Ben Terris of The Washington Post writes about South Carolina's reputation for below-the-belt presidential politicking: “The hallmarks of the South Carolina dirty tricks are: high impact, low tech, high deniability,” said Joel Sawyer, a GOP consultant based in Columbia. “The more salacious the better. And the people that do these kinds of things know their audience -- they are going to play to the fears of the blue-collar South Carolinians and know these tricks are going to be impactful.” The late GOP campaign consultant Lee Atwater is remembered as the patron saint of aggressive South Carolina politics.