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Edwards banking on S.C. win

CONWAY, S.C., Jan. 23 (UPI) -- After his disappointing showings in the Democratic primaries to date, former Sen. John Edwards is hoping to win in his native South Carolina this weekend.

Edwards has moved dozens of staffers from across the country into South Carolina and has spent an estimated $2 million in the Palmetto State, much of it on a series of 10-second ads, The (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer reported Wednesday.

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An average of four recent polls of South Carolina voters shows Edwards in a distant third, behind rivals Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, the newspaper reported.

Although Edwards won South Carolina when he ran on the 2004 Democratic ticket as Sen. John Kerry's running mate, this election the former North Carolina senator is competing against better known and better financed candidates, local political observers say.

"He was a darling of the younger set," said Blaise Graham, a political science professor at the University of South Carolina. "All that has changed this time. He is a distant third and in some ways is the politics of the past even though it was only four years ago."

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