Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is turning to a man the presidential candidate won over with a conversation about scripture for their latest radio ad in South Carolina.
Ahead of the Democratic debate in Charleston, South Carolina, on Sunday, Clinton’s campaign is releasing “Reverend Hunt,” an ad that features Rev. Donnie Hunt speaking about his impromptu meeting with Clinton in May of 2014.
“When I looked up and saw a woman by my table, she gently asked me what was I studying. I said. ‘1 Corinthians 13,'” says Hunt, an associate minister at First Calvary Baptist Church in Columbia, in the ad. “And what happened next I’ll never forget. She said, ‘Love is patient, love is kind,’ and went on to recite the rest of the verses by heart.”
Hunt met Clinton at Main Street Bakery on the candidate’s first trip to South Carolina as a presidential candidate.
Hunt was the only patron in the bakery when Clinton sat down across from him and had a conversation about faith, a topic that Clinton is passionate about but rarely addresses in public.
“You’re doing what is the most important thing to do, it’s continuing to study and learn what the scripture says and what it means,” Clinton told Hunt at the time. “I have a preacher friend who sends me scripture and devotionals, sometimes mini-sermons every day.”
In the ad, Hunt says Clinton listened and he could tell “she knows what must be done.”
“We talked about church and the need for better schools, and how to stop racial inequality in our community,” Hunt says. “I’m not a political person, but I do know that neither our community nor our country can afford to go backwards.”
The ad, which is targeted to religious African American voters, will air across South Carolina on gospel and R&B radio stations starting Friday, according to Clinton aides. The ad is expected to run between two and three weeks.