A major survey conducted by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University found that 80 percent of black Democrats are as interested or more interested in the midterms than they were in the 2008 presidential election, when their enthusiasm helped propel Barack Obama into office.
washingtonpost.com
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The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a premier African-American research institute, just published an opinion poll suggesting that African-American interest in this election may be sufficient to close the traditional gap between white and black turnout in off-year elections.
good news link
More below the fold
Crossposted at The Progressive Electorate.com
David Bositis of The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies gives us more details on why African American support for Democrats and President Obama is so high and why it has gone unreported . . . .
"So often, the effort to turn out black voters is invisible to the larger white society," Bositis said. "It is happening in black organizations. It is happening in black churches. This isn't something you're going to watch in real time on the Web and television."
washingtonpost.com
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For all the media focus on angry and really, really white teapublicans, the corporate media has totally overlooked a big reason why Democrats won in 2008.
WaPo has more
This year, 62 percent of all black Democrats say they're likely to encourage others to support certain candidates, according to the survey, compared with 47 percent of white Democrats and 57 percent of all Republicans.
And the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which researched the black electorate, said in a report Thursday that African American participation in November may be higher than in many past midterm elections.
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And here is more from David Bositis . . .
The center's David Bositis argues that African Americans turn out when they believe they can make a difference -- and argues that protecting the presidency of Barack Obama is good cause for doing so. Bositis notes that African Americans have turned out in large numbers before -- in 1986 after millions engaged in my (Jesse Jackson's)* 1984 campaign for the presidency, and in 1998 to defend Bill Clinton from the threat of impeachment.
~snip~
Bositis shows that a high black turnout could make the difference in 20 or more congressional districts and several Senate and gubernatorial races, including tight races in Illinois.
rainbowpush.org
Some editorializing* and bold text added by the diarist
Fired up? Hell yes!
It isn't like Republicans haven't made it clear enough that their only goal is destroying Obama's presidency and making him a one-termer no matter what it may cost the country. On top of that, Conservatives haven't toned down their race baiting bullshit one iota (Birthers, fear mongering over the New Black Panther Party, everything Glenn beck says, etc), instead, Republicans have amped there race based dog whistles up to 11. Apparently, African American voters don't like that one bit and are ready to get out there THIS ELECTION and fight back.
And now all of the GOP claims of "voter fraud" start to make sense when you look at the uncovered voter caging debacle in Wisconsin that was designed to suppress the African American and youth vote there, as well as Mark Kirk's "voter integrity" scam that is designed to go into neighborhoods with high African American populations and disenfranchise Democratic voters. Add it all up and it starts to make sense. The fact is, by electing Barack Obama as President the African American voter is now more engaged in politics than ever, and with their huge support of Democrats as a bloc African American voters are in the perfect position to play the spoiler in this election cycle.
David Bositis notes that higher than usual African American turnout in this years midterm election could make the BIG difference in 20 or so tightly contested House races.
But none of that matters unless we Get Out The VOTE!
Go to CallOutTheVote.com right now.
Register to phone bank for at least one hour this week, if not more.
What you do RIGHT NOW will decide whether we continue to MAKE PROGRESS as a nation, or if we go back to the George W. Bush way of doing business.
If this is accurate, and African Americans vote at anything near the level they did in 2008, it will be the GOP/teabaggers worst nightmare, but we can not just hope it happens, we have to make it happen, and fight as hard as we can for the next week.
GOTV
GOTV
GOTV
GOTV!!!!!!!!!!!!
Because if African Americans turnout BIG next week, it will go a long way to helping President Obama brush that GOP dirt off his shoulder from the last two years . . .
NOTE: A special hat tip to DKos commentor Yumn, who brought this info to my attention in the comments of my last diary.
Peace and LOVE to ALL
You can follow me on Twitter @JesseLaGreca