WTF.

TN Dem. Superdelegate Davis slow to endorse Obama
[camp suggests terrorist connections...I kid you not]
Nashville City Paper
By John Rodgers
jrodgers@nashvillecitypaper.com
Updated: Friday, June 13, 2008 2:33 am

Some Tennesseans wonder why Congressman Lincoln Davis (D-Pall Mall) is waiting until the Democratic National Convention in August before endorsing his party’s nominee for President. Courtesy of lincolndavis.com

The rise of Sen. Barack Obama, to become the Democrats’ presidential nominee has put most of his party’s faithful on his bandwagon — but not Lincoln Davis, a rural Tennessee Congressman with gubernatorial ambitions.

Davis (D-Pall Mall) is not yet endorsing the presumptive nominee in Obama, saying he’ll wait until the late August Democratic Party national convention.

In Davis’ sprawling 4th Congressional District — which ranges from as far west as Hickman County to as far east as the upper Cumberland Plateau — less than a quarter of Democrats in the largely rural district voted for Obama, the nation’s first African-American presidential candidate nominated by a major party, in Tennessee’s presidential primary.

Davis, a rural white Congressman, represents two-dozen counties — 21 in their entirety and three in part — including Williamson’s southwestern corner.

In February’s Tennessee Democratic primary, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) won 23 of those 24 counties, garnering 68 percent of the vote compared to Obama’s 23 percent. Obama won only Williamson County.

When examining the 21 counties resting entirely within Davis’ district, Clinton’s numbers rise from 68 percent to winning 73 percent of the vote. Obama won a meager 18 percent.

The situation presents perhaps a unique political situation for Davis. He is withholding his endorsement of Obama while he prepares to face a Republican challenge for his conservative “swing” district that overwhelmingly supported Obama’s rival.

Meanwhile, Davis has gubernatorial ambitions for 2010, in which Tennessee political history strongly suggests the Democratic strongholds of Shelby and Davidson counties with their large groups of black voters are a must for his or any Democrat’s aspirations for statewide office.

Fred Hobbs, a state Democratic Party Executive Committee member representing part of Davis’ district, said he understands why Davis is not endorsing Obama and is “skeptical” of the Illinois senator himself.

“Maybe [it’s] the same reason I don’t want to — I don’t exactly approve of a lot of the things he stands for and I’m not sure we know enough about him,” Hobbs said when asked why he thought Davis wasn’t endorsing Obama. “He’s got some bad connections, and he may be terrorist connected for all I can tell. It sounds kind of like he may be.”

Davis was not made available for comment.

His chief of staff, Beecher Frasier, said he doesn’t know for sure if Obama is “terrorist connected” but he assumes he’s not.

Frasier denied that Davis was withholding his endorsement of Obama for political reasons, saying Davis believed that was how the superdelegate system was intended to work.

(story continued)