Obama Campaign Targets Black Voters—Carefully
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Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times, June 23, 2008
As they ponder a political map that has spelled defeat for Democrats in the last two presidential elections, Barack Obama’s campaign strategists are quietly laying plans to draw African American voters to the polls in unprecedented numbers by capitalizing on the excitement over the prospect of electing the nation’s first black president.
Obama strategists believe they have identified a gold mine of new and potentially decisive Democratic voters in at least five battleground states—voters who failed to turn out in the past but can be mobilized this time because Obama’s candidacy is historic and his cash-rich campaign can afford the costly task of identifying and motivating such supporters.
In Florida alone, more than half a million black registered voters stayed home in 2004. Hundreds of thousands more African Americans are eligible to vote but not registered. And campaign analysts have identified similar potential in North Carolina, Virginia, Missouri and Ohio.
In these five states, which were crucial to the GOP’s presidential success in 2000 and 2004, George W. Bush’s victory margins were generally slim enough to suggest that a major expansion of black turnout could lead to Democratic gains this year.
{snip}
Obama’s formula for energizing blacks while appealing to whites relies in part on demonstrating independence from the more militant traditions of black politics and using rhetoric that spans race. He has opposed monetary reparations for descendants of slaves, for example. And he has said that he does not think his daughters should benefit from affirmative action, because they have had a “pretty good deal,” and he has expressed openness to programs that could help disadvantaged whites, Latinos and women.
{snip}
Party strategists believe that Obama’s competitive showing in primary contests proves that the approach will work. In some primaries, notably North Carolina and Virginia, he ran strong among white voters, but his victory margins came from drawing blacks, including new African American voters, to the polls in overwhelming numbers.
Major get-out-the-vote efforts in 2004 managed to increase black voter turnout just 3 percentage points, to 60%, compared with 64% of voters overall. Obama’s campaign believes it can far surpass that this time.
David A. Bositis, an expert on black voting trends at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, predicts that turnout could rise by as much as 20%, and some Democratic strategists feel they can spur black turnout in the battleground states to as high as 75% of registered voters.
{snip}
Another key target is voters of all races under 35, including college students and even high-schoolers who will be 18 by election day. In Virginia, for example, nearly 90,000 people 34 or younger have registered in recent months—and the Obama campaign is targeting many more who have not registered. Florida strategists have identified about 600,000 young Democrats with “little to no voting history,” according to an internal memo. The campaign is applying the same effort to reach unaffiliated Latinos in New Mexico and Nevada.
{snip}
In a political twist, Democrats can thank a Republican for empowering one new group of voters: Florida felons. Gov. Charlie Crist last week announced that, thanks to a new rule he enacted, about 115,000 felons who had completed their sentences had become eligible under his administration to have their civil rights restored. Liberal groups such as People for the American Way hope to track down even more who could have their rights restored in time to permit them to register and vote in November.
Experts say felons are disproportionately black and, if they can be found, more likely to be Obama backers. This provides a huge potential; about 1.1 million felons in Florida were ineligible to vote in 2004, according to a 2006 book by sociologists Jeff Manza and Christopher Uggen. Here too the potential for gains has risk: It could open a door for Republicans to portray Democrats as soft on crime.
The push for new and nontraditional voters is so targeted and aggressive that an NAACP official in Ohio said her organization plans to pursue individuals who are incarcerated but who have not yet been tried or sentenced and, therefore, under state law, remain eligible to vote.
The group is also tracking felons who often don’t realize that, in Ohio, they are eligible to vote as soon as they leave prison.
Ex-offenders are “just everywhere,” said Jocelyn Travis, who heads the Ohio NAACP’s voter outreach program. “People who have a felony or criminal background are throughout our community, and they don’t realize that they have the right to vote.”
Democratic strategists believe that if the Obama campaign can reach even a fraction of African Americans who have not voted in the past, it can cut dramatically into Bush’s 2004 victory margins. According to a Democratic strategy memo in Florida, where Bush won by about 381,000 votes, “encouraging just one-third of the non-2004 voters to cast a vote would alone [make up] more than half the margin.”
{snip}
Email Peter Wallsten at peter.wallsten@latimes.com.
