Presidential Campaigns Try to Garner African-American Voters

Both political parties are courting African-American voters in a 2008 presidential election that, pollsters and pundits agree, is likely to be extremely close.

The Democrats appear to enjoy an advantage: Blacks have been a key component of the party's base for more than four decades, and that tilt likely will be increased by the Democrats' selection of Barack Obama as the first African-American presidential nominee of a major U.S. political party.

With the direction of the African-American vote seemingly assured, the volume of that vote becomes a critical factor. The Democrats will strive to maximize turnout, particularly in states where the African-American population is highest and the election outcome is predicted to be close. In those states, their vote could tip the balance.

Republicans have not conceded the African-American vote. Their presidential candidate, John McCain - like Obama - has addressed national conferences of interest groups like the NAACP and the National Urban League.

He focused on the issues of education and economic opportunity and committed himself to "the great and honorable cause of equal opportunity."

McCain won applause at the Urban League conference with his "straight talk" approach to an audience question of why he voted in 1983 against a federal holiday for civil rights champion Martin Luther King Jr. "Because I was wrong," he said.

Both campaigns have posted pages addressed to African Americans on their Web sites.

McCain's "African American Coalition" page addresses the same issues of education and opportunity that he stressed in speeches: "In today's society, and the world in which today's and tomorrow's children will live, "the ability to compete and succeed will be dictated by the quality of education."

Obama's more extensive "African Americans for Obama" site takes a more emotional approach, beginning with a quote from a 2007 speech commemorating civil rights campaigns of the 1960s: "I'm here because somebody marched. I'm here because you all sacrificed for me. I stand on the shoulders of giants."

"There is no better advocate for African Americans than Barack Obama," according to the site. "Barack knows your story, because it is his story. The causes that you hold dear have been the causes of his life. Barack has spent his entire career fighting for justice."

PARTY ALLEGIANCE CURRENTLY FAVORS DEMOCRATS

Historically, blacks not always have been so heavily allied with the Democrats Party. An attachment to the Republican Party stretching back to the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln in the 1860s, did not shift until the New Deal era of Democrat Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s and 1940s. The 1960s brought a further consolidation, when Democrat Lyndon Johnson pushed through landmark civil rights and voting rights legislation.

Polling data indicate the black vote for Democrats peaked at 94 percent for Johnson in 1964, and never has dropped below 82 percent since then.

The Democratic advantage is underlined in a convention guide issued August 22 by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a nonpartisan research institution that focuses on minority issues.

"Demographic and political changes, along with the Obama campaign's grassroots and Internet organizing, are likely to change the electoral map" from 2004, when Republican George W. Bush was re-elected to the presidency, the center's report says.

Noting that several key states won by Bush - including Indiana, Ohio and Virginia - have large African-American populations, it finds that "judging by Black participation in 2008 Democratic presidential primaries - during which Black turnout increased by 115 percent - the Democrats' prospects look exceptionally good."

Conversely, the center says, "the prospects for an increase in the black Republican vote [from the 11 percent recorded in 2004] are nonexistent."

In a companion guide for the Republican convention, released August 29, the group projects serious difficulties with African-American voters for McCain. Both studies were authored by David Bositis, the center's senior political analyst.

"John McCain is very likely to receive a historically low share of the black vote," Bositis writes, citing "Senator Obama's historic candidacy, the deep and genuine enthusiasm for him in the black community, and Senator McCain's association with President Bush, an exceptionally unpopular figure among African Americans."

Such election results would not be surprising given the massive margins Obama secured among black voters during Democratic primary campaigns over Hillary Clinton. Exit polling showed Obama consistently getting percentages in the high 70s, 80s and even 90s.

The 2008 voter registration push comes against a background of blacks generally lagging behind whites in both registration and voting. U.S. Census Bureau data show that, in 2004, the gap was 3.5 percentage points in registration and 4.0 in voting.

The Joint Center study shows the role of African Americans in party politics is expanding and that expansion is overwhelmingly on the Democratic side. This year's Democratic National Convention included a record 1,079 black delegates, or 24.3 percent of the total. In contrast, the Republicans listed just 36 delegates, or 1.5 percent of the total.

Source: U.S. Department of State