Former Vice President Biden's controversial comments this week about two former segregationist lawmakers is looming large as he heads to South Carolina this weekend.
USA TODAYFormer Vice President Biden’s controversial comments this week about two former segregationist lawmakers is looming large as 21 White House hopefuls gather in South Carolina to make their case to voters in a state where African Americans make up the majority of the Democratic electorate.
The controversy continues to simmer even as some party faithful try to downplay the intra-party sniping ahead of this weekend’s Democratic party cattle call in Columbia, S.C. Black voters make up more than 60 percent of the Democratic electorate in South Carolina, and are key to a primary victory. “I just think he’s out of step,” said Moore, whose sister and eight others were killed in the 2015 mass shooting by a racist gunman who targeted a bible study at an African American church in Charleston. “That’s not his first time touting his ability to work with people who have been bad for my community. What I think it goes back to is that much of the African American community thinks he did a pretty good job while he was the vice president for Barack Obama.
“You ought not to abuse too much the person who tries to find common ground,” said Bill Clyburn, who has endorsed Biden. “He must do better,” Watson said of Biden. “It’s not good. He doesn’t want to seem like a flip-flopper. He just recently had to walk back his support the Hyde Amendment, and he doesn’t want his campaign to be stuck with a title of ‘retractor or flip-flopper in chief.’ What he doesn’t seem to understand is that he was in the Senate for nearly 40 years and America evolved.”Vice President Joe Biden gets a hug from with U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-SC, during the dedication ceremony of the new Ernest F.
South Carolina Rep. John King, who has endorsed Booker, said he agreed with the New Jersey Democrat. But King was circumspect on what impact he thought Biden’s comment might have on his standing with black voters in the state. "I know as chairman of the party I had speak at least twice, maybe as many as three times once as vice president and some variation of that story has been told ... when he's talking about reaching across the aisle and working with people who you have huge differences with and may find reprehensible," Harpootlian said."That's all he's talking about there. In no way has he ever indicated that he approved or any way adopted their positions.
But Democrats in South Carolina are decidedly more conservative than party faithful in nearly any other part of the country, said Sam Johnson, a former chief of staff to Columbia mayor Steve Benjamin.
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