John Lewis makes his move towards Obama

February 15, 2008

A few months ago, when Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) endorsed Hillary Clinton, it was a key development. Lewis, a Democratic icon and civil-right legend, became Clinton’s highest-profile African-American supporter, and sent a signal to the party about Clinton’s strong connection to the African-American community.

As I understand it, Lewis was, a few months prior, undecided on whether to support Clinton or Barack Obama, but cajoling from Bill Clinton reportedly pushed the Georgia congressman into Sen. Clinton’s camp.

Now, it appears circumstances have pushed Lewis in the other direction.

Representative John Lewis, an elder statesman from the civil rights era and one of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most prominent black supporters, said Thursday night that he planned to cast his vote as a superdelegate for Senator Barack Obama in hopes of preventing a fight at the Democratic convention.

“In recent days, there is a sense of movement and a sense of spirit,” said Mr. Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who endorsed Mrs. Clinton last fall. “Something is happening in America, and people are prepared and ready to make that great leap.”

Mr. Lewis, who carries great influence among other members of Congress, disclosed his decision in an interview in which he said that as a superdelegate he could “never, ever do anything to reverse the action” of the voters of his district, who overwhelmingly supported Mr. Obama.

“I’ve been very impressed with the campaign of Senator Obama,” Mr. Lewis said. “He’s getting better and better every single day.”

Just to be clear, Lewis’ switch was in reference to his role as a super delegate, and he hasn’t officially switched his endorsement from Clinton to Obama. That said, the NYT added that Lewis “said he could decide within days whether to formally endorse Mr. Obama.”

Time’s Mark Halperin argued that Clinton’s chances of winning the Democratic nomination, in light of Lewis’ announcement, have been cut in half. That strikes me as a bit of an exaggeration, but I think it’s certainly fair to say this is a major development.

Right off the bat, it’s worth remembering that not all superdelegates carry equal stature and credibility. Lewis is one of the most respected and admired lawmakers in the party. He carries enormous, almost unrivaled, moral authority, and his switch may very well lead others to do the same.

Moreover, it leaves the Clinton campaign’s broader superdelegate strategy looking suspect. The principal reason to distrust the superdelegate counts we see in the media is that these are people who haven’t actually voted yet. They can, and will, change their minds, and are susceptible to prevailing political winds and shifts in momentum. It’s obviously too soon to say, but Lewis’ announcement may signal a break in the dam. The Clinton campaign has suggested in recent days that the superdelegates would be their ace in the hole. That may no longer be the case.

Josh Marshall explained:

The Clinton camp’s super delegate gambit is not only audacious. Far more than that it is simply unrealistic. The super delegates who are gettable for Clinton by loyalty, conviction or coercion are already got. And enough’s been seen of both candidates for everyone to be more than acquainted with them. The ones who remain — who make up roughly half the total — are waiting to see who the winner is.

The truth is that there are over 1000 elected delegates remain to be won. We really don’t know what’s going to happen yet. But if the trend continues and Obama ends the primary season with a clear majority of unelected delegates, the idea that those remaining super delegates will break for the candidate who won fewer delegates, raised less money and is polling worse against the Republican nominee simply makes no sense.

My hunch is this hurts Clinton most because it seems to represent a tipping point. To be sure, it may not be, but that’s certainly the perception that many Democrats may have this morning. The post-Super Tuesday period has been an awkward one for her campaign, between a string of defeats and a significant staff shake-up. But there was also a sense that, if Clinton could keep her team together and focus on some likely victories down the road, this unpleasant streak could pass.

Lewis’ move, in this sense, signals that time may not be on Clinton’s side.

I am an Obama supporter and I believe that Hillary Clinton will do the right thing when the time comes. And she is doing the right thing by fighting hard right now while it is still a virtual tie and she should get credit for it. Let us see what the voters have said after March 4.

  • If you read Josh’s take, I think the undoing of Clinton’s campaign is the same one as the undoing of the conservative movement: anti-empiricism. I don’t know how much stock to put in the Atlantic article, but that and Josh have painted the pic of a bubble, where Penn skews polling data to reinforce a candidate’s perceptions.

    It suggests this isn’t just the failing of a movement, but an era, where it’s not spin but a bald-faced rationalization of reality.

    The reality-based community is disturbed.

  • For me, what is most damaging is that Obama no longer seems like a roll of the dice, Clinton does.

