Obama Faces Challenge in Reengaging Black Voters

You know things are bad for Barack Obama's re-election effort when even black voters - who came out in record numbers in 2008 - are disaffected with Obama's leadership. Like the complaints heard from other portions of the Democratic Party base, the focus is on Obama's utter lack of leadership and failure to come out of his bubble and deliver on campaign promises. The issue of jobs and unemployment which are hitting blacks far worse than whites in the current recession/depression have sadly been nowhere on Obama's radar screen until recently. Leadership on the issue more than two years ago would have been welcomed. The Washington Post looks at this self-created problem for Obama. Here are some highlights:

When President Obama takes the stage Saturday for his annual address to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, it is certain to be a warm and festive affair, but probably a little less festive and lot more more urgent than on previous occasions.

In the audience will be Rep. Maxine Waters (D), the California congresswoman who has been a lead critic of the president and his administration for not being sufficiently focused on the stubborn problem of black unemployment.

The speech, which the White House says will focus in part on the American Jobs Act, comes as Obama has faced a softening of support among African American voters and a chorus of criticism from black politicians who now feel free to break what had become the eleventh commandment among black elected officials: Thou shall not speak ill of the first black president.

With fourteen months to go before he stands for reelection, Obama has the challenge of reengaging black voters, a crucial part of the coalition that helped him get elected in 2008.

The president’s recent outreach and his jobs bill have muted some of the criticism, but in some ways the criticism itself was a notable political event, reflective of the harsh economic times. Polls show that blacks are more likely than before to say that the country is on the wrong track and are less inclined to have favorable views of Obama.

Campaign aides push back on such polls, citing surveys showing Obama grabbing 90 percent of the black vote when matched with a Republican challenger. But there are concerns about an enthusiasm gap.

Speaking at a CBC jobs fair in Detroit, she urged the audience to “unleash” black elected officials from the unwritten rule of not openly criticizing the president. “It was the women in the audience who were angry, and they were insistent that we do something, that we talk to the president, that we get the president to understand what was happening to them,” she said, recalling the incident during an interview in her, adding that she saw widespread discontent in the cities she visited. “It was a moment where I felt that we had to stop shoving it under the rug.”

[T]he sustained economic downturn has hit blacks hard. The black unemployment rate has ticked up to 15.9 percent on Obama’s watch, up from 11.5 percent when he took office, and blacks have also been hit hard by the housing market collapse.

In coming weeks, the Obama reelection team will bring on an African American vote director charged with mobilizing voters and volunteers, launch a Web page for black voters that deals with Obama’s record on issues that are important to black communities, and begin planning events similar to the African American beauty salons and barbershops programming in 2008.