Former Vice President Joe Biden's fledgling presidential campaign was resurrected by the will of the African-American vote in South Carolina on Saturday night, because of Rep. Jim Clyburn's, D-S.C., endorsement, according to political pundit James Carville.
"I think congressman Clyburn is the MVP of this whole thing," Carville told MSNBC. "So my hat is off to congressman Clyburn.
"Also, I mean, look, Vice President Biden was up against a wall, and he worked hard and he performed. I thought he did very well in that debate we had last Tuesday night."
The African-American support for Biden, buoyed by the Clyburn endorsement, put him back in the race for the Democratic nomination, Carville contended.
"The single most important demographic in the Democratic Party spoke up tonight, and that's African-Americans, and they spoke loudly and they spoke clearly," Carville said. "This is our most loyal voting base."
The African-American support will also carry Biden in number of other battlegrounds, Carville added.
"By the way, just to be political about it, they happen to be very strategically located in places like North Carolina, in places like Georgia, in places like Pennsylvania, in places like Texas, in places like Florida," Carville said of the African-American vote. "So we're going to have to listen, and these voters are going to be speaking as we go forward."
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., might still be the leader nationally, Carville continued, but he is going to have to find an answer to Biden's support among African-Americans.
"Sen. Sanders is going to have to answer questions," Carville concluded. "If you want to be the nominee of the Democratic party and you have this kind of relationship with the constituency and the best Democrats in the United States, what do you have to say about that?
"I think this is what happened tonight. We get all enamored, and then, you know, we are reminded of what and who the democratic party is. I think that was a lot of the lesson that we saw tonight and we'll see it going forward in more of these primaries."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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