Anderson@Large

Black Labor Pains

President Obama will unveil his jobs plan before a joint session of Congress tonight.

There's been a lot of speculation about what will be included in his latest Big Speech. Rep. Maxine Waters questions whether the president will give voice to the jobless crisis in the African American community.

In a statement, Waters told POLITICO:

There are roughly 3 million African Americans out of work today, a number nearly equal to the entire population of Iowa. I would suggest that if the entire population of Iowa, a key state on the electoral map and a place that served as a stop on the president’s jobs bus tour were unemployed, they would be mentioned in the president’s speech and be the beneficiary of targeted public policy.

So, one question to be answered this evening is, are the unemployed in the African-American community, including almost 45 percent of its youth, as important as the people of Iowa?

Waters added:

This evening, as the President speaks to the nation about his plan to create jobs, he must acknowledge the economic disaster in the African American community, whose unemployment rate hovers at roughly 16.7 percent, almost double that of the general population and equal to depression-era levels. He must then articulate how the plan he puts forth will target the communities with the highest rates of unemployment, including the African American community.

While Obama may not say our name, Gallup has given us a new name, “outlier.” CBS News reports:

Now, with Hispanic approval ratings getting closer and closer to the national average, Gallup notes that “blacks have become an extreme outlier -- the only major racial group showing well-above-average approval.”

Still, black Americans' unwavering support may not be enough to get Obama to acknowledge black pain. As Waters observed:

There are those, who believe that the President, because he is black, cannot talk specifically about issues directly impacting the black community, like high unemployment. They suggest that doing so would endanger the President’s chances of being re-elected. I share the desire to reelect the first black President.

But, I would offer a slightly different analysis. If the unemployment rates in the African American Community continue to climb, like they did in August by almost a full percentage point, those African American voters who came out to the polls for the first time in 2008 but who have since lost their home and/or their job, may not return to the polls. Therefore, targeting public policy to a community who accounted for 13 percent of the electorate in ‘08, and who is now experiencing the culmination of a decade of economic crisis, is not just good policy, but good politics.

What you say.

Dog Days and Dog Whistles

The dog days of summer are well upon us – and President Obama.

African American leaders, who had been biting their tongue, are now nipping at Obama’s heels. Under the headline “Black leaders turn up the heat on President Obama,” Politico reports:

With that in mind, prominent black leaders — fearing Obama is not only taking them for granted but avoiding them in public — have turned up the heat on the nation’s first African-American president, transforming all-in-the-family concerns into open criticism of the president at a time when they had hoped the completion of a monument to Martin Luther King Jr. near the National Mall would bring a moment of unity.

The leaders are tired, they say, of Obama dog-whistling his support for a broad black agenda rather than explicitly embracing the kind of war on racism, poverty and economic segregation embodied by King.

CNN contributor Roland Martin provided a primer on voter mobilization:

You can spend a lot of time trying to win over white independents, but if you don’t pay attention to your base, African-Americans, if you have not locked up your base yet, you’ve got a serious problem.

African-Americans will vote for him again, 88, 92, 95 percent. The question is what’s the turnout? I’ll vote for you. But will I bring ten other people along, like I did in 2008? That’s the danger here for him. He doesn’t have the historical factor to lean on as much in 2012 as he did in 2008. … And the first step is that he has to be willing to speak to this audience, black people.

Meanwhile, U.S. News & World Report asks: “Is Obama toast?” Hmmm.

Rep. Waters: Say It Loud

Hell hath no fury like a member of Congress whose constituents are facing an unemployment “epidemic.” Rep. Maxine Waters continues to give voice to African Americans who know a rising tide does not lift all boats.

Days after urging the President to “fight harder,” Waters took the fight to Don Graves, the executive director of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. During the Congressional Black Caucus’ town hall meeting in Miami, Graves said “certain communities have been hit harder than other communities.”

Waters wanted a more targeted response:

Let me hear you say black.

