African American presidential candidates visited local churches yesterday morning, hoping to secure support in the District's January Democratic primary, a nonbinding election that could be used as an early yardstick to measure support among black voters.
Al Sharpton delivered the sermon at Israel Baptist Church in Northeast Washington and Carol Moseley Braun spoke to the congregation of 19th Street Baptist Church in Northwest. Both candidates had attended weekend events marking Congressional Black Caucus week, which was capped with a gala Saturday at the Washington Convention Center.
"Washington is obviously a crucial community," Braun said, exiting the church after a brief address before about 100 people. "The church is a bedrock part of the African American community. The way you traditionally reach the community is through the church."
The District's Jan. 13 primary comes six days before the Iowa caucuses and two weeks before the New Hampshire primary. The Democratic National Committee has threatened not to seat the District's delegates at the national convention if they are chosen that early, so the city has agreed to make the primary vote nonbinding and choose its delegates later.
Sharpton's sermon emphasized his record of supporting voting rights in Congress and statehood for the District, and it denounced President Bush's policies in Iraq. He announced that an organization he heads will kick off a voter registration drive this week, after receiving a donation worth $1 million in free public service announcements from Black Entertainment Television Chairman Robert L. Johnson.
"We have a president who cares for our young people when they are abroad in uniform and has no care when they are at home," Sharpton said, speaking for the second straight week at a D.C. church. "We have a president who wants $87 billion for the education and health care for children in Iraq but has no money for the children in D.C. He will put our troops in danger's way to give democracy and voting rights to people in the Iraq capital of Baghdad, and you don't even have voting rights in the capital of this country in D.C."
Braun, a former senator from Illinois and ambassador to New Zealand, made a shorter, less politically charged speech at 19th Street Baptist Church's 8 a.m. service. She spoke briefly from the pulpit, tying her campaign to the worship service. She described her campaign as one built on "rebuilding and restoring" the nation, and she promised universal health care, an overhauled system of public education no longer paid for by local property taxes and victories in the war on terrorism through "working well with others."
At the weekend's Congressional Black Caucus events, some black leaders questioned the political wisdom of the campaigns of Braun and Sharpton, saying they might fractionalize the Democratic Party and drain votes from the party's other candidates, such as former Vermont governor Howard Dean.
Dean has campaigned in the District several times during the past month and has gained the endorsements of several city and African American leaders. While Sharpton and Braun attended the weekend events without campaign buttons and signs, Dean assembled a platoon of African American political activists at the Grand Hyatt Washington on Friday night, many of them wearing blue Dean buttons on their lapels. One of those supporters, Lawrence Guyot, is a longtime D.C. activist who has supported such black leaders as Jesse Jackson and former mayor Marion Barry.
"Let me be very practical," Guyot said. "The only thing that unites blacks and whites in the District of Columbia right now is the Dean campaign."
Sharpton took a crack at such sentiments during his sermon. He reminded the congregation at Israel Baptist that he had preached to them once before in 2001. Sharpton said that Dean's support of D.C. statehood and congressional voting rights was a "great conversion" and that the issue was not a priority for Dean when he was chairman of the National Governors Association.
Sharpton compared voting for a presidential candidate to vouching for someone financially: "Why would you go in a voting booth and co-sign for someone you just met?" he asked.
Sharpton said that instead of splitting votes among party hopefuls, his campaign's emphasis on voter registration among young blacks could benefit many candidates for years.
"My race is not only about Al Sharpton, but it's also about getting people involved that only I can reach," he said.
Staff writer Amy Argetsinger contributed to this report.
