The Rev. Al Sharpton, Democratic candidate for president, was in Columbia Thursday, so The Buzz’s notebook was full after his speech at USC.

Witness his take on the drop in the national unemployment rate — to 6 percent from 6.1 percent — and how Republicans try to spin it in a positive light.

“It’s like if I had a knife in your back 6.1 inches, and I took out 0.1 inches,” he said. “Are you supposed to celebrate that I only have six inches left in your back, and no plans to take the rest out?”

BUSTER OR BLUSTER?

How about Sharpton on the conservative judicial candidates? A student asked if he supported Democrats in the U.S. Senate, who are filibustering to block a vote on the judges’ approval.

Sharpton said he backed them, and even wanted to help.

“I got enough buster to let them feel it,” he said. “Let me on the floor.”

ANY TIME SOON?

And, he was ready when USC president Andrew Sorensen welcomed him to the campus.

“Thank you,” Sharpton said. “I’m trying to be a president just like you when I grow up.”

TROLLING FOR VOTES

State NAACP president Lonnie Randolph was in the crowd, waiting — and waiting — for Sharpton, who was more than an hour and a half late.

Randolph spent some of his time talking with Mike Boynton, the captain of the USC men’s basketball team. He congratulated Boynton, 21, on his upcoming Dec. 15 graduation. He also prodded him a little.

“Do you vote?” Randolph asked.

Boynton nodded.

“Good,” Randolph replied. “Make sure that your other teammates do.”

THE REB NOW THE LIB?

The S.C. Republican Party doesn’t have The Reb to kick around anymore.

Rebekah “Reb” Sutherland of New Ellenton announced recently that she has joined the Libertarian Party.

Sutherland finished sixth out of seven candidates in the 2002 Republican gubernatorial primary.

In a news release announcing her switch, Sutherland slammed the GOP for taking “a giant step to the left of the political spectrum.” That giant step, she said, was the national Republican chairman’s saying that the federal role in public education has been settled.

Sutherland is an avid home-schooler who has said public schools undermine individual freedoms.

Luke Byars, executive director of the S.C. Republican Party, was neither heartbroken nor magnanimous upon hearing of Sutherland’s switch to the Libertarian Party.

“I congratulate them for doubling their S.C. membership,” Byars said. “But seriously, my heartfelt condolences go out to Libertarians everywhere.”

There are more than two Libertarians in South Carolina, obviously. Libertarian Kenneth Curtis got more than 15,000 votes in the 2002 lieutenant governor’s election — more than five times the 2,770 votes Sutherland won in the gubernatorial primary.