    Granted, this may very well be a mad-rush pile-on Hillary that will be found to be exaggerated, but it couldn’t happen at a worse time. Have we already forgotten Hillary ran out of money after Super Tues? It feels like the curtain was pulled back then, and we’re seeing a lot we didn’t expect from such disciplined power players.

  • One of the things I enjoyed most about living in Atlanta was being able to step into the voting booth every two years and vote for an actual American hero like John Lewis as my representative.

    He has an authenticity and a sincerity about him, and this is going to resonate deeply with his colleagues.

  • I’m seeing that Dave Scott of the Georgia 13th has gone to Obama’s side also. Reuters is siting other examples now of “supers” who were ardent Clinton backers, but have now “crossed the bridge” to the Obama camp. AT is noting the same thing—as is CBC and BBC. I figure that “America’s MSM” should catch up on this later today—like around 5 PM (it is Friday, after all).

    Clinton just can’t burn those Obama bridges fast enough—and a lot can happen in 18 days….

  • The thing with delegate switches in a 2-person race is that it is essentially a gain of 2 delegates (Clinton losing one, Obama gaining one). Every delegate that switches hurts Clinton big time, as she has to add two delegates in return (assuming Obama doesn’t lose one) to make up the difference.

  • John Lewis is simply one of the most outstanding human beings I’ve ever met. I saw him speak about his experiences as a nonviolent activist in Congress and he totally had that preacher’s rhythm down in his speech; Obama could learn a thing or three from him.

    Question what does Clinton hope to achieve in Ohio by pointing the finger at Obama and calling him beholden to corporate interests? Won’t that just invite scrutiny? Does she think she can sway a lot of people before he gets there and keep them loyal?

  • This may be the tipping point, but the beginning of the end was when it became obvious how ruthlessly the Clintons were willing to run their campaign. Many people who were considering Hillary were aghast at her campaign’s use of sheer deception, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. When Bill came out and said that he was always against the war and that Obama wasn’t, when he said that Obama said that the Republicans were the only party with good ideas, that’s when they lost this race. And when they said that they would take a win against the will of the people of the party, that sealed the deal. This is the DEMOCRATIC party. If you don’t like democracy, then join another party.

    I for one am VERY glad they had a strong candidate to run against, because that’s what brought out their true nature. Had they cruised to victory, we would have had to wait ’til later to see it.

    Pack your shit and get, Clintons. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass.

  • Happy Daze are here again! It is finally sinking into the big Dems that Obama really does offer hope –

    Hope for a Democratic Party free of Terry McAuliffe, Mark Penn, Harold Ickes, James Carville and all of the rest of the Clintonites who left the party in shambles after eight years in the White House, leaving the rest of us with a Bush victory.

    Hope for a Democratic Party that believes in something other than triangulation.

    Hope that Howard Dean gets the recognition he deserves instead of being pushed out by the the gang who couldn’t shoot straight at the DLC.

    Hope for a presidential campaign with no room for Juanita Broderick, Katherine Willey, Monica Lewinsky and Gennifer Flowers.

    Hope that Bill Clinton’s pardon of the New Square Four isn’t going to make headlines. (In a way, the New Square Four pardon is worse than the Marc Rich one because it reflects directly on Hillary’s first senate race and cash probably changed hands.)

    And lastly,

    Hope that we might finally have a president and first lady who look good in jeans.

  • With many of the superdelegates being politicians and elected officials, many of them have enough of a sense of wanting to be caught on the right side of history that whatever they may be saying now they will follow the pressure of political winds come August. Who among them will want to favor the loser of the convention and wind up in the nominee’s doghouse. With cabinet posts, ambassadorships and other perks of power in the offing, the superdelegates will not want to swim against the tide and end up cut out of the power game.

  • Obama is playing the race card:

    from mydd:

    One black supporter of Clinton, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, said he remains committed to her. “There’s nothing going on right now that would cause me to” change, he said…

    …In an interview, Cleaver offered a glimpse of private conversations.

    He said Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois had recently asked him “if it comes down to the last day and you’re the only superdelegate? … Do you want to go down in history as the one to prevent a black from winning the White House?

    “I told him I’d think about it,” Cleaver concluded.

    Jackson, an Obama supporter, confirmed the conversation, and said the dilemma may pose a career risk for some black politicians. “Many of these guys have offered their support to Mrs. Clinton, but Obama has won their districts. So you wake up without the carpet under your feet. You might find some young primary challenger placing you in a difficult position” in the future, he added.

    between that and buying superdelegates, Obama may win this but he’s a dirty as the rest of them.

