African Americans have been faced, throughout the Barack Obama campaign for U.S. president, with the presumption that our support for him is due to racial solidarity, rather than his electability, policy stands and (yes) strong, traditional family values. Likewise, his opponents at every stage in this grueling campaign have implied that Obama could take the black vote for granted. Rather than work to win the black vote, John McCain has simply tried to use Obama’s runaway popularity in the black community against him in the majority community in subtle and not to subtle ways.
None of these tactics have worked against one of the most appealing, engaged and engaging candidates in modern political history. His campaign strategies will be studied for a generation n and, one hopes, by future generations at an Obama Presidential Library in Chicago, a Midwestern city that is steadily battling its way to the center of the political universe.
We have very good news for the black community. At no point has Barack Obama taken your vote for granted, and he is not doing so now. Obama did not forget us as he fought for the crucial swing votes that are unlikely to be black. As a matter of fact n and this is a simple fact n in the history of the St. Louis American newsroom, no candidate has ever directed his campaign to work so hard to hold the attention of this newspaper as Barack Obama has.
We did say no candidate, for any office, local, state or national: no candidate at any level has ever sought coverage in the pages of The St. Louis American as relentlessly as Barack Obama, and this man is running for the highest elected office in the land n arguably, in the world. He wants and needs your vote in particular, has worked hard to get it n and has prized the black press as highly as any other media source in his efforts to win your vote.
Nor has Obama forgotten Missouri, as many predicted, to focus solely on Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida (or whichever state you want to select as the more critical battleground expected to usurp Obama’s Missouri field operation). Yes, Missouri has become a swing state because of Obama’s dogged determination to make it competitive, and yes, the St. Louis metropolitan area is key to his strategy.
Obama has done much more than campaign aggressively in the black community (and all over this region). Crucially, his campaign has helped to organize a large number of voter registration drives targeting African Americans, who never vote our true strength. Barack Obama has done us an enormous service n he has given us a gift n whether or not our new strength lands him and his beautiful, accomplished wife and family into The White House in November. He is expanding the rolls of black voters n don’t forget, the deadline to register for the Nov. 4 election is Wednesday, Oct. 8! n and he is mobilizing and energizing the black community to learn about the essential, but often dull, complexities of electoral politics and field operations.
We doubt many of our readers need persuading that Barack Obama must be our next president, since he has worked tirelessly to convince you himself. But we do encourage you, even as you work to elect this man on Nov. 4, to remember the legacy he is leaving us: a dramatically energized and educated black voting base in St. Louis and Missouri. Let us vote our true strength on Nov. 4 n and let us not forget our new strength in 2009 and beyond!