Yesterday Congressman James Clyburn, the majority whip of the US House of representatives, emerged as the sole surviving Democrat in the State of South Carolina's entire congressional delegation. I saw him meeting with voters Saturday. On a day without much good news, I'm able to report that Clyburn has seen worse than now and won't stop working for the middle class. The Democrats also have no surviving statewide officials. Despite the results, Democratic activists exerted a huge extended effort for this election, which culminated in a 16 hour day yesterday for many volunteers. Here is a look forward in SC.
James Clyburn is one of the most powerful men in Congress of the United States, the Democratic majority whip. On Saturday, October 30, he met the voters of Daniel Island, including members of the tea party.
Clyburn has been responsible for organizing the votes for over 400 pieces of legislation which have passed the US House of Representatives in the last two years. Most of these were never even debated in the US Senate, including dozens of measures which enjoyed bipartisan support. Clyburn regularly meets with President Obama. He probably has Nancy Pelosi on speed dial. He knows and talks to everybody. He even spends some weekends with Republican leaders.
On Saturday Clyburn spent about 30 minutes talking about the major issues before he opened the gathering at the public housing complex on Daniel Island to questions. The first question apparently came from his Republican opponent about the budget. Clyburn talked about the Bush tax cuts and the deficit and handled some follow-up questions. The tea party members present left their yellow flags at home and were respectful in their tone.
There were about 30 people present.
James Clyburn has continued to meet with the public through the worst of the public disruptions of the past two years. He has a security detail and experienced people on his staff, but unlike politicians like Joe Miller or Susan Angle, he’s never hidden from the press or public. He doesn’t run from insulting signs or snarky questions. Clyburn has seen much worse and he’s prepared for a future of divisive politics with skills gained from difficult experience.
Before entering politics, Clyburn worked to diffuse explosive racial issues on the State’s human affairs commission. Many of these efforts involved the worst sort of public controversies possible, bitter disputes about racial issues in small towns. These were fights about schools, community events and jobs in communities where everyone knows everybody. These are places where resentments get suppressed and things don’t change much. When something breaks lose, the darkest and ugliest aspects of the human character get turned loose. Clyburn did this tough work, often with great success.
Clyburn took on the tea parties questions Saturday with a patient and attentive ear. It was clear he had worked much tougher gatherings in his day. When he was charged with supporting open, uncontrolled borders, he responded by asking who had told the speaker that, not by saying they were wrong. Then he went into a detailed discussion about immigration policy and border control.
The crowd was about equally divided between Republicans and Democrats. Clyburn made it clear that he considered it his job to represent everyone. He said that meant different things to different people.
He managed to find some areas that everyone agreed on Saturday and to get applause from the entire crowd. Everyone appeared to agree that organizations purchasing advertising to influence elections should be required to disclose who they are and where their funding comes from. He got applause from the conservatives for his support for nuclear energy and applause from the liberals for his support of solar power, switch grass based biofuels and wind generation. Everyone wanted their kids to have jobs.
Clyburn didn’t get the Democrats and the Tea Party to sing Kum bay ya together before we left, but he lead a decent, issue based discussion at a time of exceptional division in America. Whatever the results are of this Tuesday’s election (this is being written on Monday and will be published Wednesday)
James Clyburn is likely to continue to work productively to bring people together in SC and Washington.