Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Things continue to heat up in the Democratic race for president.
And caught up in the middle is the black vote. One thing for sure
is that black voters must stay united in order not to dilute the
power of the black vote. How will you vote, any idea? Read on.


Representative John Lewis, whose political career grew out of the civil rights movement, had longed for the day he could vote for someone that he believed could become the nation’s first black president. So when Senator Barack Obama entered the race, he was on the cusp of declaring his support. Until Bill Clinton called.

Now, Mr. Lewis said, he is agonizing over whether to choose Mr. Obama, whom he once described as “the future of the Democratic Party,” or Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“One day I lean one way, the next day I lean another way,” said Mr. Lewis, Democrat of Georgia. “Sometimes, you have to have what I call an executive session with yourself, a come-to-Jesus meeting, and somehow, some way we will all have to make a decision.”

In the opening stretch of the 2008 Democratic presidential contest, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama and John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator, are embroiled in what party officials believe is one of the most competitive scrambles for black supporters since the Voting Rights Act was passed four decades ago. The chief rivals will be here on Sunday when the Clintons and Mr. Obama commemorate the 42nd anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when hundreds of activists — Mr. Lewis among them — crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge during a civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery.

Representative Artur Davis, Democrat of Alabama, invited Mr. Obama to deliver the keynote address at the historic Brown Chapel on Sunday. After Mr. Obama agreed, Mr. Davis said, Mrs. Clinton accepted an invitation to speak at a church just down the street. And two days ago, Mr. Clinton said he would join his wife in Selma, the first time since she formally entered the race that he has been called on to use his clout so directly to give her a hand.
“Her timing speaks for itself,” said Mr. Davis, who supports Mr. Obama.

It will be the first time Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama share the same campaign turf, and curiosity was building Saturday evening as hundreds gathered in the historic district for the weekend festival. Aides to Mrs. Clinton dismissed suggestions that they were following Mr. Obama, but members of Congress traveling to Selma said they were encouraged by her allies to attend her speech, not his.
Mr. Obama also adjusted his schedule, a spokesman said, postponing a fund-raiser in Boston on Sunday evening after learning that the Clintons would be attending the daylong series of events here.

Mr. Edwards declined an invitation. He plans to be in California on Sunday to deliver a speech — about Selma and civil rights — at the University of California, Berkeley.
Black voters are a crucial component of the Democratic electorate. In 2004, despite intensive efforts by President Bush to break the Democratic dominance, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts won about 89 percent of the black vote.

In contested primaries, particularly in South Carolina, black support could be vital to the Democratic nominee. About 50 percent of the primary voters in South Carolina are black, and the state is fourth in line on the nominating calendar. Alabama, where about 60 percent of the primary voters are black, is making plans to move its contest to Feb. 2. And at least 16 states are considering voting on Feb. 5, including Florida, California, Illinois, New York and Texas, all states where black voters could hold considerable sway.

But the weekend appearances also offer a window into a broader struggle among the candidates to define themselves to the country and to associate themselves with the legacy of the civil rights movement in a way that could help them appeal not only to blacks but also to white Democratic voters who are proud of their party’s role in that struggle.





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