With Bloomberg on Sidelines, Butts Backs Clinton
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
If Mayor Bloomberg runs for president, he will have to fight for the support of one of the city’s most influential black leaders, who provided him with key support when he campaigned for City Hall.
The pastor of Harlem’s historic Abyssinian Baptist Church, the Reverend Calvin Butts, who endorsed Mr. Bloomberg for mayor in 2005, yesterday announced his endorsement of Senator Clinton in the presidential race.
Rev. Butts said he moved forward with his endorsement of Mrs. Clinton “based on the mayor’s own clear statement publicly that he is not running.”
“He has never lied to me and I have never heard him lie publicly, so he is not a factor as far as I’m concerned,” Rev. Butts said in a telephone interview with The New York Sun.
He said he didn’t know whether he would endorse Mr. Bloomberg if the mayor did launch a White House bid and Mrs. Clinton was not the nominee. Under those circumstances, he said he would have to sit down with the mayor to discuss it further.
“I like him,” Rev. Butts said. “He’s a very talented man. He’s been an excellent mayor for the city of New York and I’m sure he would be an excellent president, but he has said that he is not running and I have taken him at his word.”
Rev. Butts supported a member of his congregation in the 2005 Democratic primary for mayor, C. Virginia Fields, and backed Mr. Bloomberg after her loss.
The endorsement was considered significant because it cut into the coalition of black and Latino voters that Mr. Bloomberg’s opponent, Fernando Ferrer, was trying to forge during the campaign.
