Posted on 06/27/2002 2:51:28 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
Alabama's 7th Congressional district is 62 percent black and its 5th-term congressman, Earl F. Hilliard, is an active member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Despite this caucus's extraordinary help, including six of them who traveled to Alabama to campaign for him, Hilliard was defeated by a 34-year-old Harvard-educated attorney, Artur Davis, who received 52,356 votes to Hilliard's 41,050, Davis graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard as an undergraduate and Cum Laude from Harvard Law School.
The Hilliard Campaign featured one TV spot which morphed a white man into Davis … who is black. Another spot showed Davis supporters as white, cigar-smoking fat cats; while another showed Davis with a large bandage over his mouth with the words "FOR SALE."
Washington's Weekly Standard magazine reported this week:
"In early June, [Congressional Black] Caucus members [all are Democrats] summoned Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, Whip Nancy Pelosi and two others to a special meeting. The subject: Helping Rep. Earl Hilliard of Alabama defeat a primary challenger in the June 25 runoff. The challenger, Artur Davis, was getting campaign contributions from donors angry with Hilliard's anti-Israel views. Hilliard had refused to support a resolution criticizing Palestinian suicide bombings. At the Congressional Black Caucus session, Davis was cited for making an appeal to Jewish Democrats, even traveling to New York for fundraisers. If Democratic leaders don't rescue Hilliard, CBC members said they would block aid to Israel.
"Democratic leaders quickly urged House members to donate $1,000 each to Hilliard's campaign. But the letter wasn't signed by two prominent Democratic honchos from New York – Charles Rangel, a CBC member and ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee and Nita Lowey, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The letter caused the anger to ease a bit, and a CBC member, Alcee Hastings of Florida, met with the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee to avert a major black-Jewish rift in the Democratic party."
The Standard also noted: "Ethan Wallison and Rachel Van Dongen of Roll Call the Capitol Hill newspaper, wrote a detailed account of the flap. It was a great piece of reporting, but major newspapers and TV news outlets didn't pick up the story. Now imagine if it had been a story about threats by right-wing Christians to Republican leaders. That would have been front-page news for sure."
One year ago, Congressman Hilliard was censured by the House Ethics Committee for paying off business and personal debts with campaign funds.
Five years ago, Hilliard visited Libya on behalf of a European company.
Candidate Davis accused Congressman Hilliard of doing little to help his district while lining his pockets in Washington.
During the campaign, Representative Hilliard refused offers to debate Davis.
At Hilliard's campaign office in Birmingham, a spokeswoman said the congressman had no comment on the primary election result. She also confirmed that the following members of the Congressional Black Caucus came to Alabama to campaign for Congressman Hilliard:
"Representatives Maxine Waters of California; Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas; Stephanie Jones of Ohio; John Conyers of Michigan; Benny Thompson of Mississippi; as well as former D.C. Congressional Delegate Walter Fauntroy – and the Rev. Al Sharpton."
The spokeswoman confirmed that Rep. Hilliard announced that Hollywood actor Danny Glover would campaign for him; but Glover never arrived.
Can you imagine if it was the reverse. Screams of racism would echo to the high heavens.
And after you imagine that, imagine there was a group called the Congressional White Caucus.
This was supposed to help, right?
Davis' win seen as sign voters more independent
06/27/02VICKI McCLURE and TOM GORDON
News staff writers
Artur Davis says his decisive toppling of U.S. Rep. Earl Hilliard signaled an end to the dominance that black political machines have exerted over who represents the black community.
The former federal prosecutor routed the five-term incumbent and his hefty endorsements with a two-pronged approach: raising nearly $1 million in contributions to fund extensive television ads and patching together a grass-roots organization throughout the Black Belt, Jefferson and Tuscaloosa counties.
Hilliard, meanwhile, relied largely on the support of three powerful groups before the Democratic primary runoff the Alabama New South Coalition, the Alabama Democratic Conference and the Jefferson County Citizens Coalition. Not until the congressman failed to win a majority three weeks ago did he launch aggressive political commercials or tour extensively through the district.
