Sharpton, Lagging in Polls, Hopes for a Political Miracle

The Rev. Al Sharpton was in typically good humor as his campaign bus crossed a bridge on its way out of Charleston on Monday afternoon. “Andre,” he yelled to his press secretary, Andre Johnson, “will you tell the driver to pull over here so I can walk on water?”

His campaign is in debt. His TV ads are nonexistent. He is lagging in the polls.

Yet Sharpton remains hopeful of the political equivalent of a miracle today by making a strong showing in South Carolina’s primary.

Sharpton, who in recent weeks has highlighted his status as the race’s only black candidate, kicked off the bus tour -- his only one so far -- in front of Charleston’s Old Slave Market Museum.

Standing “where I once would have been on the block being assessed as property,” he said, “I can stand on the block being assessed as a presidential candidate.”

He was introduced by Charleston City Councilman Kwadjo Campbell, a Republican.

“If Rev. Sharpton was not in this race, guaranteed our voice would be ignored. We need a candidate that is going speak for us uncompromisingly.”

Earlier, on his way to Charleston from Columbia, Sharpton surprised patrons of a Waffle House, the ubiquitous South Carolina roadside diner, by stopping in for a breakfast of eggs and grits. (No waffles for Sharpton; he doesn’t eat syrup.)

Sitting at the diner’s counter, Delaware State University basketball coach Ed Davis, in town with his team for a game against South Carolina State University, said he planned to vote for Sharpton in his state’s primary today.

Davis echoed a theme that Sharpton pounds hard on the campaign trail: “In recent years,” he said, “Democrats have taken black voters for granted.”

Later in the day, at a stop in Sumter, Sharpton compared the Democratic Party’s relationship to black voters to the late Strom Thurmond’s recently revealed secret that he had a black daughter, Essie Mae Washington Williams -- something to be kept “in the background.”

He also took umbrage with the media, which he said have “marginalized” his campaign, citing a recent New York Times editorial that called for Sharpton and Ohio Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich to be barred from presidential debates.

The tour, which included his first real entourage of reporters and camera crews, followed an arc from Charleston on the Atlantic coast up to Columbia in the state’s center, stopping at small, depressed towns and drawing few potential voters.

At a United Steel Workers union hall in Georgetown, where the closing of two factories has thrown 1,200 people out of work, Sharpton embroidered his message about sticking together by invoking the story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, something he said “just popped into my head.” The point was that the reindeer was “out in front like I am. They mocked him, but those behind him didn’t feel the snow and the bitter cold.”

Throughout the day, which ended with a gospel concert at Reid Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Columbia, Sharpton repeated his message that his candidacy is not about winning the presidency or even the nomination: It’s about forcing the Democratic Party to return to “its basic roots and its basic commitment” to the poor, the disaffected and the disenfranchised.

Still, when asked if he had anything to offer the NASCAR dads and soccer moms of America, Sharpton, who has dramatically modulated his once-virulent political message, replied affirmatively.

“I’d offer them no war,” he said. “The only way we’ll have a tranquil society is if we take care of the dispossessed and make an even playing field for everyone.”

Although he lacks the funds and organization of other campaigns, Sharpton has visited South Carolina more than any of his opponents. And his background as a Pentecostal preacher has allowed him to call upon a loose network of black churches in the state, helping draw crowds on the spur of the moment.

Sharpton, as always, brushed away reports of financial difficulties. “I was born in debt,” he told the steel workers. “I’m a deficit baby. If I was in surplus, I wouldn’t know how to act.”

The pastor of Reid Chapel AME Church missed the speech, and perhaps it was for the best.

Shortly before Sharpton arrived, the Rev. James Glover fretted about the $7,500 he’d personally shelled out for the evening’s gospel concert, on the understanding that it was an advance to Sharpton’s campaign.