Date Published: August 3, 2006   

South Carolina GOP sets stage for presidential debate

The Associated Press

South Carolina Republicans have set May 15 as a debate date for presidential hopefuls.

The date "cements our position in presidential politics and we'll most likely be the first debate in the South," state GOP Chairman Katon Dawson said Thursday.

South Carolina plans to have its 2008 GOP presidential primary in its traditional slot after New Hampshire's primary and Iowa's caucus, Dawson said.

It won't be a problem to have the debate nearly a year before the primary because by then "the field will be up and running," said Dawson in a telephone interview from the Republican National Committee's meeting in Minneapolis.

Networks are already proposing deals to air the debate, which will be held at the Koger Center at the University of South Carolina. "We expect to have a contract in hand within two or three weeks," Dawson said.

The Koger Center seats more than 2,200, nearly five times the seats Democrats packed at a nearby campus theater in May 2003 for their party's first presidential debate for the 2004 election.