According to the Miami Herald, Graves responded “meekly”:

Black, African-American, Latino –- we’re going to focus on getting people back to work.

It may be time for President Obama to get back to work. The latest Gallup daily tracking poll shows his approval rating has slipped to 38 percent; 54 percent disapprove of his job performance.

Obama’s support among whites and Hispanics is 32 percent and 44 percent respectively. The president is standing on shaky ground with swing voters. Just 35 percent of independent voters give him a thumbs up.

The bottom line: The 88 percent approval of black Americans is keeping Obama in the game.

Rep. Waters: ‘Tea Party Can Go to Hell’

Last week, Rep. Maxine Waters asked for permission to “unleash” on President Obama. But she needed no one’s permission to unload on tea partiers.

During a “Kitchen Table Summit” in Inglewood, Calif., Waters said, “As far as I’m concerned, the Tea Party can go straight to hell.”

Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin, co-founders of Tea Party Patriots, fired back. They said in a statement:

We’ve had Democrats calling American citizens “terrorists” and “hostage takers,” and now an elected Democratic representative says that we can “go straight to hell.” The president and all leaders of the Democratic Party, who have called for civility in the past, are neglecting to censure their own. Is civility only required from their opponents? Perhaps it’s time for a new-NEW era of civility. ... The president’s silence on these latest violations of civility has been deafening, but not surprising.

By now, folks should know tea partiers don’t take no mess.

Obama, Jobs and the Road Less Traveled

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.”

Life of the Tea Party

The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 40th Annual Legislative Conference is history.

I am a 20-year veteran of Caucus Week. Given the number of CBC members under scrutiny, I expected some fireworks. With the exception of Rep. Maxine Waters’ ubiquitous street teams, this year’s conference was fairly low-key.

I am a policy wonk so I flitted from session-to-session at the Washington Convention Center. I left most after a few minutes. I stuck my head into Room 143-B, where Rep. Al Green was hosting a discussion ripped from the headlines, “Is the New Right Wrong for People of Color?” I decided to stay.

The panelists included Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity and Timothy F. Johnson, PhD of the Frederick Douglass Foundation.

The formatting of the session title suggests that Green thinks the Tea Party movement is just plain wrong:

It’s not about Republicans versus Democrats. Rather, it’s whether the new right is good for people of color. The question is whether you are for or against policies that can have an impact on people of color.

I have known Wade for a long time so his characterization of the Tea Party as a “shill for the Republican Party” is, well, characteristic.

As Johnson observed, Wade placed blame for “all of the ills of the last two years on the Tea Party.”

Johnson, a proud Republican and tea partier, said:

Don’t keep blaming the Tea Party. It’s not a party, it’s a movement.

In a National Journal piece, Mark Meckler, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, reportedly the largest national Tea Party group, underscored Johnson’s remarks:

Essentially what we’re doing is crowd-sourcing. I use the term open-source politics. This is an open-source movement. Every day, anyone and everyone is modifying the code. The movement as a whole is smart.

The day before Green’s session, I ran into Hilary Shelton of the NAACP. I asked Hilary why the NAACP is wasting time tracking signs at Tea Party rallies.

Hilary regurgitated Media Matters talking points and added the NAACP is having an “impact.” Oh really, with whom?

As the National Journal piece notes:

Leaderless groups also have trouble protecting their brand against impostors, opportunists, and extremists who act in their name and sully their reputation -- a vulnerability that the tea party’s adversaries are currently doing their utmost to exploit.

Meanwhile, there’s little sign of life among Democratic voters of color.

CBC Week

It’s mid-September and that means one thing. Well, it could mean a lot of things. But for me, it means CBC Week.

The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 40th Annual Legislative Week kicked off on Wednesday. You can check out the ALC Daily for a rundown of events

I just arrived at the Convention Center so I haven’t had a chance to interview anyone. This sign may be a harbinger of things to come.

For more info about the CBCF ALC, go here.