(Posted on June 23, 2008)
Comments
Now, now. This isn’t an opportunity to say bad things about Obama or blacks. Tee-hee
Posted by Mr. Pibb at 4:57 PM on June 23
Terrific, Black felons deciding who governs the worlds most powerful nation
Posted by Cafedeflore at 5:35 PM on June 23
This is basically the Democrat Party playbook, and has been for a long time. Pander to blacks and Hispanics on the QT so as not to offend whites, and pander to whites with economic populism. The media help cover the former up.
Only difference this time is that a black man is the candidate, so the media won’t be able to cover up much of anything. And Obama doesn’t need to pander to the black vote, he’ll have it (plus some fraud) already.
Posted by Question Diversity at 5:54 PM on June 23
Register felons!!…this speaks so highly of the democratic party and the naacp. How completely pathetic!
John from Arkansas
Posted by at 6:33 PM on June 23
Welcome to the United States of America circa 2008.
“Experts say felons are disproportionately black and, if they can be found, more likely to be Obama backers. This provides a huge potential; about 1.1 million felons in Florida were ineligible to vote in 2004, according to a 2006 book by sociologists Jeff Manza and Christopher Uggen.”
“Ex-offenders are “just everywhere,” said Jocelyn Travis, who heads the Ohio NAACP’s voter outreach program. “People who have a felony or criminal background are throughout our community, and they don’t realize that they have the right to vote.”
This two statements alone demonstrate how far we’ve fallen.
Our democratic leaders are trying to solicit votes from felons in order to secure a victory. And we sit and type away on our keyboards as our great nation is taken away from us.
The joys of diversity.
The joys of doing nothing.
Posted by HaplogroupR1a1 at 8:30 PM on June 23
“As they ponder a political map that has spelled defeat for Democrats in the last two presidential elections, Barack Obama’s campaign strategists are quietly laying plans to draw African American voters to the polls in unprecedented numbers by capitalizing on the excitement over the prospect of electing the nation’s first black president…”
But I thought I heard The Messiahtm say that this election wasn’t about race. It isn’t, is it?
Or could he be…LYING? Nah, couldn’t be that. After all, he’s The Messiahtm.
Posted by Wild Eyed Charlie at 8:59 PM on June 23
“Barack Obama’s campaign strategists are quietly laying plans to draw African American voters to the polls in unprecedented numbers by capitalizing on the excitement over the prospect of electing the nation’s first black president.”
A good example of white power if whites were unified: 80% of VOTERS are white; only 10% are black, which includes all their felons.
If whites were unified as blacks and Hispanics are, there would be zero chance for any candidate but a white one to get elected for quite some time.
But since so many whites favor blacks and are wrapped up in “diversity,” maybe it’s time for whites to give up power in this country.
Too many whites have lost their will to survive as a people.
Posted by ice at 9:23 PM on June 23
”..1.1 million felons in Florida..”
Let alone the topic of the article, this is a sickening figure once you stare at it for a few seconds.
Posted by n4z at 10:03 PM on June 23
I am amazed they acknowledged what race felons tend to be, and did not immediately blame the racist white system for targeting poor innocent black folk.
Posted by pbl at 10:12 PM on June 23
Wouldn’t it have made sense for the writer to interview at least one or two politicos who aren’t enraptured at the idea of Barack Obama as president? Where is the balance, the “on the one hand, on the other hand”? But of course, this is the Los Angeles Times, and it’s not about to print anything that might cast even a tiny shadow on the idea of the mulatto’s orderly progression to his coronation as emperor — er, president.
So they’re going to ferret out every black vote they can find in the woodpile or elsewhere — while at the same time intoning, with a straight face, that the campaign is “Not about race.” Yeah, it’ll probably work, because the mainstream media won’t blow the whistle — they’re swooning over Obama, too — and because enough of us White people will be suckers enough to believe every word of it.
And won’t we feel just great to know that thousands of black thugs with felony records helped to elect the first half-black president? Or is he “black”? Or “half White”? Whatever — we’ll all be crackers after Jan. 20, anyhow.
Posted by Wayne Engle at 11:02 PM on June 23
In a more principled time, when people had dignity, a politician would have sniffed and said: “Felons? I can do without the felon vote, thank you very much.”
