Kathrine Frich
A 2007 video of former President Bill Clinton has resurfaced online.
Old graduation videos usually stay buried in family archives.
Every so often, though, a forgotten campus moment resurfaces at the exact right time to tell a much bigger political story.
For one candidate in a tight election race, an old piece of advice has come full circle.
Praise from a president
A 2007 video of former President Bill Clinton has resurfaced online, showing him praising a young University of Michigan graduate who is now running for the US Senate, according to the Irish Star. That student was Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee currently battling Republican Mike Rogers for a seat in Washington.
Back in 2007, El-Sayed delivered the student graduation address on uniting Michigan just before Clinton took the podium as the keynote speaker. After stepping up to the microphone, the former president singled out the young valedictorian while cameras showed El-Sayed smiling in the audience.
“I don’t want to embarrass your senior speaker,” Clinton told the crowd, as quoted by the Irish Star. “But I wish every person in the world who believes that we are fated to have a clash of civilizations and cannot reach across the religious divides could have heard you speak today. I just wish every person in the world could have heard you speak today.”
Laughing off the idea
At a campaign stop in Michigan last week, El-Sayed recalled what happened right after the ceremony when Clinton walked up to question his plans for medical school. According to the Irish Star, the former president told him, “You know, that’s great, but you got a gift for speaking. Maybe someday you’ll run for office.”
El-Sayed admitted he dismissed the suggestion on the spot. “I laughed out loud in his face. Mr. President, did you see my name? There are 11 letters in my name and I got two others after that. People like me don’t get to run for office,” he told supporters, adding that watching Barack Hussein Obama win in 2008 changed his mind because “This is the first time I saw anybody who was at all like me in politics.”
The resurfaced clip arrives after a chaotic weekend in the Michigan race. On Sunday, Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens, who lost to El-Sayed in the primary, shocked the party by appearing at church with Rogers and endorsing the Republican, which got her kicked out of the state Democratic Party, the Irish Star reported.
Campaigning alongside Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren at Eastern Michigan University on Monday, El-Sayed ignored the drama and offered nervous voters two words: “Go vote.” He added, “There’s only one thing we can do to control the outcome.”
