Civil rights icon John Lewis: "we need her now more than ever" (stumping with Bill Clinton)

[Progress And Change]

Mr. Clinton appeared at the regular meeting of the Charleston chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, the country’s oldest Greek-letter organization for African-American college women. About 120 women, most of whom learned only last night or this morning that the former president was coming, sat in a small, low-ceilinged room here and listened intently as he gave a short, low-key speech about the nuts and bolts of Mrs. Clinton’s health-care plan.

He said her plan would insure the 672,000 people in South Carolina who have no health coverage, including 99,000 children, and would save families thousands of dollars a year. She has cared about health care for at least the nearly four decades he has known her, he said, and improving health care is “at the heart of” what she wants to do for the country.

In a booming voice, Mr. Lewis declared that he had known every president since John F. Kennedy and that Mr. Clinton was “the smartest and the best.” After a slight pause, he added, “But his wife is smarter.” The audience erupted with a big applause. Mr. Clinton laughed.

Mr. Lewis quickly sketched out his civil rights bona fides, including having been jailed 40 times. He then said of Mrs. Clinton: “She is not a Johnny-come-lately to the cause of health care. She believes that health care is a right and it should not be judged on the size of your pocketbook or the size of your bank account or the zip code you live in.”

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/08/bill-clintons-south-carolina-pitch/