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Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) will meet with a key group of black lawmakers Thursday to heal the wounds inflicted by his divisive primary battle against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).
The primary campaign caused deep rifts within the Democratic Party, but within the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), it was especially personal.
Many members gravitated early to the campaign of Clinton, the wife of a former president so popular in the black community he was nicknamed “the first black president.”
Others held out and threw their support to one of their members, who would become the first black presidential aspirant to win a major-party nomination.
On Thursday, Obama — the only Senate CBC member — will return to try to heal the wounds left over from the primary.
He is to address a lunchtime meeting of the Black Caucus, facing both his supporters and one-time opponents.
Obama will likely be pressed on whether he plans to ask Clinton to be his running mate. Clinton has indicated she is interested in the so-called dream ticket. Yet some Obama backers don’t want Clinton as the vice presidential nominee. Obama has not answered directly whether he will put her on the ticket, and he may be pressed on why he wouldn’t want to pick the former first lady who attracted more than 18 million votes in the primary.
More than one-third of the 42 members of the caucus supported Clinton for president, even though black voters overwhelmingly supported Obama in the primaries. A few members, including Reps. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Donald Payne (D-N.J.), initially backed Clinton and then switched to Obama.
The Illinois senator will need the CBC’s full support as he faces Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the fall. Black voters are a key element of Obama’s voter base, and he enjoys strong support among them. But he needs them to turn out at the polls, and that’s where black elected officials, whether they were for Clinton or Obama, can help.
“We need a 42-district strategy to win the White House,” said one CBC member. “The math in some of these districts can make the difference.”
Republicans have cited getting 16 percent of the black vote in Ohio as a key factor in President Bush winning his second term.
The sniping among CBC members has been both in the open and in hushed conversations. Early on, Obama supporters were angered when Clinton was invited to be a highlighted speaker at the caucus’s Annual Legislative Conference last fall. Obama sat with the rank-and-file members.
This year’s conference is also being chaired by erstwhile Clinton supporters in the caucus.
As the campaign ended, some female members pushed in a CBC meeting for the caucus to recommend Clinton to be Obama’s vice presidential nominee. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) shot down the suggestion. Clinton supporters in the caucus also disagreed with emphasizing the “historic” nature of Obama’s nomination, but they were overruled.
At least one Obama supporter stopped going to CBC meetings, offended by the treatment.
“It’s still a very divisive atmosphere,” a member said.
Many of the members cited longstanding ties with the Clintons from when Bill Clinton was president. But Obama supporters retorted that many simply sought to back a winner.
Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) stepped up onstage with Clinton on the same June night that Obama claimed the nomination. Clinton refused to step down until June 7, four days after the last primary states. Jones has advocated for Clinton to get the No. 2 slot on the ticket.
Clinton booster and Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson urged the Black Caucus to push Obama for the ticket, but that suggestion was shot down in a CBC meeting by Jackson and publicly by CBC Chairwoman Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-Mich.).
Some CBC members believed the Clinton campaign was using racial politics against Obama. Clinton’s hold on the black vote quickly evaporated. Obama attracted at least 84 percent of the black vote in Texas, Wisconsin, Ohio and Mississippi.
In January, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) famously called on Bill Clinton to “chill.” Clyburn endorsed Obama earlier this month.
Obama is also expected to address a group of female Democratic lawmakers. The meeting follows a dinner last week at the home of Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) for female lawmakers.
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