Posted by at 12:54 AM on June 24
Dear Haplogroup, your whine about all of us doing nothing reminds me of Aesops Fable about the mice getting together and one mouse saying if we bell the cat we will all hear him coming and thus escape his clutches. They all agreed that this was a great plan until a wise old mouse said “Fine idea now who will bell the cat?”
As for me I vote and encourage everyone I know to vote in our best interests, I write letters to the editor of my local paper in an erudite and grammatically correct manner and if I’m pushed to the wall I will do whatever is necessary to protect me and mine, What exactly do you have in mind?
Posted by Pat at 1:09 AM on June 24
Why would a Republican, such as Charlie Crist, enact a law that let’s felons vote? Is he so naive that he doesn’t know that 99% of felons will vote Democrat? The scary thing is Crist is often mentioned as a potential running mate for John McCain.
Posted by Jay at 2:15 AM on June 24
In most states, felons can reregister to vote as soon as they are off parole or federal supervised release. I believe the only two where they are barred for life from voting are Florida and Kentucky.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 2:48 AM on June 24
“David A. Bositis, an expert on black voting trends at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, predicts that turnout could rise by as much as 20%, and some Democratic strategists feel they can spur black turnout in the battleground states to as high as 75% of registered voters.”
Methinks that Comrade Obama and the Democrats in general are putting on a very brave face, but are secretly in nervous hysterics that he is going to get electorally slaughtered in the general election. This fantasy of “energizing” blacks into voting in great numbers, is a good example of this. For the most part, when it comes to voting blacks are lazy and shortsighted; they just don’t see what is immediately in it for them, so “why bother?” Moreover, there will likely be some blacks who vote against him, out of pure jealousy and bitterness that this “sellout Tom,” is getting ahead by “acting white.”
This will be a close election of sorts, but I still predict McCommie wins by gaining Michigan and Pennsylvania to the gaping shock of all the “elites.”
Oh my, a multicultural paradise lost!
*KRONOS*
Posted by John PM at 7:00 AM on June 24
I guess my idea of starting a malicious little rumor about law enforcement rounding up criminal suspects on election eve is moot, at least in those states mentioned in the article. Still, given the gullibility of the black psyche and their love of conspiracy theories, I offer the supposition that in the rest of the United States, the “Man” is laying his plans to do just that.
Posted by RaceandCountry at 9:42 AM on June 24
Maybe it will become fashionable now for all racial groups to admit they’re supporting their racial candidate, except for self-flagellating Whites who hate their heritage and do otherwsie.
Posted by factualist at 10:51 AM on June 24
WHy am I not surprised. The civil rights movement seems to be all pandering to criminals anyways, like the Jena 6.
Posted by Dumbo at 11:02 AM on June 24
The key to the election will not be Blacks, but Hispanics. If Hispanics turn out to vote in large numbers, will they keep voting their Democratic bloc, or will race trump party allegiance?
It’s no secret that Hispanics don’t like Blacks in general, nor are they as guilt-ridden as Whites who will vote for Obama.
Posted by at 11:24 AM on June 24
Here’s a tidbit on today’s MSN NEWS… Seems our “OBAMINATION” is starting to feel heat. If he appears to embrace Muslims, he’ll ALIENATE lots of White Americans. If he does NOT embrace Muslims, he’ll alienate lots of… you get the idea!
Muslim voters detect
a snub from Obama
Groups say candidate who promotes unity has given them cold shoulder
Ozier Muhaammad / The New York Times via Redux Pic
A Muslim woman loooks on as Sen. Barack Obama campaigns in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, in December 2007. When Obama began his presidential campaign, Muslim Americans responded with enthusiasm, but many now say he has not returned their embrace.
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————————————————————————————————————————
Todd’s First Read
Candidates’ flip-flop flaps
Author: Obama ‘dangerously radical’
By Andrea Elliott
updated 11:40 p.m. CT, Mon., June. 23, 2008
As Senator Barack Obama courted voters in Iowa last December, Representative Keith Ellison, the country’s first Muslim congressman, stepped forward eagerly to help.
