James Clyburn: Bill Clinton’s Speech ‘Second Best of Convention’
By Abby Livingston
Posted at 6:11 p.m. on Sept. 6, 2012
(Douglas Graham/CQ Roll Call)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — House Assistant Minority Leader James Clyburn (D-S.C.) weighed in on former President Bill Clinton’s widely praised nominating speech for President Barack Obama, calling it the “second best of the convention” so far.
“I thought it was a great speech,” he said in a brief interview on the floor of the Democratic National Convention tonight. “I gotta give No. 1 to Mrs. Obama, but I thought it was a great speech.”
Although the 2008 Democratic primary between then-Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton took a nasty tone in his home state of South Carolina, Clyburn brushed off any ongoing enmity between the Obama and Clinton camps.
“All of this stuff about there being a rift between the president and the former president is more imagined than real,” he said. “I think I have two brothers, and we’re very competitive but we love each other.
“We have to look at any competition as being exactly what it is: competition,” he added. “That doesn’t mean there is any ill will. I don’t think there is any ill will between the two. “
