Columbia, South Carolina (CNN) -- Choose your adjective: Hardball. Bare-knuckle. Down-and-dirty. South Carolina has a rich and storied history of tough political tactics. There's the stooge third-party candidate allegedly recruited by legendary Republican operative Lee Atwater to deliver anti-Semitic attacks against Democratic congressional candidate Max Heller in 1978 or the shadowy "push polls" about black babies that helped undercut Arizona Sen. John McCain's renegade presidential bid here in 2000. It's the fun and easy topic for pundits to chew on when they drop in to the first-in-the-South primary state after frigid tours of duty in Iowa and New Hampshire. But are South Carolina politics as nasty as advertised?
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"Dirty tricks" seem to bubble up in South Carolina politics more frequently than elsewhere
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But it's been more than a decade since such tactics have derailed a statewide candidacy
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S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley was subjected to unproven adultery claims during her 2010 campaign
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New generation of political operatives not using ploys of the past
"After @placeholder died, there was an entire generation of consultants who looked in the mirror every day and said, 'I'm going to be the next Lee Atwater,'" one South Carolina Republican strategist told CNN.