in it’s entirety on The New Republic’s website.