Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2008

Is Obama Doing Enough to Get Out the Black Vote?

By Steven Gray

For weeks, Charles Cherry II has tried to get Florida's Republican Party to buy ads promoting Senator John McCain on the seven African American–targeted radio stations and in the two newspapers that make up part of the Cherry family's sprawling Tampa business empire, the largest black-owned media entity in the Sunshine State. The ads would have enabled McCain to make his case to potentially millions of black Floridians, about 13% of whom voted for President Bush in 2004. Instead, Cherry, 52, recalls a Republican official saying, "We're ceding the black vote in Florida to Obama." Last week, Cherry's statewide newspaper, the Florida Courier, featured a house ad asking, "Why aren't Crist [Florida governor Charlie Crist, who was elected in 2006 with 18% of the black vote] and John McCain campaigning in Black Florida?"

But if the McCain campaign is writing off the black vote, some say Obama is taking it for granted. It wasn't until three weeks ago that Obama's campaign bought two half-page Courier ads for $3,000 each, and a half-page ad in Cherry's other newspaper, the Daytona Times, for $1,500. The Democratic National Committee and Obama's campaign, Cherry says, bought a 60-second "register to vote" ad to run on WPUL-AM in Daytona Beach five times a day, for seven days, ending on Oct. 5, the eve of Floridians' last day to register to participate in next month's elections. There are no more orders for ads. "The Democrats will spend pennies on black voters, when they spend dollars on the general population," says Cherry, an Obama supporter. Given the stakes in Florida and Obama's unprecedented fund-raising success, Cherry adds, "It's a wasted opportunity, and it's going to show up at the polls."

Cherry's sentiment reflects the broader anxiety and frustration about Obama's candidacy that persists in many segments of black America. While the campaign has successfully increased voter registration levels among blacks, getting them to the polls is a very different matter. Cherry and others in the black community worry that the Obama campaign is too concerned with striking a moderate pose that puts white voters at ease and, as a result, is not working hard enough to get out the black vote.

Yet the nation's estimated 26.4 million voting-age blacks are crucial to Obama's success. Black voter turnout in the Democratic primaries soared some 115% above 2004 levels, according to an analysis by the Washington-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which examines black issues. A record 70% of eligible black voters are expected to participate in the 2008 presidential election, a 20% increase from 2004. But the true test lies in battleground states like Ohio, Florida and Virginia, where blacks comprise a significant portion of the electorate. In Florida, for instance, blacks' share of the electorate is expected to rise to 15% from 12% in 2004, when only 44.9% of the state's black voters participated in the presidential election. While analysts like the Joint Center's David Bositis project that black voter turnout will rise to about 65% in Florida, they say Obama must work harder to surpass that number if he is to win the state's 27 electoral votes.

Many political observers say Obama's campaign isn't doing enough to make sure that happens. The campaign has declined to discuss its black media outreach or even the basics of how it plans to get black voters to the polls, beyond one strategy it employed during several primaries: distributing flyers in salons and barbershops with large black clienteles. Rick Wade, the Obama campaign's senior adviser for black affairs, says simply, "African Americans are a crucial part of the Democratic base. They know what's at stake during the general election. We expect to see a tremendous turnout."

But black leaders say that's not a given. Among many black political observers, there is a pronounced sense that Obama's advisers have consciously distanced themselves from older black leaders who might galvanize prospective voters — especially in the many impoverished black communities where there is no tradition of voting as an obligatory civic duty. Ronald Walters, director of the University of Maryland's African American Leadership Center, says, "You can't send young volunteers into the hollows of Alabama, Mississippi and Florida with BlackBerries, reaching out to black voters, and expect them to do the same kind of job. If people knew Jesse [Jackson] or Al [Sharpton] was coming, thousands would come out and do what they needed to do — show up on Election Day." Walters contends that blacks could account for as much as 20% of the Democratic vote nationally, up from 15% in 2004. "For [Obama's advisers] to hold the black civic culture at a distance," he said, "there's going to be a cost."

