COLUMBIA, S.C. — The Rev. Al Sharpton was in typically good humor as his campaign bus crossed a bridge on its way out of Charleston on Monday afternoon. "Andre," he yelled to his press secretary, Andre Johnson, "will you tell the driver to pull over here so I can walk on water?"
His campaign is in debt. His TV ads are nonexistent. He is lagging in the polls.
Yet Sharpton remains hopeful of the political equivalent of a miracle today by making a strong showing in South Carolina's primary.
Sharpton, who in recent weeks has highlighted his status as the race's only black candidate, kicked off the bus tour -- his only one so far -- in front of Charleston's Old Slave Market Museum.
Standing "where I once would have been on the block being assessed as property," he said, "I can stand on the block being assessed as a presidential candidate."
He was introduced by Charleston City Councilman Kwadjo Campbell, a Republican.
"If Rev. Sharpton was not in this race, guaranteed our voice would be ignored. We need a candidate that is going speak for us uncompromisingly."
Earlier, on his way to Charleston from Columbia, Sharpton surprised patrons of a Waffle House, the ubiquitous South Carolina roadside diner, by stopping in for a breakfast of eggs and grits. (No waffles for Sharpton; he doesn't eat syrup.)
Sitting at the diner's counter, Delaware State University basketball coach Ed Davis, in town with his team for a game against South Carolina State University, said he planned to vote for Sharpton in his state's primary today.
Davis echoed a theme that Sharpton pounds hard on the campaign trail: "In recent years," he said, "Democrats have taken black voters for granted."
Later in the day, at a stop in Sumter, Sharpton compared the Democratic Party's relationship to black voters to the late Strom Thurmond's recently revealed secret that he had a black daughter, Essie Mae Washington Williams -- something to be kept "in the background."
He also took umbrage with the media, which he said have "marginalized" his campaign, citing a recent New York Times editorial that called for Sharpton and Ohio Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich to be barred from presidential debates.
The tour, which included his first real entourage of reporters and camera crews, followed an arc from Charleston on the Atlantic coast up to Columbia in the state's center, stopping at small, depressed towns and drawing few potential voters.