  • Have we already forgotten Hillary ran out of money after Super Tues?

    Meme – Unless I’m mistaken, she ran out of money before Super Tuesday. We only found out about it afterwards. And the story we’ve been told is that Hillary so trusted her campaign manager who had never run a national campaign and who seriously over-spent on her Senate campaign, that she didn’t learn that the money was gone until after it was gone. I have a hard time believing that, and think this is just a story we’re being fed to make it sound as if it wasn’t Hillary who over-spent the money. But the campaign manager was strictly a manager-type and wasn’t involved in strategy, which means she also probably wasn’t the one picking the ad buys and whatnot. I fail to see how this could all be her fault. And even if it’s true, I fail to see how that makes Hillary look any better.

    I hear what you’re saying about Hillary looking riskier. I used to think that Obama was the better of two good candidates. After reading that piece in Atlantic, I’m starting to think that Hillary’s competence ain’t what we were told it was. She could have had just about any advisors and staff members she wanted; yet these are the people she picked. Not a good sign.

  • Shade Tail: I just posted the Cleaver and J. Jackson quotes and gave an opinion as to what was going on. What spin do you put on it?

  • g8grl,

    The branch of NOW in New York – which supports Hillary but is not connected to the Hillary compaign – released the following:

    Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, the Family Leave and Medical Act to name a few. Women have buried their anger that his support for the compromises in No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bogus drug benefit brought us the passage of these flawed bills. We have thanked him for his ardent support of many civil rights bills, BUT women are always waiting in the wings.

    And now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with his abandonment! He’s picked the new guy over us. He’s joined the list of progressive white men who can’t or won’t handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton (they will of course say they support a woman president, just not “this” one). “They” are Howard Dean and Jim Dean (Yup! That’s Howard’s brother) who run DFA (that’s the group and list from the Dean campaign that we women helped start and grow). They are Alternet, Progressive Democrats of America, democrats.com, Kucinich lovers and all the other groups that take women’s money, say they’ll do feminist and women’s rights issues one of these days, and conveniently forget to mention women and children when they talk about poverty or human needs or America’s future or whatever.

    This latest move by Kennedy, is so telling about the status of and respect for women’s rights, women’s voices, women’s equality, women’s authority and our ability – indeed, our obligation – to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a President that is the first woman after centuries of men who “know what’s best for us.”

    Question: Would it be fair for me to accuse Clinton of “playing the gender card” based on this, and dismiss anyone suggesting that Clinton is probably embarrassed by this hysteria-fueled release as “spin”?

  • Tamarak,

    Are you saying that Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is not connected to the Obama campaign? I think absolutely that Hillary would have been bashed for playing the gender card if this NOW letter was more deftly worded.

  • As far as I know, Jesse Jackson is not an Obama surrogate. He supports Obama and is probably donating to Obama, but Obama has no control over him.

    It’s a similar situation with NOW. I don’t think Hillary should be accused of playing the gender card now matter how the NOW letter was worded, because SHE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

  • Obama is playing the race card:

    I don’t quite think this is the “race card.” This is just an admission of reality that some black people would never forgive someone if they were the one guy who denied a black person the president. And while I see what you’re saying, to me, it’d be the “race card” if it was more of a threat. He’s not saying he’s going to make trouble for people who do this, it’s just an admission of reality. Some people would never forgive a super-delegate who did that, and that’s the right of those people. People can forgive and not forgive whoever they want, and that’s their decision. Saying that out-loud is just pointing out reality.

    And after all, if a district went heavily for Obama and an elected official in that district went for Hillary, it might be a sign to them that they had picked the wrong official. That’s all this is. We want people who represent us, and if someone believes that an official who picks the wrong candidate doesn’t represent them, that’s their right to vote for somebody else. Me saying that isn’t spin, as that’s what the Obama supporter basically said in your quote.

    Of course, you might think of it as playing the race card because race was mentioned at all, but I don’t. I think someone is playing a “card” if they’re trying to use it to their advantage, but I think this is just an admission of reailty. I don’t know about you, but if my district goes heavily Obama and any of my super-delegates didn’t also go Obama, I might seriously re-think my support of that person. Not that I have a big problem with Hillary, but I just want my representatives to represent my views. That’s what this democracy thing is all about.

    BTW, could we please get out of the idea that everything that is said by a supporter is coming directly from the person they support? That’s what Shade Tail was getting at; though I don’t think they had it totally right.

