KEY POINTS:
NEW YORK - When a cellphone started to ring on the podium as Senator Barack Obama was addressing members of the National Action Network in New York a few days ago, he quickly improvised. "There's something humming down here. Is that Hillary calling?"
The network is mostly black-based and was founded by the Rev Al Sharpton, who was also on the stage. The joke brought the house down because of the truth behind it. Obama is laying siege to the black support in New York state that Hillary Clinton used to be able to take for granted.
It is a development that may cost the former first lady dearly. About one in five Democrats who vote on primary day in New York next February will be black and any suggestion of an erosion of their support will force Clinton to spend time and money where she thought she would not need to. Signs that black elected officials in the state are drifting into the Obama camp come as his campaign continues to build momentum. In the first quarter of this year he matched Clinton in raising funds. And a new poll on Tuesday showed him dead even with her nationally for the first time.
Loyalty to Hillary among black leaders in the state can be traced to the high popularity of former President Bill Clinton in the African American community. But Obama appears to be stirring ethnic pride and excitement, both among black leaders and at the grass-roots level, that is straining those old ties. "I would have supported Hillary if it were not for Barack Obama," Adam Clayton Powell of the state assembly told the New York Times. "He can identify with my African American community in a way that no other candidate can." Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry concurred. "His presence as a legitimate politician at a national level brings a certain pride. It makes you have to make a choice."
Dismissing reports of a mass desertion is Congressman Charles Rangel, the most senior black elected official in the state, who is working hard to bolster Clinton's position. "I don't know Obama supporters in New York."
- INDEPENDENT
