Unsuper Delegate
BURR, RICHARD
Unsuper Delegate Detroit’s Kwame Kilpatrick, unwelcome in Denver BY RICHARD BURR He is African American, charis matic, and controversial. Barack Obama’s campaign would prefer that he not...
...The two challengers carried 54 percent of the vote in Detroit, signaling the electorate’s displeasure with the Kilpatrick name...
...But Kilpatrick likely will go to trial on either the assault or the perjury charges before the November 4 election...
...The courts, not peer pressure, may grant Obama his wish...
...representative Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, the head of the Congressional Black Caucus—in a three-candidate August primary...
...Michigan was already in play because Obama is an extremely liberal candidate for a working-class state, and because John McCain has had a good track record here, winning the 2000 Michigan primary over George W. Bush...
...No wonder Brent Colburn, a spokesman for Obama’s Michigan campaign, issued a statement that said, “The focus of our convention to people back here in Michigan should be on Barack Obama and how the party intends to get America back on track, not a distraction involving the troubles of one individual...
...That would put the embattled mayor in the spotlight during the stretch run of the presidential campaign and give plenty of ammunition for outside political committees to run ads linking Kilpatrick to Obama...
...Obama praised him as a “great mayor” during a May 2007 appearance at the Detroit Economic Club...
...Obama may avoid a Kilpatrick embarrassment this week in Denver, but the scandal-ridden mayor promises to throw a long shadow over the Democratic campaign into the fall...
...Complicating matters, Kilpatrick also faces two charges of assault for allegedly attacking a detective who was delivering a summons to the house of the mayor’s sister...
...During the primaries, Obama dismissed some white voters by saying they ‘cling to their guns or religion,’ ” Mitchell wrote earlier this month in RealClearPolitics...
...Meet Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, perhaps Denver’s least welcome superdelegate...
...If voters identify him with specifi c policies that they like, he may well win...
...Kilpatrick requested an August 25 hearing to see if he can get the tether removed, which still might allow him to go to Denver...
...And he is not the Rev...
...The fact that Kilpatrick can be linked to Obama/Wright at a time when Kilpatrick has a 2 percent favorable rating outside of Detroit makes the link devastating,” says Michigan GOP pollster Steve Mitchell of Mitchell Interactive...
...This negated a ruling by a different judge in the perjury case that removed the tether and allowed Kilpatrick to travel...
...He has helped turn Democratic-leaning Michigan into something approaching a tossup state...
...Barack Obama’s campaign would prefer that he not attend the Democratic National Convention...
...African Americans remain solidly behind Obama...
...Their best chance comes September 3, when Michigan’s Democratic governor, Jennifer Granholm, holds a hearing about removing Kilpatrick from offi ce...
...The question may become how completely Obama and Democrats can get Kilpatrick off the voters’ minds...
...Republicans and Democrats alike think Kilpatrick could be infl uential in the fall election...
...This was just a few days after Wright’s raucous appearance at the National Press Club in Washington—after which Obama fi nally disowned his longtime pastor...
...Unsuper Delegate Detroit’s Kwame Kilpatrick, unwelcome in Denver BY RICHARD BURR He is African American, charis matic, and controversial...
...The real worry is about white voters...
...The mayor and governor, while from the same Wayne County political machine, do not get along...
...Some Democrats agree...
...It could help her earn a spot in an Obama administration...
...Still, Obama himself will determine how well he does in Michigan...
...But Detroit voters’ antipathy toward Kilpatrick won’t translate into an anti-Obama vote...
...A judge in the assault case has barred the mayor from traveling out of town and put him on a tether...
...But if his campaign sticks to rhetorical vagueness, then he will remain vulnerable to attacks involving how he handled his relations with the controversial Wright and Kilpatrick...
...I’m grateful to call him a friend and colleague,” Obama said...
...Michigan Democrats from fi rebrand attorney Geoffrey Fieger to longtime congressman John Dingell to several black city council members have called on the mayor to step down, but Kilpatrick won’t go...
...Later, Kilpatrick lauded the Rev...
...Jeremiah Wright...
...Kilpatrick scares white mainstream voters and could cost Obama Michigan and thus the presidency in a tight election,” says Sam Riddle, a Michigan African-American political consultant who called early on for Kilpatrick’s resignation...
...The mayor faces eight charges of perjury, misconduct in office, and obstruction of justice related to his testimony in a Detroit police whistleblower lawsuit...
...But Kilpatrick has made life even more diffi cult for Democrats...
...Richard Burr is associate editor of the Detroit News editorial page...
...Granholm, who has poor approval ratings in a state with the nation’s worst unemployment rate, might show uncharacteristic guts and remove Kilpatrick...
...Wright while introducing him for an April keynote address to the Detroit NAACP annual dinner...
...Democrats must now worry that white voters in Michigan may well cling to their enormous antipathy toward Kwame Kilpatrick and take it out on Barack Obama...
...Riddle worked for Mary Waters, a former state representative who almost beat Kilpatrick’s mom— six-term U.S...
Vol. 13 • August 2008 • No. 47
