Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, and Ron Paul have accepted invitations to appear at the American Principles Project Palmetto Freedom Forum at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center in Columbia, South Carolina on September 5th at 3pm.
To be invited, candidates had to be polling at 5% as of 1pm on Monday in the realclearpolitics.com average of all polls.
Other candidates that were invited were Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney. Candidates who were invited have until August 24th to confirm their attendance.
Romney will have an event on Sept 6th in Nevada, so he is unlikely to attend.
Palin will have a Tea Party rally she will headline on September 3rd. Organizers of that event released a promotional advertisement that used Palin's voice saying "Game On!"
Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum failed to meet the threshold to be invited.
At the forum in the critical early primary state of South Carolina, candidates will appear on stage one at a time and be questioned by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Rep. Steve King (R-IA), and Robert George of the American Principles Project. The event will be moderated by South Carolina news anchor David Stanton.
While the event will allow candidates to introduce themselves to the critical voters that constitute the Palmetto State, Labor Day weekend festivities, the start of the college and professional football seasons, and the national media that will turn its focus on Palin in Iowa will probably make this event a bit less significant than it had the potential of being when it was first being planned.
