COLUMBIA, S.C. — A number of Democratic presidential candidates, hoping to chip away at former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s help in South C
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A number of Democratic presidential candidates, hoping to chip away at former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s help in South Carolina, gathered within the state capital on Monday morning to make remarks honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and participate in an annual vacation march and rally that had election-year overtones.
At about 10:15 a.m., seven candidates, joined by native dignitaries, linked arms and commenced the six-block stroll from the Zion Baptist Church to the Statehouse, singing “We Shall Overcome” for a part of the journey.
Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who sparred final week over their recollections of a private conversation about whether or not a girl might win the presidency, appeared to speak amiably on the march, the place Mr. Sanders looped an arm by means of her elbow.
The sight of Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren linked arm-in-arm delighted Lisa Ray Clarkson, a retired instructor from Norfolk, Va., who was on the march. “Which means they’ve gotten over their variations and the Democratic Social gathering is reuniting,” Ms. Clarkson mentioned as she walked alongside the procession.
Beforehand, on the first occasion on a busy day of celebrations for Dr. King in South Carolina and Iowa, which each maintain essential presidential nominating votes in February, a number of candidates informed a breakfast gathering of predominantly black voters that they have been dedicated to advancing Dr. King’s legacy and that defeating President Trump in November was a vital step towards that purpose
“My marketing campaign revolves across the picture of the primary day that the solar comes up over South Carolina and our nation and Donald Trump is now not the president of the USA,” former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., informed the Columbia City League’s annual King breakfast. “I elevate the picture of that dawn as a result of it can deliver forth the burning query Dr. King posed in the summertime of 1967: The place will we go from right here?”
“As a result of on that day our nation shall be much more polarized and torn up than it’s now,” mentioned Mr. Buttigieg, who is without doubt one of the top-polling candidates in Iowa however is struggling in South Carolina and among black voters. He urged motion to fight disparate remedy by race within the well being care system and to deal with environmental air pollution disproportionately affecting African-People, who make up a majority of the Democratic main voters within the state.
Tom Steyer, the billionaire businessman who polled at 15 percent in South Carolina in a current Fox Information survey, tying him with Mr. Sanders for second place, known as on People to “channel Dr. King” and take motion in opposition to a authorities that he described as hostile to the hungry and others in want.
“Each political situation that I see in the USA of America has a subtext that’s race,” Mr. Steyer mentioned. “It might be awkward. It might be uncomfortable, however we have now to have that dialog. I imagine that out of narrative comes coverage.”
Former Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, the one black candidate nonetheless within the Democratic subject, took a unique tack, telling the breakfast viewers, “If we’re actually going to ship a future for our kids and grandchildren per the values of equality, alternative and honest play, to which Dr. King and the City League served as examples, then we’re going to have to start out rejecting false selections.”
“Prosperity and justice can reside alongside one another,” he mentioned. “The notion that you need to hate enterprise to be a social justice warrior or hate police to imagine black lives matter are ridiculous.”
Mr. Biden, who holds stable leads in South Carolina polls, mentioned that Mr. Trump’s conduct and file in workplace — together with his remarks that gave a boost to white supremacists after the Charlottesville rally in 2017 — have led to an “inflection level within the civil rights motion.”
“Now we have a president who embraces white supremacists, who rips households away on the border,” Mr. Biden mentioned. “Now we have to work collectively twice as onerous to get out of the scenario we discover ourselves in.”
“God prepared, we are able to flip 4 years of Donald Trump into an historic aberration,” he added.
The breakfast, a fund-raiser for the Columbia City League, drew about 400 folks to a big assembly corridor on the Brookland Baptist Church. As the group went by means of buffet traces of fruit, eggs, bacon and grits, music performed as Mr. Biden and the opposite candidates milled about, conversing with varied supporters within the corridor. Mr. Biden drew explicit consideration.
After the South Carolina occasions, many of the candidates plan to fly shortly to Iowa to attend the 2020 Iowa Brown & Black Democratic Presidential Discussion board on Monday afternoon. Iowa holds the primary presidential nominating vote in two weeks, on Feb. 3.
With solely 40 days remaining earlier than South Carolina’s main on Feb. 29, polls present Mr. Biden is the clear front-runner right here. Mr. Biden had arrived on Sunday and addressed morning providers at…