In 2008, former president Bill Clinton caused serious problems for the campaign of his wife, then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, as she faced off against then-Senator Barack Obama in the Democratic primary.
The race was neck-and-neck as the campaigns descended on the first-in-the-South primary in South Carolina. It's a contest known for its rough-and-tumble politics and so-called "political dirty tricks."
"John Edwards was back again. Barack Obama had taken Iowa and New Hampshire had gone to Hillary Clinton," narrates Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume in Fox Nation's new show, "Proving Grounds: South Carolina."
SOUTH CAROLINA PAPER WARNS OF POLITICAL 'DIRTY TRICKS' AHEAD OF STATE PRIMARY
Mrs. Clinton was the front runner, as indicated by the polling, in the run-up to the primary. But the race tightened by Election Day, and it looked like Obama was going to win.
That's when Bill Clinton created a mess that Hillary Clinton had to clean up.
"Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice in '84 and '88, and he ran a good campaign," the former president told a reporter outside a South Carolina campaign stop. "And Senator Obama's run a good campaign."
Civil rights figure Jesse Jackson had shocked the country when he defeated Walter Mondale, the party's front-runner in 1984, in the South Carolina primary. Then, Jackson won the state again in 1988. He was the first African-American to win a state in a major party nomination race, but both of his Democratic presidential campaigns would ultimately fail.
"Bill Clinton took heat from people who thought he minimized Obama's victory by comparing him to the African-American candidate who had fizzled after winning the Palmetto State," said Hume in the Fox Nation show. "The comment was called racist. And Hillary Clinton apologized."
"If anyone was offended by anything that was said, whether it was meant or not, whether it was misinterpreted or not, then obviously I regret that," said Hillary Clinton nearly a month later, speaking at the annual State of the Black Union forum in New Orleans.
"Turns out Obama was no Jesse Jackson," concluded Hume. "His appeal was broad enough and deep enough to win the nomination and the presidency."
To learn more about the history of the first-in-the-South primary, watch all of "Proving Grounds: South Carolina," by going to Fox Nation and signing up today.
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