President Barack Obama speaks at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Phoenix Awards Dinner Saturday. (AP)
In his most direct appeal to black voters this election season, President Barack Obama implored blacks to shrug off mid-term election apathy and go to the polls in droves to prevent Republicans from regaining control of Congress and turning “the clock back on every bit of progress we’ve made.”
In a frank and passionate speech Saturday at a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation awards dinner, Obama said that his 2008 election was about a changing of the guard and that black voters must now “guard the change” against a GOP takeover of Congress.
"I need everybody here to go back to your neighborhoods, to go back to your workplaces, to go to the churches, and go to the barbershops, and go to the beauty shops, and tell them we've got more work to do," Obama said to raucous cheers. "Tell them we can't wait to organize. Tell them that the time for action is now."
Reminding the audience of his 2008 “Yes, We Can” campaign slogan, Obama said the Republican motto should be “No, We Can’t.” “Can you imagine having that on your bumper sticker? That’s not very inspiring.”
“Now, remember, the other side has a plan, too. It’s a plan to back the clock on every bit of progress we’ve made,” Obama said. “Because everything that we are for, our opponents have spent two years fighting against. They said no to unemployment insurance; no to tax cuts for ordinary families; no for small business loans; no to providing additional assistance to students who desperately want to go to school.”
To prevent that from happening, Obama told the crowd, “I need you.”
“I said back on the campaign that change was going to be hard,” he said. “I said I could not do it alone. This wasn’t just a matter of getting elected, and suddenly, I was going to snap my fingers and all our problems would go away.”
Obama and Democratic Party Leaders are trying to energize their base – blacks, organized labor and young voters – in the closing days leading to the Nov. 2 elections in hopes of stemming what pollsters believe will be a tidal wave of Republican gains in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Republicans only need to gain 39 seats to become the majority in the House and would have to pick up more than 10 seats to take over the Senate. And GOP voters, fueled by Tea Party anger and irate independents, are more energized to go to vote on Election Day than Democrats, polls show.
Experts say part of the lack of enthusiasm among black voters is tied to the economy. While the nation’s overall unemployment rate for August was 9.6 percent, the jobless rate for blacks was a staggering 16.3 percent. The unemployment rate for whites was 8.7 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Several Black Caucus members, black economists, and black activists have pressed Obama to do something to specifically address the high black jobless rate, but the president has refused, insisting that dealing with economy in general will lead to employment gains for blacks and others in the long run.
Obama’s “rising tide lifts all boats” approach has been embraced by NAACP President Benjamin Jealous, the National Urban League President Marc Morial and the Rev. Al Sharpton. Still, Obama said he understands that economic frustrations of black voters.
"It's not surprising, given the hardships that we're seeing across the land, that a lot of people may not be feeling very energized, very engaged right now," Obama said. "A lot of folks may be feeling like politics is something that they get involved with every four years when there's .....
Obama's Appeal to Blacks: Guard the Change
No comments:
Post a Comment