To Davis and political observers, the message is clear: Voters in Alabama's only black-majority district looked beyond endorsements and evaluated candidates based on merit and message.
"If we think that this is simply a victory of one person, then we will fail to realize the larger message of this candidacy and this campaign victory tonight," Davis told a crowd of several hundred supporters Tuesday in Birmingham. "I have a great deal of respect for all of the organizations in this state and I look forward to working with them. But the day of their controlling who wins elections is over."
On balance, Tuesday was not a good day for some of the state's traditional black political action groups or their leaders.
Alabama Democratic Conference Chairman Joe L. Reed, who lost his Montgomery City Council seat in 1999, lost his bid to win the Democratic nomination for a state Senate seat being vacated by his longtime ally Charles Langford.
Latosha Brown, a protege of one of Alabama New South Coalition's founders, state Sen. Hank Sanders, and his wife, Toure Sanders, lost her bid to be the Democratic nominee for a state legislative seat in Selma.
Both Brown and Reed led the field in their races on June 4.
Davis, 34, gathered support across racial and regional lines Tuesday by criticizing the lack of jobs, hospitals and education funding in the district and questioning the ethics of his opponent.
Before the primary, he saturated the Birmingham and Tuscaloosa airwaves with commercials hammering these themes. During the runoff, he targeted the Black Belt with the same ads after receiving about $460,000 in additional funding.
But the Birmingham lawyer also built a support network among local politicians and community leaders throughout the district. He hired people with extensive connections in the community as well to visit churches and neighborhood meetings or to simply walk with the candidate around town and introduce him.
Demopolis City Councilman Thomas Moore, who also is president of the Marengo County chapter of New South, said independent thinking is what his district cried out for Tuesday.
"Families are dying on the vine from the lack of leadership from their elected officials," said Moore, who had campaigned for Davis. "I think there is still a need for political machines, but they should allow for a divergence of opinions."
By comparison, Hilliard, 60, faced Davis with traditional election-year weapons that have often brought victory to black candidates: endorsements from major black-led political action groups, supportive visits from high-profile black members of Congress, and an argument that Davis lacked a civil rights pedigree and was the white man's candidate.
Over the years, politicians running for statewide and federal office have dared not ignore ADC and New South and they often have courted them by attending their conventions, buying a table at their banquets and a large ad in their programs, and paying additional sums to help them turn out the vote.
"It doesn't work any more," said former Alabama Democratic Party Executive Director Al LaPierre. "You gotta show that you accomplished things and these are your plans."
Some political activists, including some who backed Hilliard, said Davis' win is a dramatic sign that black voters aren't as easily swayed by big endorsements or claims that one candidate is more authentically black than another.
"Those tactics were outdated," said Birmingham businessman Donald Watkins, whose Voter News Network, an organization for independent voters, endorsed Davis. "He defeated the `kiss my ring' crowd."
Hilliard led Davis in June 4's three-candidate race, outpacing him by nearly 3,200 votes. Though he trailed Davis in Tuscaloosa and Jefferson counties, he led him in seven others, including Sanders' populous home county of Dallas.
On Tuesday, however, Davis took eight of the district's 12 counties, rolling up larger margins in Jefferson and Tuscaloosa and winning Dallas.
The perception of the black community as a monolithic voting block is changing, said Ron Slaughter, an associate professor of political science at Alabama A&M.
"As the community becomes more and more comfortable with the process, people are becoming more independent," Slaughter said. "People are challenging others and are voting for people not just because of their race, but because of the issues."
Perry County Commissioner Albert Turner Jr., whose political organization helped carry his county for Hilliard on Tuesday, concurred.
"No longer can you say you marched on the Selma bridge and that gets you in office and keeps you in office," said Turner. "The day of who's the blackest is over. It's about production now."
Others said the face cards campaigning for Hilliard, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, may have backfired.
"Folks in this state, black and white, have always had something about outsiders coming in," LaPierre said.
News staff writer Patricia Dedrick contributed to this story.
This crowd really oughta pack them in.;^)
You know, the 'RAT party is really in trouble, when the Harvard educated lawyer is an improvement.
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