While Mr. Kerry, whose home state, Massachusetts, is 7 percent Hispanic and 5 percent black, has active support from black members of Congress, some veteran African-American leaders have struggled to find a foothold in his campaign. Even some black officials who called a reporter to offer their perspective at the campaign's behest said Mr. Kerry had work to do.
"He is generally surrounded by white folks, and sure that concerns me, sure," said Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina.
Andi Pringle, who worked for the Rev. Jesse Jackson's presidential campaigns and was a deputy campaign manager for Howard Dean, said that in addition to staffing, she wondered where minorities fit into Mr. Kerry's schedule, message and field efforts.
"All I've seen is on occasion there are a couple of Sundays where he's gone to church," said Ms. Pringle, who has a direct-mail firm.
Mr. Kerry's campaign manager, Mary Beth Cahill, and his three highest-ranking minority aides, said in a telephone interview that they would soon roll out an outreach plan, tapping local minority officials and their political networks. They disputed that Mr. Kerry's inner circle was dominated by white men, saying that Marcus Jadotte, a deputy campaign manager who is black, and Paul Rivera, a senior adviser who is Hispanic, are among the 15 top campaign officials on a daily 7:30 a.m. conference call and the eight department heads at a daily 8:30 a.m. meeting.
"This entire line of thinking is both insulting to this campaign and to the communities that are supporting John Kerry," Mr. Jadotte said. Regarding the criticisms of Mr. Cifuentes and Mr. Yzaguirre, he added, "We take all of the input of our friends very seriously, and we intend to act on that input."
Of the nine aides who travel regularly with Mr. Kerry, all but Setti Warren — the African-American trip director who is always by his side and tries to keep him on schedule — are white. Of an estimated $9 million the campaign spent on advertising in the primaries, $350,000 went to black and Hispanic media outlets.
Art Collins, who joined the campaign two weeks ago as a senior adviser focused on African-American strategy, said he had met with Mr. Kerry on his campaign plane. Mr. Rivera pointed out that Mr. Kerry had campaigned in Harlem four times and won by large margins among blacks in the Virginia, Tennessee and Missouri primaries.
Much of the hubbub began with Ms. Cahill's listing, in a newspaper article this month, five white men as Mr. Kerry's closest advisers, and an announcement of new staff members in which only a handful of the 30 names belonged to blacks and Hispanics. A follow-up naming the outreach team, filled with a rainbow of races, only seemed to make it worse.
"If there would have been a senior person at that table they would have said, 'Don't even put out that press release until you can put some Hispanics on it,'" Armando Gutierrez, a New Mexico media consultant, said of the first release. Of the second, he said, "It's so pigeon-holed, it just sounds patronizing and condescending."
| That's the heart of New York Times article "Some Blacks and Hispanics Criticize Kerry on Outreach"
posted in articles on April 29, 2004 11:22 PM | t (1)
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