Huckabee Backer Walks Lonely Road With Fervor

Huckabee campaign staffer and Ward 5 resident Brian Summers at Ben's Chili Bowl, the Washington landmark he calls his unofficial headquarters. (By Richard A. Lipski -- The Washington Post)
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That's what it's like for a black man backing a white Republican in an election that is drawing African Americans to the polls to vote for a candidate who could become the first black president.

Being black does not equal being a Democrat, Summers said, noting that Republicans match his conservative values, including stances against same-sex marriage and abortion and support for the war in Iraq. "I've never taken anything to say that's the way it's supposed to be," he said.

Summers grew up an only child in Davidson, N.C., where he was adopted by an older couple who were tobacco farmers and Democrats.

He said he began connecting with the GOP when he was in eighth grade. While attending Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, he founded a College Republicans chapter. "I got 10 people to come with me and register the club," Summers said.

After college, he moved to the District and worked on the Hill, including a stint working for former North Carolina senator Jesse Helms, a fierce foe of affirmative action and a federal holiday for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Helms, Summers said, gave him a chance to reach out to his home state, and he could relate to Helms, who was an adoptive parent.

Summers also has a master's in divinity and spent two years at Ebenezer Baptist Church, the famed Atlanta church where King once served as co-pastor.

Huckabee, he said, is a candidate who speaks to his political and religious beliefs. "He said he didn't have a lot of money, but I wasn't looking for money."

"Whoever he's committed to, he's committed to," said Mason McCullough, 64, who owns a black newspaper in Statesville, N.C., and has known Summers for 15 years.

Kamal and Nizam Ali, co-owners of Ben's, agree. "He's got Huckabee stickers, Huckabee buttons, Huckabee T-shirts," Kamal Ali said.

Summers is a regular at Ben's, where he's known as "Motown." The first thing he did Saturday was select Temptations tunes to go along with his two chili dogs and fries. "My wife thinks I'm down here eating oatmeal," he said.

"I'm in a mixed marriage," he joked. Politically mixed. "I went to put a Huckabee sign in the front yard and she said no. She left for work, and I put it in the yard," he said.

His wife, Jocelyn Frye, a lawyer, took a stand on that sign. "I said no. No. No. It was not a reflection of a household perspective," she said. "He was right to snatch it up before I got back home."

Her vote, she said, is private, but she did allow that she went to Harvard Law School with Michelle Obama and added, "My deep suspicion is that we might vote for two different people [in November]."