Joe Biden sought to reverse damage inflicted at the Democratic debate by California Sen. Kamala Harris over his decades-old anti-busing efforts.
Harris on Thursday night had singed the former vice president over his busing record and recent boasting of working productively with segregationist-era senators.
“Thirty seconds to 60 seconds on the campaign debate exchange can’t do justice to a lifetime committed to civil rights,” Biden said Friday at a labor event hosted by Jesse Jackson. “I want to be absolutely clear about my record and position on racial justice including busing. I never, never, ever opposed voluntary busing … I’ve always been in favor of using federal authority to overcome state-initiated segregation.”
His comments to the Chicago audience contrast the explanation he gave during the Democratic primary debate Thursday night, where he defended his decision to oppose busing efforts because they would be “ordered by the Department of Education.”
In an appearance on MSNBC following the debate, Harris continued her criticism of Biden’s record.
“I was actually a bit surprised to hear how he described, in defense of his position, his perspective on the role of the federal government, and in particular, he mentioned the Department of Education,” she said. “We have so many examples in history where states have limited or restricted people’s civil rights … We have certain values that are national standards, and we’re not going to let states compromise that.”
Jackson told CNN before the event started he believed Biden’s anti-busing stance “was on the wrong side of history,” adding that “Kamala, she was on point.”
Biden’s comments come at a potentially fragile time in the campaign. Though he’s held consistent leads in the polls, several of his 24 challengers have shown some strength, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Jackson last week told the Washington Examiner Biden’s reminiscing on his work with pro-segregationist senators was “a bad example” of his time spent on the Hill.
“He didn’t say it well,” Jackson said.
Both Biden and Jackson share a long history, dating back at least to 1984, when Jackson embarked on his first White House run.
At a news conference in Virginia that year, Biden referred to Jackson as “boy,” although he denied the remarks were prejudiced.
“He is one of the brightest guys around,” Biden said after a reporter asked him about how Jackson’s presidential campaign could shape the Democratic Party in the future. “That boy ain’t no dummy, just like Gary Hart, that boy ain’t no dummy either.”
Two years later, at the 1986 NAACP convention while gearing up to run for president in 1988, Biden implored black voters to repudiate Jackson, whose presidential campaigns famously wished to assemble a “rainbow coalition” of disaffected minority and white voters.
“But just as I and many other white leaders reject the voices of those who are calling for caution,” Biden told the mostly black audience, “you must reject the voices in this movement who tell black Americans to go it alone, who tell you that coalitions don’t work anymore, that whites and Catholics and Jews no longer care about the problems of black America, that only black should represent black.”
The pair became linked, if obliquely, early in the 2008 cycle. Biden, making his second presidential bid, referred to then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama as “the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”
Biden’s comments seemed pointed at Jackson and a handful of other African American presidential aspirants.
Obama later accepted an apology from his future vice president, but deemed the remarks “historically inaccurate.”
“African American presidential candidates like Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm, Carol Moseley Braun, and Al Sharpton gave a voice to many important issues through their campaigns, and no one would call them inarticulate,” Obama said.
