Colorlines: “The Real Invisible Obama Shows Up on Jobs and the Economy”
There are many in the Democratic Party who worry that President Obama’s silence on everything black and brown will suppress voter turnout come 
November.
Colorlines reports:
Communities of color are mired in an economic depression. Yet the president struggles to publicly acknowledge it. The choice not to do so presents Obama with a political problem when he can least afford it.
The worry is that Obama has an “enthusiasim gap” amongst key elements of his 2008 electoral base. As D.C. political guru Charlie Cook notes, it’s especially large among Latinos. The bottom line is that in order to remain in the White House, the president needs to give this community a reason to show up at the polls. The number one issue for Latinos, like all Americans, is jobs and the economy.
In essence, President Obama’s decision not to specifically address black and brown unemployment, a strategy implemented to insulate Obama from charges of preferential treatment by right wing, may backfire if blacks and Latinos aren’t motivated to go to the polls on election day.
A large segment of black and brown voters are dispirited by how the President has ignored the economic impact of the economic downturn on them. Instead of stepping up to the plate, Obama chastised African-Americans when he told them, at a Congressional Black Caucus dinner, to “stop complaining.”
Who knows how it will play out, but some observers believe that Obama will live to regret those words, especially considering that he’s lagging behind Mitt Romney by double digits among white voters. If Obama is to win reelection, he’ll need blacks and Latinos to come out in force for him. No one’s certain that that will happen this time around.
Comments
Powered by Facebook Comments
Who said he was lagging behind in the polls. You and your poll don’t know what you are talking about. Where do these imaginary polls come from that say the Pres. is behind in the polls. Nobody asked me. Did you take those polls in Ariz or in Miss or someplace. The problem with you poll watchers is that you don’t take under consideration that these polls are taken in the narrowist places that don’t get an opinion from a majority of the people and then you want everybody to think they are accurate. THEY ARE NOT. WHO DID YOU ASK? YOU DIDN’T HAVE ANY MINORITIES IN THOSE POLLS. STOP TRYING TO GIVE SOMEONE THE POWER OF SUGGESTION. IT DOESN’T WORK.
I’m African-american and he didn’t impress me with his record on speaking to our issues. He did speak loud and clear for everyone else. I’m voting for him but not because I want to.
Obama understands poverty- he doesn’t need to specifically mention African Americans! He is talking about EVERYONE who is suffering! Stop complaining, indeed! He has done a lot for African Americans who are poor throughout his whole career, and before he was President. If you are too dmb to acknowledge this, then you should be quiet.
President Obama seem to govern the last four years based on white public opinions polls. When speaking to black people he pretty much did the same thing Mitt Romney did when he spoke to the NAACP. I’ll vote for the president again but as the lesser evil not as the better choice.
Nonsense. Have you read about Obama’s career before he was President?
1- His campaigning for the poor and disadvantaged in South Side Chicago?
2- And now, his healthcare reforms, which will see many Afrcian Americans better off?
He has said himself that he ahs not based his decision on polls, and I for one believe him.
If Romney is elected, you AA’s will find out why you should not have complained against Obama.
I agree with Deborah, he’s addressing needs that affect EVERYONE. Add to that, why would he single out the black and brown populations when it is widely known that WE , historically, are NOT a reliable voter base? Most of US don’t vote because “it doesn’t matter”, “he doesn’t care about me”, or a bunch of other b.s. reasons (this article continues to foster that attitude).
So instead of depending on POTUS to get US excited about voting, why don’t WE GET US excited about voting? Once that’s done, we can show ourselves as a VOCAL interest group that politicians will trip over themselves to work with. Until then, POTUS is right, QUIT COMPLAINING!
oh, and we were just 13% of the vote that elected Obama in ’08…it wasn’t us that got him in office, and it won’t be us that keeps him in office if this “what about us” attitude continues, and “us” is unreliable.
African American and White view this site and participate in debate. At this site we can share our views and differences. But there is no debating this, that if you vote for Romney Ryan you will be sorely hurt financially within 2 years after their nomination regardless if you are unemployed or not. So think…..POCKETBOOK….a lot of us are better off than we were 4 years ago….. Think…..VOTER SUPPRESSION…..The likes that we have not seen in a generation…..and think…..4 more years….OBAMA & BIDEN deserve it for they had to clean up the mess the Republicans left, and it will take 2 terms to do it.!
[Almost 18 million American homes struggled to find enough to eat in 2011, including 3.9 million homes with children, or 10 percent of all families with children, according to numbers released on Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Even worse off were single mothers and black and Latino households, the survey found.
As NPR notes, "People went hungry."
The survey tracked families who had some issues with finding enough food, dubbed "food insecure," and those deemed "very very food insecure," who lacked basic nutrition at some point during the year. The latter category includes some 6.8 million households nationwide in which adults skipped meals, couldn't afford balanced meals, and worried about having enough money to buy food several months out of the year.
In all, the "food insecure" represented 5.7 percent of American households. It's not much of a change compared with 2010, but it's 2 percent more—thousands of people more—since 1998.]– Yahoo
Meanwhile President Obama’s current defense budget allocates $88 billion for wars after pulling out of Iraq. How can his supporters defend this?
“I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.” — Dr. Martin L. King
The clear imperative is for Black and Brown people to get to the polls and vote for the President given the alternative – a Romney presidency with an ultra conservative Vice President. We will be far worse off as a people with Republican policies that will negatively impact communities of color! If we think Black unemployment is being ignored now just wait and see what happens if Romney is elected.
The writer asserts that because the President doesn’t address “our” issues we won’t go to the polls. This is absurd! We know what is at stake….
At what point do we as Blacks hold the President Obama accountable and MAKE him do what we want and need him to do? Simply reelecting him as an alternative to Romney isn’t enough. To add to Makheru’s notes, 46.7 million people are currently on or applied for food stamps, gas prices are near $4.00 a gallon, and while the President continually acknowledges the deficiencies ravaging the poor and working class, more DIRECT help is needed, PERIOD.
Don’t give me this addressing the needs of everyone c**p, please. If the banks, Wall Street and the greedy w***e-mongering corporate types can get financial handouts from the government without any stipulations, you mean honest hard working people who had nothing to do with this “downturn” have to wait?
Really now? So that’ what 95% of the Black and Latino vote gets you? Scary.
Deborah, what will i find out if Mitt is elected, I already know the African-american unemployment rate is 14.1% it was 9.2% last year under Bush: I already know that 38.2% of AA children live in poverty; I already that black-on-black homicides have increase over 30%/ 32% in the president home town which he won’t even mention; but, he speaks to issues of gays and immigrants; you are right he’s not our President just everyone else.