Vice President Biden’s top South Carolina supporter removed any doubt that the VP’s allies are harboring resentment towards the Clinton machine for trying to bully him out of a campaign. Former South Carolina Democrat Party Chair Dick Harpootlian – a man never known for mincing words – called Hillary’s Super PAC “a cult” in an interview with CNN’s Peter Hamby.
“Is it a political organization or a fan club for a boy band?…”I think it’s a cult, not a political movement,” Harpootlian added. “Ready for Hillary compared to who? The field still has to develop.”
Other South Carolina Biden supporters echoed Harpootlian.
“I’m more of a ‘Ready for Biden’ kinda guy,” said Tyler Jones, a Democratic operative in Charleston, when asked whether he was attending the pro-Clinton fundraiser last week.
South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn also criticized the Hillary super-PACs for taking attention away from the 2014 midterms.
“The overemphasis and the time and energy spent on presidential politics at this juncture are misplaced,” Clyburn said. “You don’t deal with a structure from the top down in politics. In building any structure you have to build from the bottom up. I just wish that all of these people who spend all their time on presidential politics in 2016 would spend half that time on the governor’s race in 2014, and putting structure in place. I just think this is misplaced priorities.”
These quotes came on the heels of a sparsely attended “Ready for Hillary” event in Columbia, South Carolina last week that calls into question just how “Ready” for Hillary a state that only gave her about 1/4 of the primary vote in 2008 is.