Before the Clyburn Endorsement, an Elderly Church Usher With a Question (NYT)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/08/us/clyburn-biden-endorsement.html

Before the Clyburn Endorsement, an Elderly Church Usher With a Question
Jannie Jones is the 76-year-old woman who had to know who Representative James Clyburn was voting for in the South Carolina primary. Did her question change the Democratic presidential race?
By Chris Dixon
March 8, 2020

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On Feb. 21, Ms. Jones attended the funeral of James White, Mr. Clyburn’s accountant. After serving as an usher at the service at St. John Baptist Church in Hopkins, S.C., Ms. Jones noticed Mr. Clyburn standing against a nearby wall. On the spur of the moment, she said, she waved him over, with a crook of her finger, to the pew where she was sitting.

He leaned over, and she whispered, “I need to know who you’re going to vote for.” He replied: “Joe Biden. Are we together?”

“When it’s politics, you don’t know who for who,’’ she recalled. But she said she gave him a thumbs up and then asked: “What are you going to do for him, for the people?”

At his Feb. 26 endorsement Mr. Clyburn said, “I decided then and there that I would not stay silent.”

Whether the congressman seriously weighed not giving an endorsement, the nod from Mr. Clyburn helped propel Mr. Biden, the former vice president, to a resounding win in South Carolina on Feb. 29, and to a sweep of 10 out of 14 states three days later on Super Tuesday.

Ms. Jones said that she recognized Mr. Clyburn from seeing him on television. “But he didn’t know me from Adam’s house cat,” she said. “When I got home, I didn’t think no more of it. I just thought that hearing from him meant the world for me. I didn’t know that it was a big influence for him.”