Joe Biden turned in a debate performance Tuesday night that might have just saved him from elimination
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Desperately in need of some positive news heading into the must-win South Carolina primary on Saturday and then Super Tuesday, the former vice president snapped a string of lousy debate outings that had stoked doubts about his viability as a candidate, let alone a frontrunner.He went on the attack. He defended Barack Obama’s honor. Biden, who rarely riles a crowd, was often greeted by cheers, whistles and applause. When Bernie Sanders tried to hit back at Biden, he was booed.
Though not entirely devoid of the verbal misfires and rambling syntax that has plagued him, it was the strongest of his 10 debates. And it came just in time: South Carolina has long been Biden’s firewall, given his appeal to African American voters, who play an outsize role in the Democratic primary electorate.
The Biden team tried to sell his distant-second finish to Sanders in Nevada as the start of a turnaround. But only victory in South Carolina will truly reset his candidacy. His longtime lead in the polls began shrinking after his losses in Iowa and New Hampshire.from powerful House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, will likely help him reassure anxious supporters. Clyburn wields huge influence in South Carolina politics.
Early on, Biden laid into Sanders over the Vermont senator’s past votes on guns and on Sanders’ flirtation with primarying Barack Obama in 2012.Biden went on to cite the mass shooting at the nearby Mother Emanuel church where a white supremacist killed nine people in 2015. “Bernie voted five times against the Brady bill, and wanted a waiting period … of 12 hours.
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