Just an article I found to set up Thursday's first Democratic Debate. I am getting just a little bit excited.
http://charlotte.com/217/story/95721.htmlPRESIDENTIAL RACE
National spotlight on S.C. debate
JIM MORRILL
jmorrill@charlotteobserver.com
Eight Democratic presidential candidates and reporters from around the world will converge on a small S.C. city this week for what could become a milestone in the 2008 presidential campaign.
Four U.S. senators, a former senator and three other candidates will gather in Orangeburg Thursday night for their first nationally televised debate.
The state Democratic Party has issued 450 credentials to journalists from as far away as Australia, Brazil and Norway. NBC anchor Brian Williams will moderate the debate. MSNBC will carry it live.
"When this debate is over, it could very well redefine the race," said U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, the state's only Democratic congressman.
The debate at S.C. State University will give most voters their first chance to see candidates such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama side by side with John Edwards and others.
"It's the first opportunity to start making comparisons and to hear the candidates ... think on their feet," said Charles Bierbauer, a former CNN political correspondent who heads the University of South Carolina School of Mass Communications.
"I like to see how the candidates function under a certain amount of pressure. We know whether they're liberal or conservative. I like to see that element of spontaneity."
Presidential Politics
The s.c. primary
The Setting
The debate will take place in Martin Luther King Jr. Theater at historically black S.C. State University in Orangeburg, a town of about 15,000 about 40 miles south of Columbia.
For many South Carolinians, the school is a touchstone.
In 1960, hundreds of students took part in some of the earliest civil rights protests. In 1968, more protests resulted in what became known as the Orangeburg Massacre, in which police shot three students to death.
One of the `60s protesters, Jim Clyburn, went on to become the state's first black congressman since Reconstruction.
"Orangeburg represents a crossroads," says Todd Shaw, an assistant professor of political science and African American studies at the University of South Carolina. "It reflects a history of Jim Crow discrimination, but it also speaks to the possibilities of progress." presidential race