South Carolina hasn’t gone for a Democrat for president since Jimmy Carter in 1976, but the Palmetto State faithful say they have a particular reason for pride at this week’s Democratic National Convention in Boston.

A native son is on the national ticket.

True, presumed vice presidential nominee John Edwards left South Carolina when he was 10 and now calls North Carolina home.

But the U.S. senator sure acted as if he were a South Carolinian before the state’s Feb. 3, first-in-the-South presidential primary.

That contest — the only one he won — was what he needed to make his case for a vice presidential nomination, said John Moylan, the Columbia attorney who headed up Edwards’ S.C. campaign and on whose couch Edwards was sitting when he found out he came in first.

“It will be different this year,” Moylan said of South Carolina’s role at the convention. “We are the birthplace of the vice presidential nominee.”

The South Carolina contingent includes 55 delegates and seven alternates, pages and others. They range in age from 20 to 81.

Many hold or have held elected office, including U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, Greenville County Council member Xanthene Norris and former Gov. Dick Riley, the delegation’s chairman.

But there also are carpenters, longshoremen and students who will claim a seat in Boston’s Fleet Center for a multimedia, sold-out political show that will cost more than $70 million, according to the latest estimates.

That tab will be paid in part by the Boston host committee, the Democratic Party, and the federal government, which chips in $14.9 million each for the two major national conventions.

The official event in Boston is four days long, opening Monday morning and ending Thursday night, when U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts accepts his party’s nomination for president.

That moment will be broadcast on the three national networks, as will the speeches of other big-name Democrats on the first three days of the convention:

• Monday — former President Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore

• Tuesday — U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts

• Wednesday — Edwards.

The 35,000 people expected at the convention can watch other speeches all day, too. Members of Congress, mayors and others of the Democratic faith will form a seemingly endless line at the podium.

U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn of Columbia will be among them, having accepted a recent invitation from the Kerry campaign to deliver a short address.

Every moment of the convention can be seen on C-SPAN television, which also will provide continuous coverage of the Republican National Convention, Aug. 30-Sept. 2 in New York City.

But the 6,000 delegates, myriad party functionaries, volunteers and journalists at the convention will move away from the Fleet Center floor for much of the week.

For lawyers like Moylan, there will be seminars on changes in election law.

Delegate and state Rep. John Scott of Columbia is looking forward to some good discussions on how Democrats can make jobs and the war in Iraq into winning campaign issues.

Benedict College student Dontae Patterson, who aims to be South Carolina’s first African-American governor, will take mental notes during the speeches. But he also wants to walk Boston’s Freedom Trail and soak up some Revolutionary War history.

The delegation’s long days will end each night at the Boston Marriott Copley Place, the high-rise hotel that will play host to South Carolina — and collect more than $209 a night per room.

Each delegate pays his or her own way, with the state party helping out in cases of hardship.

Reach Markoe at (202) 383-6023 or lmarkoe@krwashington.com.