Mr. Ellison believed that Mr. Obama’s message of unity resonated deeply with American Muslims. He volunteered to speak on Mr. Obama’s behalf at a mosque in Cedar Rapids, one of the nation’s oldest Muslim enclaves. But before the rally could take place, aides to Mr. Obama asked Mr. Ellison to cancel the trip because it might stir controversy. Another aide appeared at Mr. Ellison’s Washington office to explain.
Posted by Fed Up at 11:51 AM on June 24
Oh please. He has 95% of every colored person in this country in his back pocket and he knows it.
Posted by Unemployed WASP at 12:06 PM on June 24
John PM:
I think you are too optimistic here. The fact is that the White elite who have sold us out beyond belief will make sure that Obama is elected. Trust me!
Posted by America is no more at 12:19 PM on June 24
How is it not racist for the Obama campaign to solicit votes because he is black, yet it is racist to do the opposite, as in not voting for him for the same reason? Seems to me, the Obama campaign is opening up a HUGE can of worms by catering to the black vote in this manner. The word is out that his campaign is expecting 90+% of the registered black vote. That is blatantly racist. Period. I believe that as the general election gets closer, this realization will finally hit home among many that are currently asleep.
Posted by Brad at 12:38 PM on June 24
“Felons could win election for Obama” — the tagline says it all. VOTE FOR OBAMA AND BE THE WORST KIND OF FOOL IMAGINABLE!
A man who would need ex-cons to gain the White House? Maybe he should be running for President of Zimbabwe or something similar. Resting his White House ambition on society’s rejects… Felons and Ex-Cons.
Posted by Fed Up at 1:39 PM on June 24
Most blacks don’t vote, and many of them are ineligible to vote anyway.
Posted by at 2:04 PM on June 24
To quote from that great satyrical comic strip, “Lil Abner”: Amoosin’ but cornfusin… lately seeing a number of not exactly flattering or complimentary news items aired on MSN-News about our Mulatto Mesiah, none other than Barak Obama. Maybe the media has played long enough with its little creation and is starting to tire of Obama. I predict we are about to see more of the same between now and November… maybe MUCH more.
Posted by Fed Up at 3:05 PM on June 24
This does present an opportunity to present the Democrats as soft on crime. But this depends on one thing: John McCain’s willingness to call them on this. I’ll lay 10-to-1 odds he’ll back down from such an opportunity for fear of appearing “racist” by blacks.
Posted by Carl at 3:21 PM on June 24
This does present an opportunity to present the Democrats as soft on crime. But this depends on one thing: John McCain’s willingness to call them on this. I’ll lay 10-to-1 odds he’ll back down from such an opportunity for fear of appearing “racist” to blacks.
Posted by Carl at 3:23 PM on June 24
Look, if Obama’s team has to constantly pump out propaganda that makes Michelle seem like she’s a white soccer mom, that “You’re racist if you don’t vote for Obama” and now that they’re encouraging black felons to vote shows that his campaign is in trouble. But you wouldn’t know that from watching the nightly news.
P.S. Most of those polls showing Obama is doing well in key states are actually over-sampling of voters who were already inclined to vote for Obama!
Posted by RealityCheck at 3:34 PM on June 24
“Obama Campaign Targets Black Voters—Carefully.”
Targets black voters? Is this some kind of joke? I mean they’re voting for him simply because he’s black. To say he has to “court” blacks is absurd.
This black dumbell could declare that he was going to bomb Russia his first year in office, and nealy all the blacks would vote for him simply because he was black, without even realizing that they could very well get nuked into oblivion.
And we are seeing with our own eyes that there’s no such thing as a black conservative if it’s a choice between principle and race. Even old Colin Powell has clammored aboard the ship known as the Leftist Radical. If the truth were known, I have no doubt we would also learn that Condo Rice was yearning to jump aboard as well.
Forget their low group intellect, with just the kind of collective mind-set blacks have, is it any wonder they have never been able to construct a legitimate civilization for thousands of years?
Posted by Robert Kelly at 6:11 PM on June 24
Now you know the secret of the Democratic Party in Illinois; according to US Representative Danny Davis (D), there are 600,000 FELONS in this state.
Up to 600,000 felons voting in GUN CONTROL POLITICIANS EVERY ELECTION.
Which is exactly why Crook County’s Politicians are constantly pushing for MORE GUN CONTROL like one-gun-a-month, assault weapons bans, handgun bans and the like.
