Hillary and the Scooby van couldn’t make it to the everyday Americans in SC.
Via WaPo
As Democratic leaders and activists gathered here Saturday for their annual state party convention, they chatted in corridors and at coffee stands about Hillary Rodham Clinton. Her campaign staffers buzzed around with clipboards signing up volunteers. To many, the promise of the first female president seemed exhilarating.
But the candidate was missing. In Clinton’s absence, her longtime booster, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, did his duty again. But the response from the 1,000 convention delegates and activists was luke warm. And when McAuliffe signaled for a video message from Clinton to play, there was a technical snafu. Then silence.
“It’s on her e-mail somewhere,” shouted one man from the back of the convention hall, referring to Clinton’s controversial use of a private e-mail server as secretary of state.
What soon followed were fresh reminders that although Clinton is as dominant a front-runner for the nomination as any non-incumbent in recent history, the hearts of party activists are not yet hers.
Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont toying with a primary challenge to Clinton, brought Democrats to their feet with a fiery sermon about the hollowed-out middle class and the rise of an “oligarchic form of society” controlled by billionaires.
The reception Sanders received — several delegates called him “electric” — surprised Rep. James E. Clyburn, the state’s most powerful Democrat, who took it all in from the back of the hall.
“I really did not anticipate that from Bernie,” Clyburn said. “It says something about people’s thirst and hunger for a real message.”[…]
The Clinton team is staffing up, with a half dozen paid organizers across the state, and has built a volunteer corps of more than 600. A top national staffer, Marlon Marshall, was in South Carolina working delegates. On Friday, he and other Clinton aides mingled with activists at Clyburn’s famous fish fry, a rollicking party staged inside a downtown parking garage with hip hop music blaring and people dancing into the night.
In 2008, Clinton’s ties to Clyburn were damaged when Bill Clinton made a series of anti-Obama comments on the campaign trail that many in this heavily African American state interpreted as race-baiting. This year, Hillary Clinton extended an olive branch when she hired a Clyburn protege, Clay Middleton, to run her South Carolina campaign.