Here's today's key story out of the South Carolina local press: The State has a feature story today on the efforts by the second-tier Democrats to try to break through in South Carolina, mainly through the support of key state legislators and the hope that the top three Dems might run into problems in Iowa and New Hampshire.

The main challenge seems to be that the these candidates have to break through the dominant media focus on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and to a lesser extent on John Edwards. At the same time, the bar being set for success seems to be very negotiable. "If Joe Biden comes out of Iowa first, second, third, or fourth," said state Rep. Fletcher Smith, a Biden state co-chair, "then the national press will follow him and give him momentum to go on."