Sen. John Kerry was waxing Thursday about his affection for a very important endorser, Rep. Jim Clyburn, when he was brought up short.
“I’ve had some good times with him,” Kerry said of Clyburn, the state’s lone African-American congressman. “I learned how to talk over the loud noise of a garage at a fish fry and dance late at night.”
Interjected Clyburn: “I wouldn’t call that dancing if I were you.”
As the Columbia, S.C., crowd laughed and clapped, a humbled Kerry said, “I thought for a white guy, I had some rhythm. I guess I need to take a few more lessons.”
–Jill Zuckman
WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH
Politics is always filled with sports metaphors. A candidate under fire goes into a “defensive crouch.” Attracting voters to the polls means having a “strong ground game,” etc., etc.
So it was no surprise that Howard Dean, fresh off losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, looked to comfort his supporters at Michigan State University in East Lansing on Thursday by turning to the sports world to try to show he is rejuvenating his campaign.
“It’s nice to come back from a 23-point halftime deficit,” Dean said, referring to Michigan State’s men’s basketball team, which defeated the Minnesota Golden Gophers in overtime the night before. “We’re coming back too.”
The former Vermont governor also received a new, ostentatiously decorated plane to use. The BAC-1-11 jet, which includes mirrored ceilings, was used for the previous three months by the rock group Pearl Jam. No word yet on whether the campaign will adopt the group’s song “Goat” to explain the departure of campaign manager Joe Trippi.
–Rick Pearson
CALLING OUT THE TROOPS
As he campaigns before Tuesday’s primaries and caucuses, retired Gen. Wesley Clark is on the stump in regions with traditionally large military populations. He’s touting his military record more strongly these days, describing his candidacy as “marching on,” and greeting veterans with the guttural Army exclamation, “Hooah.”
Among fellow veterans, Clark’s favorite line is to mock the current commander in chief.
“It’s not patriotism to dress up in a flight suit and prance around on the deck of an aircraft carrier,” he said.
–Kirsten Scharnberg
HIS PARENTS’ FAVORITE CANDIDATE
Beaming like the proud parents they are, Bobbie and Wallace Edwards chatted up fellow customers at Meadors sandwich shop about their son, John Edwards.
Just down the street from Thursday night’s Democratic debate in Greenville, S.C., the Edwardses told of what an “achiever” the candidate was.
Wallace Edwards, the millworker made famous by his son’s presidential campaign, likes to tell the story about a high school tennis match that his wife, Bobbie, was watching.
“He was getting beat so bad, she left,” Wallace Edwards recalled with a grin. “She had to pick up our daughter. She got home and asked him, `How’d you do?’ He said, `I won.’
“She was flabbergasted.”
–Flynn McRoberts
