As election day nears, Democrats are pushing their get out the vote effort and looking to again fire up those Black, young and women voters who handed the party the White House in 2008.
As election day nears, Democrats are pushing their get out the vote effort and looking to again fire up those Black, young and women voters who handed the party the White House in 2008.
On the campaign trail for the Democrats for the first time since her husband was elected president, Michelle Obama was back home in Chicago Oct. 13 doing her part to raise money for candidates and encourage voters to go to the polls.
In her speech at the University Club stumping for State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias in his bid for the U.S. Senate, the first lady reminded Democrats of how fired up they were in the 2008 election.
“We were excited, we were hopeful, we were energized,” Michelle Obama said.
What a difference two years has made.
Her let’s-do-this remarks were meant to inspire the electorate and promote Democratic candidates who have found themselves in tight races.
Democrats are trying to stave off a baton pass of control to Republicans, which they’ve said could lead to gridlock and a rollback of President Barack Obama’s accomplishments, including health care reform. In Illinois, it could mean an embarrassment for the president who hails from the state.
In 2008 Obama sailed to victory with 62 percent of the vote in Illinois, over 90 percent of the Black vote in Cook County and in Chicago, according to election data.
But political pundits predict that a decisive number of Black voters won’t flock to the polls in the midterm election as they did to elect the first Black president.
Democrats know they can’t afford for that to happen on Nov. 2
“This election is not just about what we’ve accomplished these last couple of years,” Michelle Obama said. “This election is about what we have left to do in the months and years ahead.”
The party is trying to buck the low voter turnout prediction and impel voters like those in the city’s 6th and 18th Wards to once again cast a ballot. Nearly 50 percent more votes were tallied in the 2008 election in those predominately Black wards than in the 2006 midterm elections.
Speaking, she said, as a mother first, Obama explained that as she travels the country, “I look into the eyes of the children I meet and I see what’s at stake.”
In Illinois, jobs, health care and education help make the stakes high, according to exit polls on what voters are most concerned about. The state is flat in all three categories.
In Black communities, including in Chicago, unemployment tops 20 percent –– at least double the average for the rest of the nation and the state, which is at 10.1 percent in August – the most recent data available, according to the Ill. Dept. of Employment Security.
The incumbent Governor Pat Quinn said programs like Put Illinois To Work hang in the balance.
The jobs program, which had been federally funded through Sept. 30, is one President Obama said he’d like to see stay around longer – nationwide. But if Democrats lose to Republicans the program could be part of the rollbacks.
“We want to renew it …and we have pushed to try to get it renewed,” the president told the Defender during a conference call with members of the Black Press. “We are probably gonna need some cooperation on this issue from some of the Republicans out there. We may not have enough votes to get it done” without Republican support.
A gubernatorial loss in this state would give Illinois its first Republican governor in a decade. A loss in the Senate race means relinquishing the seat two Democrats have held since winning it back from Republicans in 2004.
In Illinois, various polls put Gov. Quinn in a tight race with Republican Bill Brady and show Giannoulias in a dead heat-to-slight-lead with his opponent, Mark Kirk. Democrats are pushing hard to not have an upset in the president’s home state.
The state’s incumbent congressional candidates are likely to return to their offices with ease. But Dan Seals in the 10th Congressional District is in a tooth-and-nail battle with his Republican challenger. And in the 2nd Congressional District, Republican Isaac Hayes has tried to capitalize on what he considers a vulnerable U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. in the wake of media and political controversy surrounding the veteran representative.
The fallout hasn’t been enough to cost Jackson his seat, polls show, but the congressman has been battered by reports of an extramarital “social relationship” and his involvement with convicted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
The first lady echoed the party’s chorus in calling for voters to be patient with Obama’s administration, but more critically help elect a team of players statewide and nationwide that will assistant the historic president in moving his agenda forward.
“Many of us came into this expecting to see the change…all at once, right away, the minute that Barack walked into the Oval Office,” she said. “But the truth is it is going to take a lot longer” to recover.
The president, himself, is asking for more time.
The “most important thing over the next two weeks is making sure that people understand the importance of voting and participating in this next election,” the president said in the conference call. Pointing out the work he’s done in his 20 months in office, he appealed for help in doing more.
“The key then is for us to be able to move forward and to continue making progress on behalf of middle class families. We can only do that if I can get some help on Capitol Hill.”
Michelle Obama wants voters to make good on a campaign “pledge” to have the president’s back.
“There is so much at stake right now,” she said. “We have come way too far to turn back now.”
Copyright 2010 Chicago Defender
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