SOUTH CAROLINA
JANUARY 21- 25, 2008

It is more than a week before the South Carolina primary and young campaign organizers for Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barak Obama are very busy. They travel from one beauty salon to another in Horry County, South Carolina, trying to convince deeply religious African American women to vote for their candidate. The Democratic focus on religious voters is a new phenomenon in this campaign, and the organizers are spending their days with the voters as they get their hair done, discussing the integrity of their candidates and their strong faith. We listen in on the fascinating conversations in barbershops and beauty salons.

in the picture: Cory Burnell.
More than two hundred miles away, the deeply conservative God fearing “Upstate” South Carolina, Anderson County, is the target of Cory Burnell's Christian Exodus movement. His movement has the stated goal of “moving thousands of Christians to establish a constitutionally limited government based upon Christian principles long abandoned by the Federal government.” Fifteen families have already moved to the county. Some of them invited me for a visit. Some of the county’s residents, as well as its clergy, are not happy about this new pilgrimage. Although deeply conservative, they consider this new movement too extreme. Spending a few days in Anderson, we follow both sides of this debate which goes to the heart of Faith and Politics in South Carolina.