http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/01/26/611355.aspxClyburn on Clinton, Obama
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- At an adjacent table to mine this morning at the famed country cooking locale Lizard’s Thicket, where MSNBC's Morning Joe was being shot, Rep. Jim Clyburn was interviewed by a traveling camera crew. He talked about race in South Carolina and telling Bill Clinton to “chill.”
Clyburn, who has remained neutral in this race, said he told Bill Clinton "to watch what and how he says it because there are a lot of people who see Barack Obama as their hopes and dreams. And they're going to feel like you’re throwing cold water on their dream." He called Obama’s South Carolina ground organization “the best I’ve ever seen here.” Clyburn also talked about his own efforts through a 501(c)4 he launched to try and get young African Americans involved in politics, in becoming field captains and doing the real organizational leg work of politics.
He was effusive in his praise of Obama's efforts and effects of getting young African Americans involved in this once-segregated state. Clyburn didn’t mention anything about Hillary Clinton. In fact, Clinton only came up once as he talked about his conversation with the former president. He also spoke of his own participation in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and even having been jailed for three days here in Columbia as a result.