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By Lynn Sweet
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Posted: 03/07/07 06:43 PM [ET] |
The first four 2008 presidential primary contests, all next January, are the most important: Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and then South Carolina, which can serve to throw a lifeline to a hopeful just hanging on or simply seal the deal for a candidate on a roll.
House Majority Whip James Clyburn is a power in South Carolina Democratic politics and his endorsement is sought by all the rival Dems. His position was only enhanced last January when he became the first House member from his state — and only the second African-American — to hold the No. 3 spot in the House.
He’ll be taking his time making a choice. Clyburn does not want to give a contender an excuse to bypass the Palmetto State.
Yesterday night, Democratic rivals Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Chris Dodd (Conn.) and Joseph Biden (Del.) were scheduled to stop by a Washington fundraiser for the South Carolina Democratic Party where Clyburn was to be the headliner.
In an interview, Clyburn, a veteran of the civil-rights struggle, talks about the 2008 contest, race, the visits to Selma by Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), and poet and author Toni Morrison dubbing former President Clinton the “first black president.”
The following is an edited conversation.
Your endorsement — how will you decide what you will want to do?
I’ll be talking to staff, I’ll be talking to the party leadership in South Carolina, I’ll be talking to family and friends.
The Selma visit by Clinton and Obama — will that resonate?
I think this whole thing that is developing that you’ve got to have civil-rights credentials in order to be a credible black candidate is b.s.
I mean, that is craziness. … I think John Lewis made the sacrifices he did on the Edmund Pettus bridge so his son would not have to make that kind of a march. So why are we saying that you have to make that march? That if you are not from that march you are not credible. That’s crazy stuff. What gets me is when I hear somebody make that kind of comment about Obama when supporting Hillary Clinton. When did she march? And where did she march? You know, when did John Edwards march and where? I don’t remember seeing them.
What will be the impact of former President Clinton if he came and did a lot of campaigning on behalf of Sen. Clinton?
I don’t think all that much.
Why would that be?
Because you know, this whole thing; Toni Morrison is a poet and her reference to Clinton as the first black president was poetry.
Do you believe that her reference was apt?
I said it was poetry. … She was being poetic when she said that. She was not being prophetic. There is a difference.
What is the difference?
Poetry is poetry. It deals with emotion … Bill Clinton I thought was a good president. But come on, the first black president? Nah, come on.
Has Clinton or Obama actually asked for your support?
Every one of them has expressed that kind of a thought.
Sweet is the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times. E-mail:
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