Payback

A Challenge From the Obama Generation

By Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 15, 2008; A03

A 21-year incumbent and an icon of the civil rights movement, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), is racing around his Atlanta district like a first-time candidate.

He has appeared at six or seven churches every Sunday, posed for cameras as he mowed a prospective voter's lawn, and donned a brown United Parcel Service uniform to deliver packages to his working-class voters.

Today, Lewis faces his first primary challengers since 1992, a pair of candidates who are promoting the "change" mantra of Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign and have organized their campaigns around a single, not-so-subtle message: Lewis's support for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) over Obama in the presidential primary.

Lewis is one of three House Democratic incumbents in Georgia who should be enjoying an easy run through today's primary but instead find themselves battling a wave of younger black politicians emboldened by Obama's success and intent on succeeding their elders in choice political posts.

The generational challenge in Georgia and several other states comes from black politicians who view Obama, 46, as a kindred spirit and are not steeped in the civil rights era.

"It took many members of the elder generation some time to catch up to the [Obama] mood. Some found themselves standing against the tide," said Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), an early Obama backer who was elected to Congress in 2006 and faces no primary challenger this year. "I think the trend is irreversible."

In Georgia and elsewhere, some of the initial targets have been lawmakers who backed Clinton instead of the first black candidate to clinch a major party's presidential nomination. In Brooklyn, Rep. Edolphus Towns, 73, a Clinton supporter, faces opposition in a Sept. 9 Democratic primary from community activist Kevin Powell, 42, who once was a star on MTV's "Real World."

Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), 63, who did not endorse Obama until after he secured the nomination, faces two younger opponents in her Aug. 5 primary who also have made the indictment of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, her son, an issue in the campaign.

Lewis, 68, endorsed Clinton over Obama last October. A longtime ally of former president Bill Clinton, Lewis gave Hillary Clinton credibility among black voters nationwide because of his prominent role as an adviser to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights era.

Three weeks after Obama won Georgia's Feb. 5 primary, Lewis switched his support to him. But Lewis still was challenged by 31-year-old minister Markel Hutchins and state Rep. Mable Thomas.

Thomas makes no secret of her allegiance to Obama. The top item on her Web site's home page is an image of Obama that links to a YouTube video of the speech he gave June 3 after clinching the nomination.

Hutchins, in a telephone interview, pointed to the recent controversial remarks about Obama by the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson as the reason for African American voters to support a new group of leaders.

"This is the very reason why there has to be a transition from the leaders that brought us across the bridges 40 and 50 years ago to a new era of leaders who will bring us across the bridges we face today," Hutchins said. "Leadership cannot be measured by one's proximity to the civil rights era."

Lewis, who was badly beaten by police while leading a protest march across a bridge in Selma, Ala., in 1965, acknowledged that his primary challenge was spawned by his own "Hillary-Obama moment." At the time he endorsed Clinton, Lewis issued a statement agreeing with her argument that her experience trumped Obama's inspirational call for change.

Having studied "all the candidates," Lewis said, he concluded that Clinton was "best prepared to lead this country at a time when we are in desperate need of strong leadership."

Now, Lewis is trying to steer voters away from that judgment and focusing on his vast experience both in Congress and as a civil rights leader. He prominently displays his own image of Obama on his Web site, with the candidate and Lewis arm in arm. He called Obama's nomination "a spiritual event" that was made possible by "those who stood up, those who sat-in, those who marched, who were beaten, who were killed" in civil rights protests.

In an interview last week on the Capitol steps, Lewis was particularly dismissive of Hutchins. "The young man, he just copies everything Obama does," Lewis said. "The civil rights movement was over by the time he was born."

But Lewis -- who has not faced a general-election challenge since 2000 -- is taking nothing for granted. He has raised $1 million so far, almost double the amount for any campaign this decade. He boasts endorsements from environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and powerful labor organizations such as the AFL-CIO.

"I'm going to be fine," he said. "I've been working very hard."

Nathan L. Gonzales, an analyst with the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report, said that Lewis is in a strong position to win today because of his legendary status among African Americans and the dynamics of the contest.

Knocking off an incumbent in a primary usually requires a one-on-one race, Gonzales said. With the anti-incumbent vote split between Hutchins and Thomas, he said, Lewis stands a good chance of winning today and cruising to a 12th term in Congress in the overwhelmingly Democratic district.

Still, Hutchins warned that older politicians such as Lewis will continue to face challenges in the next few elections. "I believe the most prominent voices will emerge in the next four years to replace those leaders of the past 40 years," he said.

Two other races will test the Obama factor among Peach State voters, and the reelection battle of Rep. John Barrow is the most unusual. Barrow, a white Democrat, backed Obama earlier this year when Obama was still locked in a tight race with Clinton, but the congressman now faces state Sen. Regina Thomas, who is black, in a primary that is likely to be dominated by African American voters, who make up 45 percent of the district's electorate.

Thomas, who endorsed Obama much later than Barrow did, hoped to draw the support of black voters. But Obama has rewarded Barrow by endorsing him in the primary and taping radio ads for him. Gonzales gives Barrow an edge heading into today's balloting because of the $1 million in campaign funds he had collected heading into the race's final weeks.

Like Lewis, Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) also initially endorsed Clinton in the primary. But Scott, 62, avoided a more serious challenge, in part because he quickly switched his endorsement after Obama overwhelmingly won his district, according to lawmakers and analysts.

"You've got to represent the wishes of your constituency," Scott told the Associated Press in mid-February. He again faces Donzella James, a former state senator who lost to Scott by a 2 to 1 tally in the 2006 primary. Her campaign is highlighting Scott's support for President Bush's tax cuts and Iraq war funding. Iraq is the first issue highlighted on James's Web site, and she cites support for Obama's planned withdrawal four times in a four-paragraph statement.

Whatever the outcome of these primaries, Johnson, the freshman Georgia lawmaker, said the next generation of black politicians is beginning its march toward Congress and other leadership posts.

"I know that I will not be around here forever," he said, "and in another 10 years or so it will be some young turk who comes around and knocks me off."

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