Civil Rights Vet Backs Bid

Saturday, October 13, 2007

AN ENDORSEMENT FOR CLINTON

Civil Rights Vet Backs Bid

Rep. John Lewis, a veteran civil rights activist and prominent African American member of Congress, endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination yesterday.

"I have looked at all the candidates, and I believe that Hillary Clinton is the best prepared to lead this country at a time when we are in desperate need of strong leadership," Lewis (D-Ga.) said in a statement, before making an official announcement in Atlanta. Lewis, who was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the early 1960s, is perhaps best known for his role leading protesters across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., in March 1965.

Beaten by police during the nonviolent march, Lewis went on to become an icon of "Bloody Sunday."

In her comments welcoming the Lewis endorsement, Clinton (N.Y.) called him a "great American hero." Her campaign hopes the move will help solidify the impression that she is rolling steadily toward the nomination, picking up African American support in her primary campaign against a black candidate, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said: "Barack Obama has great admiration for John Lewis and understands his long relationship with Bill Clinton. He looks forward to his support when Barack Obama is the nominee."

-- Anne E. Kornblut

THE BATTLE ON IRAN

Obama, Edwards Criticize Clinton

The Democratic presidential candidates continued to battle over Iraq and Iran yesterday, employing the Middle Eastern nations in their arguments over who had the proper judgment to serve as president.

After Hillary Clinton said in New Hampshire on Thursday that she would meet with Iranian leaders "without preconditions" if president, a stance she had attacked as "naive" when Barack Obama took it earlier this year, both Obama and former North Carolina senator John Edwards jumped on the opportunity to hit the front-runner.

"So I'm not sure if any of us knows exactly where she is standing on this issue," Obama said in Des Moines. "But I can tell you this: When I am president of the United States, the American people and the world will always know where I stand."

In Atlanta, Clinton defended her statement.

"What I have been saying for a long time is that the United States of America should negotiate with Iran. Right now the Bush administration will not because they hold the position that Iran must first totally renounce its nuclear program," she said. "We need to have a process of diplomatic engagement with Iran, but that doesn't mean the president personally engages in that. That's not the way diplomacy works."

Clinton also argued there was a difference between her stance and that of Obama, saying she would not personally meet with Iran's leaders.

In a speech, Obama also criticized Clinton for her vote to authorize the Iraq war and revisited another issue in his effort to slow her progress: Clinton's vote for Senate bill that would designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. as a terrorist organization, which Obama argues is a step toward war with Iran.

Clinton aides distributed an interview in which Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), one of Obama's closest allies, defended his own vote for the Iranian measure. He told Bloomberg News, "It's rare that Barack and I disagree on an issue of his magnitude."

-- Perry Bacon Jr.

ON THE AIRWAVES

Romney Vows to Fight 'Jihadism'

Republican candidate Mitt Romney says in a new television ad that "violent, radical Islamic fundamentalism" is "this century's nightmare, jihadism."

The former Massachusetts governor's ad, which began running in Iowa yesterday, describes a scary future in which terrorists attempt to "unite the world under a single jihadist caliphate."

As president, Romney pledges in the ad, he will increase the military by 100,000 soldiers, monitor terrorist calls into and out of the United States and stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

-- Michael D. Shear