John Kerry better get back on the pander-horse double-quick and ride him like a real cowboy. Democrats in Ohio (see Rasmussen) are nervous. They’re warning black voters not to get “Bush-whacked” (so clever, aren’t they?):
If Ohio is a battleground state in this year’s presidential election, these are some of the foot soldiers. Their mission is to maximize black voter turnout on Nov. 2 — a mission that will likely decide the Democrats’ chances of taking Ohio.“The African-American vote in Ohio is tremendously important,” said Bill Lynch, deputy national campaign manager for the Kerry-John Edwards team. “If we don’t get strong turnout, we don’t win” the state.
This will be particularly true if the race is close.
“He is not going to win on the black vote alone; but the only way Kerry is going to win is if he has good black voter turnout,” said David Bositis, senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C.
The issue is not whether black voters, who have historically voted Democratic, will back Kerry.
In the 2000 election, about 90 percent of black voters cast their ballots for Democratic candidate Al Gore, exit polls showed. And a recent Plain Dealer poll shows Kerry with an equally commanding lead over President Bush among Ohio’s black voters.
“The election for many African-Americans is not between Kerry and Bush, but voting for Kerry or staying at home,” said Meryl Johnson, first vice president of the Cleveland Teachers Union, which has endorsed Kerry.
While 58 percent of Ohio voters cast ballots in 2000, the turnout was lower — 54 percent — among eligible black voters, according to census data. About 500,000 black Ohioans voted in the election; another 100,000 who were registered to vote sat out.
My advice to John Kerry: If you want to bring black voters to the polls, less war talk, more race talk, i.e., Section 8 housing and conservatives-are-racists.
Also see Ohio poll.
