As President Obama’s bus tour of the rural Midwest rolled to an end, a Gallup poll found just 26 percent of Americans approve of his handling of the economy, the lowest level of his presidency.
Meanwhile, Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Emanuel Cleaver warns the jobless crisis in black urban America may depress black voter turnout in 2012:
Citizens of this country are hungering for work. And that hunger in all likelihood is going to turn into desperation and I don’t know how that desperation will be played out. There are some frustrations and I hear all kinds of things from African-Americans. I think what’s going to happen is that people would be angry but I think at the end of the day, they’re not going to vote on the other side. The danger for the President is that they may not vote at all. He will get the majority of the Black vote. The issue is the majority of what?
During the CBC’s “For the People” Jobs Initiative town hall meeting in Detroit, Rep. Maxine Waters said the CBC is getting tired. Waters shared their frustration that CBC members are reluctant to put pressure on Obama lest African American voters turn on them:
We don’t put pressure on the president because y’all love the president. Y’all love the president. You’re very proud to have a black man -- first time in the history of the United States of America. If we go after the president too hard, you’re going after us.
The CBC wants to know where is the urban jobs initiative?:
The Congressional Black Caucus loves the president too. We’re supportive of the president, but we’re getting tired, y’all. We’re getting tired. And so, what we want to do is, we want to give the president every opportunity to show what he can do and what he’s prepared to lead on. We want to give him every opportunity, but our people are hurting. The unemployment is unconscionable. We don’t know what the strategy is. We don’t know why on this trip that he’s in the United States now, he’s not in any black community. We don't know that.
Waters told the audience:
When you tell us it’s alright and you unleash us and you tell us you’re ready for us to have this conversation, we’re ready to have the conversation.
Ready or not, Rep. John Conyers Jr., is taking to the streets. Conyers repeated his call for a “rally at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue the day before the Congressional Black Caucus begins its annual conference.”
