A group of black and Hispanic elected officials from Brooklyn are scheduled to meet this morning to devise strategies to keep a white candidate from winning a Congressional seat of historical significance in black politics.
Ramin Talaie for The New York Times
City Councilman David Yassky, who is running against three black candidates in the 11th Congressional District in Brooklyn, campaigned Sunday at the Jesus Is Lord Ministry, in a community center in Flatbush.
It is not the first such meeting of these officials, nor is it likely to be the last. That there are talks so steeped in ethnicity indicates that race is not just one of the issues in determining who will succeed Representative Major R. Owens. It seems to be the dominant one.
Mr. Owens, a veteran of more than two decades in Congress who turns 70 this month, is not running for re-election. The black and Hispanic officials gathering today are discussing how to prevent David Yassky, a white city councilman from Brooklyn Heights, from winning a seat that once belonged to Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress.
Mr. Yassky, a former law professor, has collected as much in campaign contributions as his rivals combined, more than $800,000 at the time of the last campaign finance filing.
And his three black opponents in the Democratic primary — as well as many black and Hispanic officials throughout the borough — have become increasingly agitated by the possibility that blacks would split their vote, allowing him to win.
Today's meeting, which was called by City Councilman Albert Vann, a Brooklyn Democrat, will focus in part on whether one or two of the three black candidates might be willing to drop out of the campaign.
Two weeks ago, a fourth black candidate, Assemblyman N. Nick Perry, announced that he was withdrawing from the Congressional campaign and running instead for re-election. He said one reason was to reduce the number of black candidates and make it harder for Mr. Yassky to succeed.
Some black and Hispanic officials in Brooklyn have said they believe that the district — which, according to the Almanac of American Politics, is 58.5 percent black, 21.4 percent white and 12.1 percent Hispanic — would be best served by a black representative. But they also talked of the emotional importance of sending a black representative to Washington from the district.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/12/nyregion/12owens.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
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