President Obama is not playing coy about how he feels in this election, with the lead birther on the ballot looking to roll back Obama’s progress. Speaking at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner over the weekend, Obama said it would be “a personal insult, an insult to my legacy” if African Americans don’t turn out to vote for Hillary Clinton in November.
“My name may not be on the ballot, but our progress is on the ballot,” Obama said, his voice rising to a shout as he went well beyond what sources familiar with the speech said was a tamer version of the riff in the prepared remarks. “Tolerance is on the ballot. Democracy is on the ballot. Justice is on the ballot. Good schools are on the ballot. Ending mass incarceration, that’s on the ballot right now.” [...]
“Hope is on the ballot,” he said, laying out the choice. “And fear is on the ballot too.”
Obama’s vehemence is being seen as a sign of the urgency of turning out black voters to ensure a Clinton win, and there’s surely an element of that. But Obama has also been uncharacteristically blunt about how he sees Donald Trump, saying for instance that “I don't think the guy's qualified to be president of the United States. And every time he speaks that opinion is confirmed.” And, of course, there’s the birther thing, which Obama also riffed on at some length at the CBC Foundation event, saying that “ISIL, North Korea, poverty, climate change—none of those things weighed on my mind like the validity of my birth certificate.” Combine that years-long personal insult, the insult Donald Trump offers to the dignity of the presidency, and, yes, the importance of high African American voter turnout this November, and you can see why the president was so impassioned.
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