School and Democratic Party officials confirmed this week the college is making a pitch to play host of a live televised debate among the nine Democrats running for president.

The debate would run on MSNBC and take place Jan. 29, just days before South Carolina's Feb. 3 presidential primary. Furman University in Greenville and Winthrop University in Rock Hill also are interested.

The network is far from finish-ing its investigation of the three sites.

College of Charleston President Lee Higdon said the school "would do everything we could to make our historic public college and modern facilities available for such a significant event."

Some Democrats contend the college may have an advantage over the others in landing the debate given that Charleston and the Lowcountry are projected to have a larger Democratic primary turnout than the others.

"You have a higher percentage of African-American voters in the lower part of the state, and African-Americans are going to comprise a significant number within the Democratic primary," said state Rep. David Mack, D-North Charleston, a key state leader in former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's campaign for president.

"I think if we want to speak to our base, we would do a little better being in the Charleston area," Mack said.

Another mark in Charleston's favor is the availability of hotels and restaurants downtown, said Charleston County Democratic Party Chairman Mullins McLeod, who is working to bring the debate to the city.Some Democrats contend that Greenville County employees' decision not to observe Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a paid holiday could be a strike against Furman.

State Democratic Party Chairman Joe Erwin announced this week that South Carolina would hold a presidential debate Jan. 29 to be carried live on MSNBC. Tom Brokaw is the probable moderator.

It will come in the middle of a quick succession of Democratic events: nine days after the Iowa caucuses, two days after the New Hampshire primary and five days before South Carolina's first-in-the-South presidential primary.

Erwin said Wednesday the decision of where to hold the event is more up to the network than it is to the state party, adding that the key factors will be the availability of facilities and security and the size of the local TV market.

The only thing that has been decided is that the debate will not be in Columbia, Erwin said. The University of South Carolina held a presidential debate on campus there in May that was televised by ABC-TV.

The College of Charleston has two large auditoriums available: Physicians Auditorium, which seats 500, and Sottile Theatre, which seats 800.

Another selling point is that the college already is preparing to hold a roundtable discussion on South Carolina politics that week for the hundreds of assembled media that would be in the state covering the primary.

Humanities professor and author Jack Bass is working with Ferrel Guillory, the director of the Southern Politics, Media and Public Life Program at the University of North Carolina, to have a local roundtable to educate visiting reporters on the ins and outs of South Carolina campaigns.

Bass said it makes sense for the debate to come to the college because the media and candi-dates would be together in one location.

"We think it would be a perfect fit," Bass said.

Candidates planning to attend the South Carolina debate include Dean, U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, U.S. Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois.

The campaigns of U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and the Rev. Al Sharpton have not confirmed.

A decision on where the debate will go could be weeks away.

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