Carol Moseley Braun on Saturday became the fifth presidential candidate to visit the Grand Strand.

Unlike other candidates, she didn't come to talk about job loss at Georgetown Steel Co.

She came to talk education, and she chose Myrtle Beach because the S.C. Alliance of Black School Educators is having its winter meeting this weekend at Kingston Plantation.

"Education has always been a priority for me," she said Saturday between sessions at the educators conference. "It's such an important issue."

This was Braun's second stop in South Carolina in the past month. The former ambassador and U.S. senator from Illinois spoke at a Pee Dee church in late December.

Her Saturday stop, which also included a drop-in at Sandy Grove Missionary Baptist Church, was her only other scheduled S.C. appearance.

Her campaign platform focuses on creating jobs that pay a living wage, establishing universal health care coverage and improving educational opportunities. She also has advocated stronger civil liberty protections and has opposed the war in Iraq.

Her chances for winning the Democratic nomination appear slim.

A December Pew Research Center poll showed U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina leading all candidates for the Feb. 3 S.C. primary, with 16 percent of voters supporting him. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark was second, with 11 percent.

Braun was toward the bottom of the nine-person field, with 2 percent support.

About one-third of voters polled said they still were undecided.

Braun said Saturday she thinks she has a chance.

"I'm in it to win it," she said. "I think it's wide open."

She said South Carolina's problem with education is the same as that of many other states: Federal education spending is being shoved off on the state level, and states can't keep up.

"It's just not right," she said.

She called the federal No Child Left Behind Act a "huge unfunded mandate" that states will have to pay for.

Although she wasn't here to focus on job loss, she is a critic of trade agreements made under President Bush that Democrats say have led to widespread joblessness.

"We have to do trade the right way, in a way that creates jobs and doesn't give competitors an advantage," she said.

U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt visited the Grand Strand on Wednesday. Howard Dean, Edwards and the Rev. Al Sharpton also visited the Grand Strand in the past year.

South Carolina's primary is considered a political bellwether for the South by candidates and political observers.

"It'll give South Carolina a lot of exposure," said Brian Scott of North Myrtle Beach, who came to Saturday's conference with his wife, Roberta, and their son, Avery, 16, specifically to meet Braun.