Richardson to square off Wednesday with 2008 contenders in Nevada, and you can watch it live

Gov. Bill Richardson will square off with most of the candidates seeking the Democratic Party’s 2008 presidential nomination at a forum Wednesday in Carson City, Nev.

You’ll be able to watch it live on television or the Internet.

C-SPAN will broadcast the forum beginning at 1 p.m. MST. You can watch it on the Internet by clicking here.

The event is sponsored by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and is the first major forum of the 2008 presidential season. Most of the 1,000 tickets to the event went to AFSCME members.

The event emphasizes the importance of labor unions in Nevada, and many consider John Edwards to be the frontrunner for the state’s nomination because of his popularity among such groups. Richardson is also expected to show well in the state, which is critical to his campaign.

Nevada has gained in importance in the presidential nominating process since the Democratic National Committee decided to hold caucuses there on Jan. 19, 2008, making it the second presidential nominating process in the nation.

Scheduled to speak at the forum are Richardson and Edwards, along with U.S. Sens. Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, former Sen. Mike Gravel, former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilasck and Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

Among democratic contenders, only Sen. Barack Obama is skipping the event, saying he has a scheduling conflict. Obama was in Nevada this weekend to campaign.

At the forum, each candidate will be given time for an opening and closing statement and will also answer three questions from a moderator.

Update, 12:15 p.m.

I’m planning to update this site every few minutes during Wednesday’s forum, so if you’re not able to watch it on TV and don’t have a fast enough Internet connection to watch it that way, check back here for updates.