Ford: Obama dragged down Dems

COLUMBIA -- State Sen. Robert Ford was blasted for his 2007 prediction that then-candidate Barack Obama would drag down the whole Democratic ticket, but he said today that history proved him right, and he has another forecast to make.

Ford, a Charleston Democrat, said U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat, should step out of a leadership role next year, or the whole party will go down in defeat. Ford said the same goes for U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat.

Clyburn and Pelosi have offered themselves for leadership positions in next year's Congress, when the Democrats fall back to the minority party. Clyburn will run for House minority whip and Pelosi will run for the role as minority leader.

"If they elect Nancy Pelosi or Jim Clyburn to leadership, the Democratic Party will be taken off life support," Ford said. "That will be the end of the Democratic Party. They're bad news right now."

Clyburn's office said Ford's comments do not deter him from seeking the leadership role. Pelosi has been fending off criticism for her job performance for weeks.

Ford said he does not feel any sense of disloyalty to his fellow Democrats. Rather, he said his loyalty is to the voters.

"As a civil rights leader, in my years left on this Earth, my job is to make people understand that you get elected to serve and that's it," Ford said. "The people come first."

Ford, who is black, backed then-U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton over Obama. He said that Obama had a slim chance of winning the Democratic nomination, but if he did, "then everybody else is doomed. ... Every Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose, because he's black and he's top of the ticket."

Ford said today that his comments from 2007 were misunderstood. He said his criticism for Obama was based on the way he was being portrayed as a "rock star" who could never live up to the expectations.

Meanwhile today, Clyburn, who also is black, got a boost for his bid for minority whip. The Associated Press reported that U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat and chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, today backed Clyburn for the party's second in command next year.

"Jim has spent a lifetime working to bridge what divides us," Lee wrote in a letter urging the Democratic Caucus to vote for Clyburn. Lee's letter comes after U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland released the names of 30 rank-and-file Democrats who endorsed him for the same post, according to the Associated Press.