The Democratic Party in Illinois IS the FELON’s Criminal Defense Party!
Posted by at 9:54 PM on June 24
Quotes from Chairman Obama:
From Dreams of My Father: ‘I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.’
From Dreams of My Father : ‘I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race.’
From Dreams of My Father: ‘There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.’
From Dreams of My Father: ‘It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.’
From Dreams of My Father: ‘I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa , that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself , the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.’
And the real kicker:
From Audacity of Hope: ‘I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.’
Posted by at 12:48 AM on June 25
I’m a felon, and a single-issue-voter. I always vote pro-gun. But then I am white - or was until another poster to AmRen said I wasn’t.
The last time I went shooting was July 4, 2000. The last firearm I fired was a Bren gun a friend who is a lisenced machinegun collector (and a decorated, retired Green Beret) brought with us. We shot the daylights out of an old vacuum cleaner to smiles up and down the firing line. A rifle-caliber machinegun always brings smiles, unless it is an MG-42, which sounds like canvas tearing and makes folks flinch.
At least I went out on a good note. I figure even if I am never allowed to handle another firearm for the rest of my life, my daughter will be taught to shoot by my friends, and when she grows up and moves out, she’ll have 82 firearms and 40,000 rounds of ammo for them, plus loading and case-forming tools. Title will pass with serial numbers listed, on one condition: they can not be sold while I am still alive.
Please don’t put all felons in the same box.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 1:00 PM on June 25
To America is no more, regarding:
“John PM:
I think you are too optimistic here. The fact is that the White elite who have sold us out beyond belief will make sure that Obama is elected. Trust me!”
While I agree with you that the Red swine in the sociopolitical and media “elites” are genuinely salivating at the “dream” of a General Secretary Obama, the rest of the country has yet to have the same Pavlovian response. Moreover, Comrade Obama has quite a few problems ahead of him in getting elected, unfortunately No Brains McCain is the least of these. Please understand me clearly when I note that No Brains McCain is clearly the weakest nominee that the Republicans have tossed up since Bob Dole in 1996; in fact, No Brains McCain makes Bob Dole seem astonishingly appealing by comparison.
This would be because the Bob Dole of 1996, at least had a uniquely brooding Nixonian toughness that inspired comforting nostalgia, that McNobrains lacks with excruciating poignancy. He: looks, acts, and whines like a dementedly lisping weasel; even worse, his obvious arrogance is beyond belief, except when matched against his appalling sense of entitlement regarding the US Presidency. Oddly here, along with his age, McNobrains manages to distill Senator Dole’s most obvious negatives with exemplary gracelessness and no counterbalancing positives whatsoever.
However, with all of that considered, I hold that Comrade Obama has an even greater satchel of negatives that he is carrying. Among these are of course his: race, inexperience, and radical connections with Afrocentrists and Red terrorists. These are damaging enough, but then one must consider his greatest obstacles in tandem with them. This would be the twin Red hydras of the Democratic Party, Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Certainly, they have been bloodied by her defeat in the primary by Comrade Obama, but yet they hang about in the shadows like embittered Queen Margaret in Richard III and Hamlet’s specter father, only gone mad with an eerie envy. Today, both Clintons have vowed to support and “campaign” for Comrade Obama, and he reciprocates by saying he welcomes this, but what does all that really mean? Not much beyond the fact that these two do hold a significant pound of his flesh and intend to extract another pound, if they can get it. In fact, if they can pull out his heart, they will; they are not going away and he cannot make them go away, not without alienating a significant portion of her 17 million primary supporters. Thus they may not get his whole heart, but they do significantly emasculate him, even while they “support” him.
Next add to this mix the ever growing thunder on the loony left, along with his stiffly tepid rejections of them and he comes across as Bill Clinton without the slick “charm” and a bit of tan only.
Give it time, Comrade Obama has only caught the truck and now has to bury it.
That is a task he really isn’t up to in my book, much to the good fortune of McNobrains!
Posted by John PM at 8:22 PM on June 25
” Anyone voting for this un-American, racial communist ” would be an act of ” terrorism ” on Americans.
Posted by at 1:46 AM on June 26