Rep. Capps endorses Obama

A California congresswoman with long ties to both Clintons will announce her endorsement of Barack Obama today, a campaign source said.

Rep. Lois Capps, who represents a district on California’s central coast, is the third member of Congress to announce an endorsement of Senator Obama Wednesday, the day after he responded sharply to one of the deepest crises of his campaign, a confrontational and, he said, “appalling” set of remarks by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The campaign is using the flurry of endorsements to shore up political support and demonstrate the frontrunner’s continuing strength.


“Barack Obama is the better choice because of something larger and perhaps more important. Simply put, he has made a call to the better angels of our nature. He is challenging us to lift ourselves out of the ugliness that increasingly consumes Washington, where the heat of your argument counts for more than the light it should bring,” Capps said in a statement. “He is asking us to stand together as Americans and transcend the traditional lines that have so often divided us by party affiliation, economic status, gender, or race.”

In her statement, Capps praised Clinton, but also suggested she’d been pushed to Obama by negative aspects of the campaign.

“I came to Washington 10 years ago after winning the seat my husband Walter held. In office for a mere 10 months before he died, he had lost none of the idealism and faith in American democracy that propelled his life. Quite frankly, I don’t believe he ever would have and I know that I have tried to keep that fire burning. But I’ll admit it’s hard, when so much of what’s going on around you is less about meeting our country’s challenges and more about demonizing your political opponents,” she said in the statement.

“Walter once said that ‘we are strongest as people when we are directed by that which unites us, rather than giving into the fears, suspicions, innuendos and paranoias that divide.’ For years I have been waiting for a President that speaks to that vision. I believe Barack Obama may very well be that rare leader.”

Capps has long been close to both Clintons, who supported and raised money for her late husband, Rep. Walter Capps, and then for her in a campaign for what was then a contested seat.

Bill Clinton also spoke at the memorial service for her late husband, Rep. Walter Capps, whom the then-president described as “entirely too nice to be in Congress."

Capps’ daughter, Laura Burton Capps, also worked in the Clinton White House starting in 1995, first as an assistant to Clinton advisor George Stephanopolous and then as a speechwriter.

Capps also has an Obama tie, however: Burton Capps, now Senior Vice President for communications and outreach at the Ocean Conservancy is married to Bill Burton, Obama’s national press secretary.