CNS News’ Fred Lucas writes about the May 15th South Carolina Presidential Debate on FNC…

All 10 current candidates for the Republican Party’s 2008 presidential nomination will be able to take part in a debate to be aired on Fox News on May 15, the cable channel said Wednesday.

Cybercast News Service reported earlier that seven of the 10 might not make the cut for the debate given the organizers’ decision to exclude those not achieving at least one percent in opinion polls.

That drew sharp criticism and concern from some conservative commentators and campaigns. But the network and the organizers - the South Carolina Republican Party - affirmed that all 10 candidates would be in the debate.

A Fox News spokesman said the criterion applied to a poll in South Carolina - where the debate is to be held - and not national ones. The rules were set by the South Carolina GOP, which also requires that candidates must have filed papers in South Carolina and have paid the proper fees to be a candidate.

The network spokesman said the poll being used was a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Polls of 600 likely South Carolina voters surveyed April 1-3, in which each of the 10 candidates polled one percent or higher.