http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/05/po...rint&position=
October 5, 2004
CLERGY
Black Pastors Backing Bush Are Rare, but Not Alone
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Like many African-Americans, the Rev. Walter Humphrey, pastor of two mostly black churches in Akron, Ohio, and Oakland, Calif., has serious doubts about how fairly President Bush won the contested state of Florida in the last election. But Mr. Humphrey says that is not going to stop him from voting for Mr. Bush this year for the first time.
"I don't view that as an election that was stolen," he said. "I see that as the providence of God."
A registered independent who has now become a volunteer for the Bush campaign in Florida, Mr. Humphrey said the president's outspoken Christian faith, his support for church-based social programs and his opposition to same-sex marriage won him over. "As far as I am concerned, I see the hand of God on President Bush," he said.
As an African-American pastor supporting Mr. Bush, Mr. Humphrey may be an anomaly. But he is not alone.
Mr. Humphrey and about 20 other black pastors held a news conference in Oakland in August to endorse Mr. Bush. Later this month, he and others said, the campaign has arranged a meeting in Toledo, Ohio, of more than 150 black clergy members who support his re-election.
In a departure from typical Republican presidential campaigns, the Bush campaign is making a serious push for the allegiance of African-American clergy, while the Democrats are fighting back to motivate them to get their parishioners to the polls.
Mr. Bush has appeared several times over the last few years in large predominantly black churches from Philadelphia to Dallas. Timothy Goeglein, the White House liaison to conservatives and Christians, meets frequently with predominantly black congregations and religious groups, including the annual meeting of about 25,000 members of the Church of God in Christ, one of the largest and most theologically conservative black denominations, to the Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York.
A handful of prominent African-American ministers who supported Mr. Bush in the last election, like the Rev. Herbert Lusk II of Philadelphia, have pushed to make his case to their fellow pastors. And in the last few weeks the campaign has bought advertisements on black radio stations extolling Mr. Bush's "values of faith."
Yesterday Mr. Kerry fought back, meeting with more than 50 black pastors in Philadelphia, telling them: "There have been faith-based efforts in America for years and years. There hasn't always been an effort to politicize it.''
Part of the reason for the attention from both sides, strategists say, is black pastors' traditional role in turning out Democratic voters which the Kerry campaign is determined to step up and the Bush campaign would like to negate.
But Republicans strategists say are also planting seeds that they hope will yield greater results in future elections, even if it does not make much difference this year. And both sides acknowledge that the endorsement of African-American clergy has a symbolic value among nonblack voters, in part because their status in the broader culture as the legacy of the civil rights movement.
"The African-American pastor has a tremendous moral authority," said Ken Hutcherson, the African-American pastor of a church in Redmond, Wash., and a Bush supporter who has joined several white conservative Christian leaders to lead rallies around the country to oppose same-sex marriage.
Mr. Hutcherson said he could make statements, including criticism of gay rights, that white pastors sometimes shied away from. "Most other people are afraid to speak out because they will be called bigots," he said.
This summer, Oliver N. E. Kellman Jr., a black lobbyist who switched from Democrat to Republican this year, organized the National Faith-Based Initiatives Coalition to rally black pastors to support Mr. Bush's re-election. On its Web site, 10 prominent black ministers, including the televangelist Bishop Clarence McClendon of Los Angeles and the Rev. James E. Washington of Dayton, Ohio, endorse Mr. Bush as "the right person to execute and continue forward with leading this great nation."
Democrats acknowledge that the Bush campaign is making an unexpectedly strong pitch to African-American clergy members, but predict it will fall on deaf ears.
"We are not just going to stand there with our arms folded," said Bill Lynch, the deputy manager of the Kerry campaign in charge of reaching out to black voters.
Last week, the Kerry campaign announced that the Rev. Jesse Jackson had signed on as a senior adviser. On Sunday, Mr. Kerry and Mr. Jackson met with a group of African-American ministers and others at the East Mount Zion Baptist Church in Cleveland.
Mr. Lynch said they hoped to organize a meeting with black clergy members from around Florida, too. But at the meeting with African-American pastors in Philadelphia yesterday, Mr. Kerry drew a few calls of encouragement but only tepid applause, until Mr. Jackson rose to start a standing ovation, according to a pool report.
"We are going to try to get Kerry into an African-American church every Sunday to deliver his message," Mr. Lynch said. He vowed to match or exceed the black turnout in the 2000 election, when Al Gore visited two African-American churches in Philadelphia on the Sunday before the election.
Some black pastors say the Bush campaign's appeals have made them more determined than ever to urge parishioners to vote for his opponent, regardless of what tax laws may say about churches' participation in politics.
The Rev. Albert F. Campbell, pastor of the Mount Carmel Baptist Church, one of the two churches Mr. Gore visited before the election, said was already gearing up help get out the vote for Mr. Kerry, even endorsing him from the pulpit.
"I feel that it is absolutely necessary for us to send the message that we are not persuaded by George W. Bush's rhetoric," Mr. Campbell said.
Political endorsements jeopardize a church's tax-exempt status, but Mr. Campbell said that would not stop him. "It's very possible that I will work voting for Kerry into a sermon that I might preach," he said. "I know there are some bones of contention about that."
Ed Goeas, a Republican pollster working with the Bush campaign, said a recent survey indicated that 12 percent of African-Americans would vote for Mr. Bush, about double his level of support a month before the last election. But a recent poll conducted for The New York Times found that 93 percent of blacks believed the president was not legitimately elected in 2000.
William Turner, an African-American pastor from Pasadena who voted for Mr. Gore in 2000 and is now volunteering for the Bush campaign, said he was looking past the Florida election.
"Bush didn't go to Florida and do the thing with the tabs," Mr. Turner said, referring to the chads on paper ballots. "Other people did it for him. But he is an honest man, I believe." He added, "The voting I believe in is based on the immoral acts and the morality of our nation."
Others said Mr. Bush's faith, and in particular his opposition to same-sex marriage, had at least made their decision about the election a closer call. Bishop Ernest Morris, pastor of the 5,000-member, predominantly African-American Mount Airy Church of God in Christ and lead of the 500-church Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity, heard Mr. Goeglein of the White House speak to his denomination at its annual meeting two years ago.
In June he was invited to his friend Mr. Lusk's Philadelphia church for a visit from Mr. Bush.
"He is on a first-name basis with the president," Mr. Morris said in an interview at his church after a recent service. "I thought it was splendid."
Yesterday Mr. Morris was among the pastors who met with Mr. Kerry.
"The president definitely has some African-American pastors looking his way because of the social issues that he stands behind," he said. But he added, "I am about sure I am going to vote for Kerry and Edwards."
-Rudey
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