At a campaign stop in Spartanburg last week, White House hopeful Hillary Clinton shared the stage with dozens of black religious leaders to do some testifyin’ about her support among African Americans in South Carolina.  At the event, her campaign said she had received nearly 90 endorsements from ministers.

But…

An Associated Press review of an endorsement list supplied by the New York senator’s campaign found that some of the backers were affiliated with religious ministries and outreach groups rather than churches, some were wives of ministers, two were church elders and at least two were not members of the churches listed beside their names.

All told, about 50 different groups were represented, rather than more than 80 congregations as initially implied, the review found. [...]

The Clinton campaign initially said more than 80 ministers from the northern part of the state were in the room when the endorsements were announced Nov. 27, but it could not identify everyone on the stage with Clinton. Organizers for the event said 88 were there. The New York senator said later that day she was told the number may have climbed to nearly 100.

“There was more support there than what we could have anticipated, so it took a little longer to get the finite list,” Wright said Tuesday. “Everyone signed in as a minister endorsing Hillary.”

After being asked for names of the ministers, Clinton’s campaign first released a partial list of 44 names. A day later, a list of 82 names was released. That included one name that was repeated twice, several misspelled names, churches listed in the wrong city or with an incorrect name, and a dozen people listed without a church affiliation. [SEANNA ADCOX - AP]

I don’t see what the big deal is here.  Ninety black minsters, 50 black ministers, what’s the difference?  The point is that Clinton danced around on stage with a bunch of black “religious leaders” and that means she’s automatically the choice of African Americans everywhere.

Oh wait…

In this early primary state where nearly half of Democratic voters are black, endorsements from black church leaders can carry significant weight.

Barack Obama’s Democratic presidential campaign announced its own list of endorsements from black clergy in the state Tuesday, releasing a list of what it said were 122 senior pastors and three associate pastors of different churches and ministries, including four people it noted as retired. [SEANNA ADCOX - AP]

Well, I guess Obama wins either way.  Unless, of course, his list is bogus too.