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In the heat of political battle, few South Carolina Democrats have sharper tongues than Richard A. Harpootlian, a former chairman of the state party. And few have as much baggage with Bill and Hillary Clinton as Mr. Harpootlian. On Wednesday he opened fire again, endorsing Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in South Carolina’s highly competitive primary contest on Feb. 27.

“Hillary is not an agent of change – I mean, her campaign slogan should be, ‘It’s my turn,’” said Mr. Harpootlian, a lawyer who was state party leader from 1998 to 2003 and again from 2011 to 2013. “It’s hard for me to listen to how Hillary says she would fight Wall Street when she took hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs – not 20 years ago, but a couple years ago. She’s talking the talk, but not walking the walk.”

Mr. Harpootlian, who supported Mr. Clinton’s presidential campaigns and then backed President Obama in 2008 and 2012, comes with a limited political network given that many prominent South Carolina Democrats have endorsed Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Harpootlian does have a knack for attracting news media coverage for his chosen candidates, and Mr. Sanders is far less known in South Carolina than Mrs. Clinton. But he also has a history of offensive statements.

In 2012, as state party chairman, Mr. Harpootlian compared Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican, with Hitler’s mistress, Eva Braun. He also used the word “retard” to refer to other Republican leaders, and years earlier insinuated that Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, was gay by calling him “light in his loafers.”

Mr. Harpootlian may be best remembered for showing up at a South Carolina campaign event in 2008 that Mr. Clinton was holding for his wife’s presidential campaign. There, Mr. Harpootlian told reporters that the Clinton campaign was using “reprehensible” tactics against the Obama campaign and accused the former president of lying about Mr. Obama in order to continue “some kind of Clinton dynasty.”

Mr. Clinton dismissed the remark but then let loose with a torrent of criticism against the Obama campaign, Mr. Harpootlian and the news media – a public outburst that was unusual for Mr. Clinton and that cast a pall over the primary race, which Mrs. Clinton went on to lose.

Mr. Harpootlian said he warned Mr. Sanders recently that his endorsement came “with some baggage.” He described the senator as unconcerned.

“Senator Sanders said he understood that I was supposed to be a pitbull and attack dog when I was party chairman, and sometimes you get carried away,” Mr. Harpootlian said. He added that he did not plan to apologize for his past remarks.

Mr. Sanders has been insistent that he will not run a negative campaign against Mrs. Clinton or harshly attack her. When asked about Mr. Harpootlian’s history of negative remarks, Tad Devine, a senior adviser to Mr. Sanders, said, “We can’t be responsible for views of people who support Senator Sanders.”

A Clinton campaign spokesman declined to comment on the endorsement.

The endorsement is something of a reversal for Mr. Harpootlian, who said last year that he did not see himself supporting Mr. Sanders because the senator was a “socialist.” Since then, Mr. Harpootlian said, he has become comfortable with Mr. Sanders’s philosophy of democratic socialism “since it does not involve government control of the economy.”

He said he supported the senator’s plan for broad-based tax increases to finance a single-payer health care system because, according to Mr. Sanders, the tax increases would be offset by savings in health care costs.

Mr. Harpootlian is a crucial South Carolina ally of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and he had been involved with the ultimately unsuccessful efforts to encourage Mr. Biden to run for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. Mr. Harpootlian said he asked Mr. Biden last month if he might change his mind and enter the race; the vice president said no, according to Mr. Harpootlian, prompting him to give Mr. Sanders a closer look.

Mr. Harpootlian said he did not discuss the Sanders endorsement with Mr. Biden.

Mrs. Clinton has a double-digit lead over Mr. Sanders in recent South Carolina polls, and she has the support of many elected and former officials, including two former governors, Jim Hodges and Richard Riley, and many mayors and others, including former Mayor Joe Riley of Charleston.

She also has strong support from black Democrats in the state, a key part of the electorate that Mr. Sanders is trying to court. Mrs. Clinton, who won a narrow victory in the Iowa caucuses on Monday, and Mr. Sanders are now campaigning in New Hampshire before the primary there on Tuesday.