Although the Rev. Al Sharpton has vigorously campaigned in North Carolina and Pennsylvania in recent weeks to motivate black voters, Sharpton says his efforts are "independent." In an interview with TIME last week, Sharpton said, "I'm doing it because I think it's right, because we're looking for Obama to be a crusader for social justice." But at the same time, Sharpton said, "You've got to use people that can draw a crowd. Otherwise, you're making this race a lot closer than it needs to be. You're not maximizing the enthusiasm of some of your base — which the right wing does well."

Much of the campaign's current effort to get black voters to the polls rests with grass-roots organizers like John Wyche, 50, of Pensacola, Fla. Wyche says he made an innovative suggestion to Obama's Florida campaign staffers that they ask pastors of predominately black congregations in Escambia County — which includes Pensacola and allows early voting on Oct. 26 — to have buses and vans ready after morning services to take congregants to polling stations. But the Obama campaign won't comment on whether it will take Wyche's advice — nor will it comment generally on suggestions that it is not doing enough to court black voters.

Nevertheless, Wyche continues his efforts, independently. Several days ago, Wyche received an e-mail from an Obama supporter reporting that she'd registered 20 new voters. "Proud of you," he wrote back. But he points out that many people who register to vote late in the election season don't bother showing up at the polls. His suggested pitch to those folks: "The great thing about our country is, on Election Day, Donald Trump and you are equal. He gets one vote. You get one vote. He's going to use his. Are you going to use yours?"

Meanwhile, other activists are taking similar steps. The NAACP has launched "Arrive With Five," a campaign encouraging its members to bring five friends to polling stations. In predominately black Cleveland, Basheer Jones, 23, is bringing voting-rights experts on his popular morning radio show to puncture the assumption that ex-felons can't vote. He is also promoting a rally and parties sponsored by black fraternities intended to get black Ohioans to vote early; the price of admission is a sticker proving that you voted. "We don't want anybody to have a reason to not vote," he says.

But if some criticize the Obama campaign for failing to reach out enough to black voters, the GOP isn't taking advantage of the opening. In 2004, President Bush carried 11% of black voters nationally. After a GOP convention in which blacks accounted for just 36, or 1.5%, of the delegates — down from 6.7% four years ago — the Arizona Senator is not expected to capture more than 5% of the black vote. That could be fatal in states like Ohio, where Jones, the Cleveland radio host, observes, "I haven't seen any John McCain posters. None. He hasn't reached out."

Asked why Florida Republicans declined to buy ads in black newspapers promoting McCain's candidacy, Jim Greer, the group's chairman, said, "I prefer to look at what really reaches African-American voters, what gets them engaged, and I'm not sure advertising is always the answer. The answer is sitting down to talk with them." Last year, for instance, Florida Republicans held a leadership conference in Orlando that drew some 500 blacks. Nevertheless, Clarence McKee, a co-chair of African-Americans for McCain in Florida, says of his party, "They have to do more to reach out to black voters, and they should do more."

It isn't just Obama's historic candidacy that's eroding the Republicans' small black constituency. Many black pastors who supported Bush cannot credibly suggest that their congregations support the Republican ticket, not after the Bush Administration's mishandling of Hurricane Katrina and the economic crisis that particularly threatens an already fragile black middle class. For many blacks, there is little evidence that McCain, who still has the stigma of initially opposing a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in his home state of Arizona two decades ago, has a desire to cultivate the kind of relationships with black Republicans that Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush displayed.

All this should, theoretically, lay the groundwork for more black Democrats to follow Obama's lead in the future. But some cautious observers worry that an Obama loss would set a catastrophic precedent. The message will be, says Walters, the Maryland professor, "If you can't elect a black person for President in this atmosphere, where all the indicators point to the Democratic Party, including the economy, how do you do it?"

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