CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — For North Carolina officials hoping to emphasize the importance of the military in the state to members of a base closing commission, the scheduled presidential visit to Fort Bragg on Tuesday couldn’t come at a better time.

Four commission members will hold an afternoon hearing in Charlotte on proposed base closings and realignments in North Carolina, South Carolina and West Virginia just hours before Bush makes what’s expected to be a major policy address.

All three states planned to send plenty of political heavy hitters to the commission hearing, one of 16 regional events where state and local officials can discuss the proposed changes.

Last month, the Pentagon released a list of proposed cuts that would close or downsize 62 major domestic military facilities.

While North Carolina and South Carolina officials are generally satisfied with the proposal, West Virginia is expected to make the most noise at the hearing. More than 100 supporters of the Air National Guard’s 130th Airlift Wing are expected to attend.

The Pentagon has proposed shifting the unit, which now runs eight C-130 Hercules turboprops out of Yeager Airport in Charleston, W.Va., to North Carolina’s Pope Air Force Base.

The Defense Department has said Yeager is too small to accommodate a preferred 12plane unit, while state officials and unit supporters argue that the base can easily accommodate 14, even 16 of the planes.

‘‘We need to have the opportunity to prove the data’s wrong, to say, ‘Here’s the correct data,’’’ retired Col. Bill Peters, head of a group called ‘‘Keep ’Em Flying’’ that’s lobbying to keep the 130th at Yeager, said in a telephone interview. The 130th is currently in southwest Asia, serving its 11th rotation since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, said Peters, who served with the unit from 1969 to 2002. Four times since the 1970s, the 130th has been named the Air Force’s outstanding unit.

Keep ’Em Flying has received money from West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, who was slated to attend Tuesday’s hearing along with U.S. Sens. Jay Rockefeller and Robert C. Byrd.

For the Carolinas — both generally satisfied with the Pentagon’s proposed changes — Tuesday’s session was expected to be more about playing defense against the possibility of major changes to the Pentagon recommendation. North Carolina’s delegation was to be led by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, Gov. Mike Easley and Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue. Municipal officials affected by proposed changes were also expected to attend.

That includes Cherry Point, which would see the greatest loss of civilian jobs under the Pentagon’s proposal — 656 civilian jobs in helicopter maintenance would be shifted to other states.

Leigh McNairy, the state’s special assistant for military issues to Easley and Perdue, said North Carolina will continue selling itself.

‘‘The state’s message will be to continue to stress our military friendliness and to give supportive evidence,’’ McNairy said. ‘‘We go way back in terms of building a base of support for our military.’’ Overall, if the Pentagon’s cuts were implemented as proposed, North Carolina would lose 568 military jobs and gain 307 civilian positions.

Officials from Charleston, S.C., were expected to argue against plans to move 1,100 jobs away from that port city, which lost an estimated 20,000 jobs when its naval base and shipyard were closed in 1993 during the last military realignment.

This time around, the Pentagon wants to close the Defense Finance and Accounting Service and the South Naval Facilities Engineering Command and move the jobs elsewhere.

Overall, South Carolina would have a net gain of more than 700 jobs under the Pentagon’s proposal.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and Gov. Mark Sanford are to head their state’s delegation to the hearing.

Retired Army Gen. James T. Hill was one of the four commissioners slated to attend Tuesday’s hearing. The others were: Samuel Knox Skinner, secretary of transportation under President George H.W. Bush; Philip Coyle, an assistant defense secretary in the Clinton administration; and Harold W. Gehman Jr., a retired Navy admiral and former NATO supreme allied commander.

The commission is to forward its recommendation for closings and realignment to the president by Sept. 8.