The Democrat Follies on Parade: Their First Debate

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- In an early debut of the debates that will help shape the crowded contest for the White House, all eight declared Democratic presidential candidates will climb onto the stage in a college auditorium Thursday to face questions before a national television audience.This exceptionally early debate for the Democrats at a historically black state university in Orangeburg, S.C., to be followed by a May 3 face-off for Republicans at the Reagan Library in California, is the first of many debates in the months leading to the initial voting in January.
The debate in South Carolina—site of the first southern primary in January—is in part a test of whether any of the Democratic candidates is viable in the Old South. But it's also a contest for a key party constituency in a state where African-Americans could account for more than half of the voters in the Democratic primary.While Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York is the apparent early favorite among Democrats nationally, she and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois are splitting the greatest share of support among black voters in South Carolina, with 40 percent supporting or leaning toward Clinton and 35 percent backing Obama.A recent survey for a South Carolina television station taken by pollster Peter Hart found Clinton and Obama virtually tied, followed by former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, a South Carolina native who won the 2004 primary.That places a burden on all three to hold their ground in the 90-minute debate, which starts at 6 p.m. CDT and will be moderated by Brian Williams of NBC News and shown on MSNBC nationally. Chris Matthews of MSNBC will moderate the GOP debate next week.

And, of course, there is the usual talk centered around race and racial symbolism:

“While Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York is the apparent early favorite among Democrats nationally, she and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois are splitting the greatest share of support among black voters in South Carolina, with 40 percent supporting or leaning toward Clinton and 35 percent backing Obama.”

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The competition between Clinton and Obama for the African-American vote nationally also places a burden on Edwards, a wealthy trial lawyer and son of mill workers from South Carolina who has based his campaigns on bridging the gap between the rich and poor.Trailing Clinton and Obama among black voters surveyed here, "clearly Edwards has the most to lose," said Dave Woodard, professor of political science at Clemson University and director of the Palmetto Poll."The thing I'm really watching is to see how Obama does," Woodard said. "Half the vote in the Democratic primary will be African-American. They will be very mobilized by this. I really think Obama is the phenomenon, Clinton is second and Edwards is third."

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“’The biggest issue in South Carolina is always race,’ says Dick Harpootlian, a Columbia lawyer and former chairman of the state Democratic Party.”

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“Whether or not the moderator of Thursday night's debate raises the [Confederate] flag issue, observers say, the candidates are likely to pursue it on their own. The debate will take place at the Martin Luther King Jr. Auditorium on the campus of South Carolina State University, scene of a notorious police shooting of students in the 1960s.”

Anyway, any serious conservative political writer/blogger and campaign managers should have their recorders going; there are bound to be some great comments coming out of these people. Tonight will give you all the extreme left quotes you can handle.