- With 100 days to go before the election, the candidates
are targeting black voters who could hold the key to the White House. Ros
Davidson reports from California
-
- On Lakeshore Avenue in Oakland, a young black man with
a baggy red shirt and a "gangsta" headdress is doing brisk
business
signing up voters to get third-party candidate Ralph Nader on the
ballot.
-
- The neighbourhood is mixed racially, but most joining
his petition are young African-Americans. It's not a movement: blacks
remain
the most reliable voters for Democrats, an old fact of American
politics.
-
- But the petitioner's success points to a problem for
Democratic nominee John Kerry. Kerry, a white Boston blue-blood, is
marginally
less popular among blacks than most recent Democratic candidates. To oust
President George Bush in a tight race, he must "get out" the
black vote.
-
- With 100 days to the election and on the eve of the
Democratic
convention, Kerry and Bush are neck and neck, according to opinion polls.
That is with or without Nader in the race, and despite Kerry's remarkable
ability to raise money.
-
- A recent poll by Black Entertainment Television and CBS
found that four in five blacks believe that Bush did not win the 2000
election
legitimately. Blacks back Kerry - who can come across as stiff and elitist
- overwhelmingly, by eight to one.
-
- Blacks comprised 10% of the vote in 2000 but backed the
Democratic candidate Al Gore by a larger 9-1 margin. Bill Clinton, dubbed
the "first black president" by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison,
had even more black support.
-
- This week, the convention keynote speech will be
delivered
by rising Democratic star Barack Obama, a senate candidate from Illinois
who is half Kenyan and half white. A handsome lecturer and civil rights
lawyer, his potential is considered so great that his campaign has
attracted
money from Hollywood activists such as Barbra Streisand and director Rob
Reiner.
-
- The massively popular rapper Sean "P Diddy"
Combs has unleashed a campaign to encourage minorities and young people
to vote on November 2. Among America's notoriously stay-at-home electorate,
the most frequent voters are older whites.
-
- Diddy's group, Citizen Change, is seeking "sexy
people" for his non-partisan initiative, he says. "Now, we're
going to make voting cool," said the hip hop mogul and fashion
designer
at the launch in New York. On his T-shirt was the slogan "Vote or
Die!".
-
- "Over 40 million youth and minority voters will
be the deciding factor of who will be the next president of the United
States," roared Combs. "Y'all in?"
-
- Bush's image among African-Americans still suffers from
the botched election in 2000. According to the US Civil Rights Commission,
more than half of the votes discarded in Florida because of counting
problems
were African-American. Indeed, the government agency found blacks were
10 times as likely to have had their votes tossed compared with whites
or Latinos. Had they been counted, Gore would have won the election.
-
- The same team also found Florida is typical of the
nation.
As the statistician working on the data concluded: "About half of
all the ballots spoiled in the USA - about a million votes - were cast
by non-white voters."
-
- Bush has two African-Americans in his cabinet, National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Even so, he is constantly fighting his own party as well as his
record.
-
- A Republican lawmaker in Michigan, a battleground state
and home of Detroit and the Motown record label, stoked resentment
recently.
Earlier this month state senator John Pappageorge, who is white, said
Republicans
would fare poorly this election year if they failed to "suppress the
Detroit vote".
-
- Blacks are suspicious of Bush's stance on Iraq, his
economic
policies and his opposition to "affirmative action".
-
- "He'll tax the "working poor" and help
the rich," said truck driver Curtis Howard, an African-American from
Oakland, of the prospect of Bush's re-election. Although not enthusiastic
about Kerry, he will back him.
-
- It's what strategists call the "sock puppet"
vote - anything but Bush. Kerry's running mate John Edwards, a populist
who is white but from a southern working-class background, is likely to
appeal more to blacks, say analysts.
-
- The candidates are vying for black support. Kerry
addressed
the Urban League, a moderate African-American group, on Thursday, a day
ahead of a long-planned appearance by Bush.
-
- "Simply giving a speech will not erase the fact
that George Bush has pursued policies that have failed to provide economic
opportunity to all Americans, especially African-Americans," said
a Kerry spokesman.
-
- The next day, Bush acknowledged his party's lack of
appeal.
"Listen, the Republican party has a lot of work to do. I understand
that," he said. But he also suggested the Democrats take the black
vote for granted.
-
- A week earlier he snubbed the oldest and largest black
group, the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People.
The group's chairman, Julian Bond, has characterised Bush as from the
"Taliban
wing" of American politics.
-
- © newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all
rightsreserved
-
- http://www.sundayherald.com/43631
|
