LAT - Obama Campaign targets black voters - carefully

[Hawaii Hiker]

Turnout, turnout, turnout....I know it's cliche, but if the primaries are an indication of the turnout this year, no way can we lose this election..

"Obama strategists believe they have identified a gold mine of new and potentially decisive Democratic voters in at least five battleground states -- voters who failed to turn out in the past but can be mobilized this time because Obama's candidacy is historic and his cash-rich campaign can afford the costly task of identifying and motivating such supporters".

"In Florida alone, more than half a million black registered voters stayed home in 2004. Hundreds of thousands more African Americans are eligible to vote but not registered. And campaign analysts have identified similar potential in North Carolina, Virginia, Missouri and Ohio."

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-blackvote23-2008jun23,0,4641688.story

[BluegrassDem]

1. BINGO!

Cha-ching

[FrenchieCat]

2. Whooomp, there it is!

That and a depressed vote for McCain, and we got us a winner....in those states we need to win, and then some.

[ellisonz]

3. Yes we can!

[Donkey_Punch_Dubya]

4. These new voters should try to vote early if their state allows

I'm sure in Jeb controlled Florida and other battleground states with repubs in charge of the state government there will be about 1 machine for every 10000 voters in precincts with a majority of AA residents. The 5 hours lines like in Ohio last election will be the norm.\

I know I was on the ground working for MoveOn in Arizona in Tempe (university town, blue area) and there were long lines from 9 am on, several hours for most people. There were 2 guys working that precinct who were obvious Bush supporters and they were only letting 3 of the 6-8 machines be used at any one time. Of course, 15 minutes away where I lived it was a red area (not wealthy, though) and my friends all experienced 10-15 minutes maximum wait times.

All these new voters, whether previously registered or not, will need to know that some people hope they will wait a while then give up without voting. I'm sure they have an excuse ready: "we expected X voters here, but X+3000 showed up. We had no idea this many people would try to vote and we were unprepared for the volume!" LIES!

The Obama campaign needs to allocate some money of the total being used for this "gold mine" to educate the voters about attempts to prevent them from voting, and some to prevent the shortage of machines that was so common in 2004 in Dem areas. This will be great for democracy if millions of new black voters are part of this historic election, and we can't let the assholes thwart it!