BOSTON — As the 2004 Democratic National Convention ended, party luminaries issued orders to the foot soldiers: Go home and make sure your state votes for John Kerry and John Edwards.

To the S.C. delegation, they added: And you are not excused.

Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Palmetto State-born vice presidential nominee John Edwards, told the South Carolinians on Thursday that she could understand why they might feel less inspired than other Democrats.

“When you see all the lists of the states that are in play, you don’t see South Carolina,” she told about 100 S.C. Democrats at their downtown hotel.

Delegation members nodded. They have never seen South Carolina included among states that either are expected to or possibly could vote Democratic in the presidential election.

Edwards paused for dramatic effect and lowered her voice.

“We think we’re going to get South Carolina.”

The delegation jumped to its feet. Delegates, alternates and activists whooped and clapped.

Edwards pressed on, her voice rising in crescendo.

“We are going to work as hard as humanly possible in the next 97 days. I don’t want a day off. I don’t want a rest. Because I know that the future for my children, for this country, depends on what happens on Nov. 2.”

Edwards told the delegates she doesn’t want them to rest either, that they should reach out to South Carolinians who voted for President George Bush and are disillusioned. And they should take pride in the fact that there is a native son on the national ticket.

“I give you permission to milk that for all it’s worth,” she said.

Edwards, a U.S. senator who considers Robbins, N.C., his hometown, left South Carolina when he was 10.

Katon Dawson, chairman of the S.C. GOP, says the Bush administration’s conservative values match those of South Carolinians.

“South Carolina is Bush country,” he said, adding the current president and his father won the state big in their three races.

But the Democratic delegates in Boston promised this year will be different.

They vowed to organize themselves better. They said they will build on the success of their first-in-the-South presidential primary in February. And they said they have a strategy: push every Democrat in the state to the polls and convince other South Carolinians unhappy with Bush that Kerry and Edwards have a plan to improve their lives.

As for disaffected Bush voters, alternate delegate Tom Santaniello of Spartanburg says he knows where to find them.

“There are people in the Upstate and all over the state who have lost their jobs and who have struggled under the economic policies of George Bush,” said Santaniello, who begins USC Law School later this month.

As a young Democrat, the 21-year-old Santaniello said he is going to concentrate on colleges because they are full of young people — a group that votes in disproportionately low numbers.

Greenville County Council member Xanthene Norris and Greenville County activist Edith Chou, both in their 70s, said they have identified other places to tap potential Democratic votes.

Norris will look for them in Alpha Kappa Alpha, a sorority of African-American college women.

Chou says the Democratic message will appeal to those she knows at the Northwest Crescent Center, which serves the former mill towns north and west of Greenville with child-care, literacy and meal programs.

U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., points to his Mason’s ring.

Black churches are very important in politics, said the Columbia resident, but Masonic lodges also are key places where African-Americans share ideas.

Kathy Hensley, chairwoman of the Lexington County Democratic Party, said she’s going to deploy a bevy of volunteers — she would not say how many — to knock on doors and solicit votes. Despite her county’s Republican reputation, she expects a favorable response.

“There are Democrats in Lexington County,” Hensley said, who plans to hunt for the unregistered in new developments in Irmo and Batesburg-Leesville.

It will only help, Hensley said, that Edwards is on the ticket. “It energizes people in South Carolina.”

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