Voters Rethink Rep. McKinney

Kendra Owens voted for Rep. Cynthia A. McKinney before, and probably will do so again, despite the fact that the Democratic congresswoman last week struck a Capitol Police officer after being stopped at a security checkpoint.

“Her apology was fine,” Owens said from the food court of the South DeKalb Mall, just east of Atlanta. “The media needs to put it to rest.”

A few tables over, plumber Marvaine Butts said McKinney was probably right to believe she had been singled out by the officer because of her race. “I understand where she’s coming from as far as the racial profiling,” Butts said. “I get plenty of that.” He, like McKinney and Owens, is black.

The incident occurred March 29 in Washington, when McKinney tried to enter a House office building without wearing her identification pin. She failed to stop despite repeated requests to do so by the officer, who is white. He then touched her on the shoulder, and McKinney hit him with her cellphone.

The lawmaker has received little if any support from colleagues of either party, and a federal grand jury is mulling whether to bring criminal charges against her.

In McKinney’s suburban Atlanta district, the altercation has created doubts about her fitness for office.

Khalil King, a businessman, said he wasn’t sure he would vote for her again. “I just feel like she’s overreacting,” said King, who is black.

But to many Georgia Democrats, much more is at stake than McKinney’s political future.

Support from moderate white voters is seen as crucial to the party’s chances of winning upcoming statewide contests, and there is a fear that McKinney’s conflict will cast a negative light on the Democratic Party.

“Her behavior puts a lot of Democrats on the defensive,” said political scientist Merle Black of Emory University in Atlanta. “But she becomes very difficult for a lot of white Democrats to criticize in public, because they’re concerned they might lose African American support.”

McKinney’s 4th Congressional District covers much of DeKalb County, the second most populous in Georgia. The county -- which is more than 50% black, according to 2000 census figures -- is considered a treasure trove of reliable Democratic voters.

The McKinney scuffle has become an issue in the gubernatorial race, in which Republican incumbent Sonny Perdue is likely to face off against either Secretary of State Cathy Cox or Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor.

Both Democratic challengers portray themselves as centrists who can appeal to the kind of moderate white and rural voters who have been abandoning Democrats in the South for a number of years.

This week, Georgia Republican Party Chairman Alec Poitevint called on Cox and Taylor to publicly admonish McKinney. When they didn’t, Perdue drove the point home.

“I think the silence is deafening,” Perdue said, according to a report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

McKinney has been a magnet for controversy since 1992, when she was first elected to Congress.

She has questioned U.S. support for Israel, has called the Iraq war “illegal,” and requested clemency for murderer Stanley Tookie Williams, the former gang leader whom California executed in December.

Critics say she has a taste for conspiracy theories: After Sept. 11, McKinney suggested that President Bush knew about the attacks in advance.

Last year she called for the release of federal files on slain rapper Tupac Shakur. A news release on her website says there are “many parallels” between Shakur’s death and FBI treatment of black leaders and entertainers of the civil rights era.

McKinney was defeated in the 2002 primary by a more moderate African American, Denise L. Majette, who also won the general election. Majette gave up the seat in 2004, when she unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate; McKinney won the seat back.

In the July primary, McKinney will face Hank Johnson, a black lawyer and elected county official who has promised to be less polarizing.

Johnson initially shied from direct attacks on McKinney when he announced his candidacy in December. On Friday, however, he said the incident with the police officer “takes away the last vestiges of credibility that she has.”

McKinney spokesman Coz Carson said Friday that his boss had “probably been misquoted, mischaracterized and misjudged more than any other politician in America.

“But the people of the 4th District know her and love her and respect her work.”