    It’s one thing when a high-up advisor says something, and sometimes it really is coming from above. But unless you have reason to believe that Obama is making these people say these things, I don’t see why we should assume this is coming from him. You people keep looking for reasons to hate him, and the best reasons you find is that you keep finding supporters you don’t like (and pretending the nicer ones like me don’t exist). Whether or not this is a “race card,” I don’t see how you can claim Obama is the one playing it. Similarly, I won’t hold it against Hillary when some of her supporters accuse Ted Kennedy of betraying feminists. That’s just how things go. People say things.

  • The new story line will be Obama won because hes black it has nothing to do with positions which he doesn’t have its convenient to just not vote on the pough issues ala McCain

  • Uhm, Jim @21. I’m normally not one to criticize grammar and whatnot (mine isn’t the best), but WTF are you saying? Punctuation counts. If you want people to understand you, you really should try some. I can’t tell if that’s one sentence or three.

    As for what I think you’re saying, it’s absurd. The only knock people can have on him is that he’s winning because he has better rhetoric and speeches, and that he can do so because he doesn’t really stand for anything. Even that’s blatantly untrue, but it’s all that will work. They could also say it’s Hillary Hatred, but that risks reminding people of how much people hate Hillary; which goes against the argument her supporters used to make about how she’s not polarizing and is acceptable to most voters. Overall, there really aren’t a lot of good arguments Hillary can make against Barack, which is a big part of the problem and why he’d be a good nominee.

    But attacking the black thing only makes it worse, as it’s insulting everyone who supports him, as if we’re pro-black racists who are voting against our best interests just to support an unqualified black man. Plus, it hints of racism on the part of the person using it. They can try that if they want, but it will surely bite them in the butt as much as many of the other things Hillary’s campaign keeps trying. But again, a big part of the problem is that he really doesn’t have a lot of negatives and all the spin is too blatantly spinny.

  • Lewis should cast his super-delegate vote for Obama. This is how his constitutents voted. And Teddy Kennedy, John Kerry and the Massachusetts Governor should cast their super-delegate votes for Clinton, as that is how their constitutents voted. With two talented candidates, this is how all super-delegates should vote–in support of their constituents’ wishes.

  • Something else to add is that I think this is a sign that Hillary screwed up yet another campaign issue. As I’ve said before, she should have taken a “We’ll cross that bridge when it happens” approach, while secretly securing the delegates. That way, Obama people don’t get up in arms and accuse Hillary of trying to do what they’re all accusing her of trying to do. I mean, if it comes down to the Super Delegates, there’s still a lot of time left before that happens, so there’s no reason to get everyone upset for something that might not be an issue. But I suspect this is yet another time when Hillary’s trying to show how tough she is and how she’ll fight all the way; without realizing that it hurts her in the eyes of many.

    And this shows that I may have been right. Because now super-delegates are under pressure to state their preference, and people are so upset and there’s so much time with nothing else to talk about that even people who endorsed her are wanting to pledge their support to the one who won their district; and those districts will tend to be Obama districts, because they’re the ones that are upset. And they’re upset because Hillary vowed she’d win it even over their objections. But it’s not as likely that her districts will protest, because they’re not the ones upset about it. So by announcing that she’ll fight for every delegate, she’s more likely to lose delegates and gain none.

    So once again it looks like Hillary just shot herself in the foot, and for no real purpose other than to project toughness. And this is who we want as president? I’ll vote for her if I have to, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that Obama is the better candidate.

  • The reality is that he still endorses HRC but has caved to his constituents who voted for Obama, and will vote for him at the convention, even though he is not bound by their votes as a pledged delegate would be. Some will argue that this is the right thing to do, I won’t bother, I’ve said it before and will say it again, ther supers should make up their own damn minds to decide who is best suited to win in November and God willing to take over as President.

    Truth is that too many damned republicans are voting in open primaries and caucuses.. and I won’t even get into how freaking archaic and insignificant caucuses are.

  • John Lewis and others are guilty of discrimination, who are they kidding, Obama is black, forget no experience, having done nothing much for his race, except get sweetheart land deals from his white buddies, I used to care about equality, not anymore. Ignorance is no excuse!

  • John Lewis jumps ship because others are voting for Obama? Do you change your mind about what’s important for our Country, our children because it is the popular thing to do. You stand for what is right based on principal not on what is populafr…Look at Jesus…look at Martin Luther King.. PLEASE be a leader not a follower!

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