CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Three Democratic presidential candidates turned their focus back to a familiar target at an NAACP forum here Friday night.

But a day after other candidates ganged up on Wesley Clark at a debate in Phoenix, the retired general got a free pass as his opponents turned their anger toward President Bush. Then scheduling problems left him the only candidate on the stage for the last 25 minutes, turning the forum turned into the "Wesley Clark Show."

The four candidates who continually criticized Clark Thursday night missed the hour and half forum that didn't live up to expectations. Plane problems kept three candidates from arriving in time to participate, two left early to catch flights and three decided not to attend.

The meeting was held in Charlotte to honor a boycott driven by NAACP efforts to remove the Confederate flag that flies Statehouse grounds in Columbia.

Friday's forum was supposed to give the candidates a chance to appear before South Carolina's National Association for the Advancement of Colored People leaders. South Carolina Democrats say black voters may cast more than half of the ballots in the state's first-n-the-South primary Feb. 3.

Clark, the Rev. Al Sharpton and Ohio U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich continued to criticize Bush's economic policy, his handling of the war in Iraq and his education policy.

They saved some of their sharpest rhetoric for the U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act.

"He's not much of an attorney and I know for sure he's not a general," said Clark, interrupted by applause. "He comes into this with an ax to grind."

Sharpton recalled how the FBI covertly investigated the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement and urged the crowd to fight Ashcroft and his policies. "We should not allow them to use the furor out of 9/11 to rob us of our rights," he said.

Kucinich said as president he would immediately ask the Justice Department to sue to overturn the Patriot Act.

The debate later turned to the death penalty, overcrowded prisons and other civil rights issues, but by then Clark was the only candidate around.

Sharpton, clearly the crowd's favorite, touch on those issues briefly, bringing loud cheers from the audience each time.

The NAACP members stood and applauded as he opened the forum with his arms waving and voice booming: "We are never going back to a time when our votes don't count."

The ovation continued as he ripped Bush for failing to find Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein or the leaker who identified a supposed CIA operative to reporters. "I intend to help him find Crawford, Texas," Sharpton said of Bush's home.

Sharpton said events this week in California show anyone can win an elected office in America. "If Arnold Schwarzenegger, who never had a serious political thought, can become governor of Californian because he was the action hero, I can become president because I never had a stunt man do my dirty work."

North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt and former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun all arrived too late for the forum because of mechanical problems with their plane in Phoenix, the site of Thursday night's debate.

The three spoke with people outside the ballroom after the forum ended.

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman met with South Carolina NAACP leaders individually Friday, but had to leave Charlotte before the forum started so he could return to Washington before sundown to observe the Jewish Sabbath.

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was attending parents weekend at his daughter's college and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry had a long-standing commitment to campaign in New Hampshire.

South Carolina NAACP President James Gallman said that organization would not punish any candidates who did not attend.