Iowa and New Hampshire had their turns in the spotlight. At the end of the month, South Carolina will host its own Democratic primary. Compared to those first two states, ours is highly diverse. Battle ground, trial phase – call it what you will – South Carolina, once home to the civil rights movement and Barack Obama's surge, can help vet the candidate best aligned with the black community.

Bernie Sanders is not that candidate – not next to Hillary Clinton. From his bouts with the president, to the laws he contested, to the company he keeps, Sanders raises alarm bells for Obama supporters, especially those from the African-American community.

Back in 2012, while still a proud independent, Sanders took a page from the Republican playbook and called for a primary challenge to Obama's presidency. His aim: to contrast "a progressive agenda as opposed to what Obama is doing," as if to say affordable health care and safe cities are not "progressive" enough goals. The Democrats I know would disagree.



That anti-Obama jab followed an earlier resistance to the Affordable Care Act, now considered President Obama's greatest legacy. Back in 2009, coming from the far-left wing, Sanders held out on voting "yes," hoping instead for an impossible ideal. Over 200,000 South Carolinians now have quality, affordable health insurance through Obamacare. If Sanders fulfills his campaign promise and starts those talks from a blank slate, he risks undoing years of progress.

Improving health care matters greatly to our community. It's no secret that African-Americans die earlier than whites and suffer in larger numbers from conditions like diabetes and heart disease. We also die twice as often from gun violence. In Charleston County alone, blacks accounted for 29 percent of the population in 2014 but claimed 78 percent of gun violence deaths. We demand equality where our lives are at stake, and on gun safety Sanders has a mixed record, having opposed reforms that Obama now pushes.



The Vermont senator once voted for a provision that ultimately allowed the Charleston shooter to buy a gun despite a clerical error – the now-infamous "Charleston loophole." More recently, he voted in favor of legislation meant to shield gun makers from victim lawsuits. When last month President Obama refused to back "any candidate, even in my own party, who does not support common-sense gun reform," he may well have been writing to Sanders.

In what perhaps struck the candidate as an act of solidarity, Sanders also chose Cornel West as liaison to South Carolina's black voters. As The Washington Post put it, West serves as Sanders' "controversial traveling companion" as he "has been highly critical of President Obama." That's an understatement. Cornel West hates Obama. He once called the president "a brown-faced Clinton," "a Rockefeller Republican in blackface" and a "counterfeit" of a progressive.

