Michael Strautmanis, deputy assistant to President Barack Obama, was ready to go home as was the other dozens of State of the Union watchers packed into the boardroom at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Despite the obvious fatigue of a long day; plus the intensity of watching President Obama’s hour-long State of the Union speech, there was a late-night agenda on the table. Strautmanis and other White House representatives were on assignment. Their mission was to – not only break down the President’s speech – for the Black political, grassroots, business and civic leaders in the room, but to make plain the President’s plan for the Black community in coming months – especially as it pertains to economics.

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Ralph Everett, president/CEO of the Joint Center, a Black think-tank, seated at the right of Strautmanis, moderated the discussion, when continued to close to 11 p.m. Only 40 people had been invited to the meeting, but the center had to open up multiple rooms and even turn some people away after more than 140 responded, he said.

This shows that people want to “participate in the process. This was just one way to do that,” he said. The other way will be to vote in November he said.


Read more at The Seattle Medium, or The Louisiana Weekly.

The first lady with the famously buff biceps will be on the move, literally, over the next few days to mark the second anniversary of her "Let's Move!" fitness initiative, aimed at reducing childhood obesity in America.

Today, Michelle Obama kicks off a three-day national tour that begins in Des Moines, Iowa, and makes its way to Little Rock, Arkansas, and Dallas-Fort Worth. The final leg of the trip will include stops at three cities in Florida, including Orlando. The tour comes after Obama made lighthearted appearances on Ellen and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to promote the initiative over the last two weeks.

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The splashy anniversary celebration of "Let's Move!" coincides with 2012 presidential politics. Several of the states Mrs. Obama will visit, particularly Florida, are rich in electoral votes and have the potential to sway the outcome of a national election. And some polls suggest Michelle Obama is more popular than her husband.

"There is no way especially in the current climate, that nothing can be seen as totally un-politicized," said David Bositis, senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a black think tank in Washington, D.C. "And because the first lady is viewed very well, the more she is out there, she is seen as an asset to the president's campaign."


Read more at The Grio.

With two contests down, and several more to go, all eyes are now on South Carolina, the first state in the GOP presidential nominating race to boast a significant African-American population. And while as in New Hampshire and Iowa, Blacks will play a minimal role, that doesn’t mean that people of color around the nation should ignore what Republicans will be saying as they vie to win the first-in-the-South primary and, ultimately, the GOP nomination.

Rep. James Clyburn, Congress’s highest-ranking African-American, was waiting for frontrunner Mitt Romney’s arrival in his home state on Wednesday. After congratulating him on his New Hampshire primary win, Clyburn said that in South Carolina, “things are a little bit different.”

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David Bositis, senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, said that Obama will definitely have to up his game.

“The economy is just starting to pick up and Obama will have to do everything he can to keep it going in that direction,” Bositis said. “If the GOP tries to damage the economy, which it’s perfectly capable of doing, including Romney, and make people suffer if it ups their chances of winning, he has to call them out and make everyone aware of what they’re doing.”


Read more at BET.

With the nation's first GOP presidential primary three days away here, a confident Mitt Romney spent most of Friday in South Carolina as Rick Santorum tried to build on his near upset in Iowa to make up ground on the front-runner.

Michigan native Romney is comfortably ahead in the Granite State, and back-to-back victories could solidify his lead among six candidates early in the nominating process.

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South Carolina's primary is next, on Jan. 21, and a pair of polls out Friday shows Romney ahead, despite the state's conservative, evangelical tilt. Romney, a businessman who has stressed job creation, struggled in his unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign in part because conservatives see him as too moderate and evangelicals are wary of his Mormon faith.

"Romney has got money, and he has the best operatives of any of the candidates," said politics expert David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.

Read more at The Detroit News.

Herman Cain’s turn atop the polls in the contest for the Republican presidential nomination captured the attention of journalists and pundits and sparked excitement among grass-roots conservative activists. But is it really possible that he — a black man who overcame poverty in the segregated South to become a wealthy entrepreneur and front-runner in the GOP race — would be the one to bring African American voters back to their original political home?

Cain seems to think so. In a mailer sent to Iowa voters recently, the candidate says “as a descendent of slaves I can lead the Republican party to victory by garnering a large share of the black vote, something that has not been done since Dwight Eisenhower garnered 41 percent of the black vote in 1956.”

