Black Lawmakers Who Support Clinton Are Getting Heat From Constituents

If you think the race war in the Dem party ended at the Las Vegas debate the other night with Clinton and Obama's conciliatory comments, think again. A number of black Congressmen endorsed Clinton early on, but are not taking heat from their black constituents who are supporting Obama in increasing numbers:

Even though Barack Obama may become the first African-American ever to represent a major party as the nominee for president, many black lawmakers on Capitol Hill are not supporting him. And that’s creating tensions within the Congressional Black Caucus.

More than a third of the black members of Congress are backing Hillary Rodham Clinton or John Edwards in the presidential primary, a stance that puts them at odds with many of their African-American constituents, who, recent polls show, are beginning to shift to Obama’s camp.

The Clinton supporters — among them, civil rights pioneer Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) — have said their endorsements didn’t hinge on race. Instead, they cited long-standing relationships with the Clintons, a respect for Hillary Clinton’s experience in national politics and, for some, geographical alliances with her in New York.

But now that Obama has won the Iowa caucuses and appears poised to do well in other early-primary states, some African-American lawmakers are pointing to the Clinton backers and calling them political opportunists who did not believe in the electability of a black candidate.

There's a lot of truth in that last sentence. Many made early endorsements of Clinton because they bought into the "inevitible" story that was prevalent until the Philadelphia debate. Now they have to explain to their constituents why they would support a candidate who isn't even sure of the contribution of Martin Luther King Jr. to the civil rights movement.

Good luck with all that.

UPDATE: Word is that Sen. Pat Leahy of Vermont will endorse Obama this morning. Leahy is as liberal as they come, and this endorsement is a real blow to Hillary. As far as the black lawmakers mentioned above, I wonder how many will be getting calls from their constituents wondering why the old white guys will endorse Obama but the black guys won't?

UPDATE 2: More evidence that the race war continues:

Just when you thought supporters of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had gotten past this race thing.

In an address to the Hungry Club at Butler Street YMCA in downtown Atlanta, the Rev. Joseph Lowery re-stoked the fires on Wednesday when he told the largely African-American audience that “a slave mentality” was fueling black doubts about Obama’s chances of capturing the White House.

The report comes from our AJC colleague, John Hollis, who was at the event.

“No matter how much education they have, they never graduated from the slave mentality,” Lowery said of those who have advised Obama to wait, or have doubted his ability to compete in a general election.

“The slavery mentality compels us to say, ‘We can’t win, we can’t do,’” said Lowery, an avid Obama supporter and a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.