It is a proposition that was quickly dismissed by political scholars and analysts, including some members of Cain’s party. Although he has done better than any other black Republican presidential candidate in terms of attracting support, few believe Cain could snare a sizable number of black voters in a general election, especially against President Obama.

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David Bositis, senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, argues that as the Republican Party grows more white and conservative, it represents the interests of most black people less.

“The fact of the matter is, there are no more savvy voters in the country than African American voters, and they’re not interested in any candidate who is not promising them more and better jobs, more and better education, more and better health care and an agenda that aims to deal with the historic racism in the country,” Bositis said. “None of those things are being offered by the Republicans, including Herman Cain.”

Read more at The Washington Post.

When Lucille Richmond cast her ballot for Barack Obama three years ago, she, like many African-Americans, embraced the historic opportunity to help elect the nation’s first black president.

But waiting in line at the county employment security commission last week, the 52-year-old grandmother - who lost two food preparation jobs and is searching for full-time work - can’t muster the will to support Obama for a second term.

“I don’t see what he’s done,’’ said Richmond, a Democrat. “I’m not even going to waste my time and vote.’’

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Obama’s defenders say there is a disconnect between the president’s genuine efforts on behalf of urban and disadvantaged populations and perceptions in the community. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a black think tank in Washington, said the president’s initiatives such as health care reform, the stimulus package that kept many public workers in their jobs, the extension of unemployment benefits, and grants to historically black colleges as well as increase in Pell grants benefited many African-Americans.

“If I were to criticize the Obama administration, it has a very good record with regards to African-Americans but it does not boast about it,’’ said David Bositis, senior political analyst.

Read more at The Boston Globe.

President Obama appears to be riding high. Osama Bin Laden, the world’s most-wanted man, has been killed under his leadership. He pulled off an “in your face” coo by producing his long-form birth certificate to silence billionaire Donald Trump. And although the economy is still struggling, it shows some signs of recovery.

Yet, it will be none of these accomplishments that many voters will consider when they go to the polls in 2012. In fact, race and political experts say the fact that President Obama is Black will still be a major factor in his re-election campaign and will likely even increase.

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But, major accomplishments will not likely be enough to deter those who look at the President primarily through the lens of his race, agrees David Bositis, spokesman for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank of racial politics.

“One would think that this would result in a serious increase in his poll numbers. One would hope that it would, but we’ll have to wait and see because if we don’t know that he’s an American, if we think that he graduated from Harvard as an affirmative action student even though he was president of the [Harvard] Law Review, you just can never tell,” says Bositis.

This article was previously available at The Seattle Medium.

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, with the assistance of outside experts, analyzed the presidential candidates' major plans and assessed the economic plans proposed by Vice President Al Gore and Governor George W. Bush for using the projected federal government surplus over the next ten years. Because the two proposals are likely to have disproportionate impact on the economic well-being of African Americans, a special emphasis was placed on the expected impact the two plans may have on African Americans.

Six analyses were prepared as background for the overview summary report, covering each candidate' s tax plans and Social Security, health care, education, and employment proposals. The overview summary, along with the six papers and the 2000 National Opinion Poll results on politics can be viewed here.

Call the Joint Center for Availability

Date Published: 2000
 

This guide discusses the range of participation by African Americans in the Democratic Party, the geographic and partisan dimensions of the black vote in recent years, and black voters' attitudes toward many issues that may be significant in the fall campaign. Detailed statistical tables and a discussion of the 2008 Democratic National Convention's black delegates and alternates make this guide a must-have resource for reporters, convention participants and scholars alike.

Click these links to access the insert Comparing the Candidates: Improving the Health of a Diverse America and the Roster of Black Democratic Convention Delegates.

Available in PDF Format Only.

To download this publication, click the file icon below.

Publication date: August 2008

This guide discusses the range of participation by African Americans in the Republican Party, the geographic and partisan dimensions of the black vote in recent years, and black voters' attitudes toward many issues that may be significant in the fall campaign. Detailed statistical tables and a discussion of the 2008 Republican National Convention's black delegates and alternates make this guide a must-have resource for reporters, convention participants and scholars alike.

Click these links to access the insert Comparing the Candidates: Improving the Health of a Diverse America and the Roster of Black Republican Convention Delegates.

Available in PDF Format Only.

To download this publication, click the file icon below.

Publication date: August 2008