The Curry Report  Nov. 19, 2012 
Curry Media Logo
In This Issue
Obama Should Thank Jesse Jackson for Winning Formula.
Supreme Court to Hear Voting Rights Act Challenge
Romney Blames Loss on Obama's 'Gifts' to Minorities and Young Voters
Why Romney Never Saw It Coming
A very tough election for black candidates not named Obama
How the GOP's War on Voting Backfired
The GOP Must Choose: Rush Limbaugh or Minority Voters
How Democratic Groups Beat the Republican Super PACs in 2012
Chris Rock's Message to White Voters: Obama's One of You.

Obama Should Thank Jesse Jackson for Winning Formula

 

 

 

 

Curry Headshot  

 

 

By George E. Curry

NNPA Columnist

 

 

President Obama's campaign strategists are receiving a lot of richly deserved praise in the wake of the president's victory over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney on Nov. 6. Obama, who lost the majority of the White vote for the second time, won the election by assembling a progressive Democratic coalition pioneered by Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988.

 

I covered Jackson's 1984 campaign for the Chicago Tribune and witnessed Jackson laying the groundwork for what would become two Obama victories.

 

"America is not like a blanket - one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size," I heard Jesse Jackson say more times than I care to remember. "America is more like a quilt: many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread. The White, the Hispanic, the Black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the Native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay, and the disabled make up the American quilt."

 

The concept was more frequently expressed in terms of a rainbow.

 

The organization Jackson heads is known as Rainbow PUSH, the result of a merger between Operation PUSH, the organization Jackson created in 1971, and the Rainbow Coalition, an apparatus he developed following his 1984 presidential run.

 

In his stirring speech at the 1984 National Democratic Convention in San Francisco, Jackson spoke at length about the Rainbow Coalition.

 

"...We cannot be satisfied by just restoring the old coalition," he said. "Old wine skins must make room for new wine. We must heal and expand. The Rainbow Coalition is making room for Arab Americans...The Rainbow Coalition is making room for Hispanic Americans...The Rainbow is making room for the Native American...The Rainbow Coalition includes Asian Americans...The Rainbow Coalition is making room for the young Americans...The Rainbow includes disabled veterans...The Rainbow is making room for small farmers...The Rainbow includes lesbians and gays."

 

According to exit polls, Romney won the White vote 59 percent to 39 percent for Obama, which was 3 percent lower than the president's 2008 outing. Like Clinton before him, Obama demonstrated that a candidate for national office does not need a majority of the White vote in order to win.

 

Blacks, who made up 13 percent of the electorate in 2012, favored Obama over Romney 93 percent to 6 percent. Latinos, who made up 10 percent of the electorate, preferred Obama by a margin of 71 percent to 27 percent. Asians, 3 percent of the electorate, supported Obama over Romney 73 percent to 26 percent. The remaining non-White groups, with 2 percent of the electorate, backed Obama by a margin of 58 percent to 38 percent.

 

Obama won the 18-24 category - 11 percent of the electorate - 60 percent to 36 percent for Romney. He also won the 25-29 age-group, which is 8 percent of voters, 60 percent to 38 percent.

 

Those describing themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual - 5 percent of voters - favored Obama over Romney 76 percent to 22 percent, compared with straight voters - 95 percent of the electorate - who were evenly divided, with Obama and Romney each receiving 49 percent.

 

Fifty-eight percent of union households - 18 percent of the electorate - supported Obama this year, down just one percentage point from four years ago. They supported Obama at even higher rates in the swing states of Ohio, Wisconsin and Nevada.

 

Despite Jackson's early coalition-building efforts, it's no secret that relations between Obama and Jackson are as chilly as the temperature was on the day Obama was first inaugurated as president.

 

The friction was exacerbated in July 2008 after Jackson had been interviewed on Fox News. When the television interview was over, Jackson, apparently unaware that his microphone was still live, told a fellow guest: "See, Barack's been talking down to Black people...I want to cut his nuts off."

 

Not surprisingly, the relationship between the two immediately went south, so to speak. An understandably miffed Barack Obama has since kept his distance from Jackson.

 

But as Obama reaches out to Republicans whose stated goal was to make sure he didn't get re-elected, perhaps it's time for Obama to have d�tente with Jackson. The legendary civil rights leader has done his penitence. Because of what Jackson later described as his "crude and hurtful" comment - made at a time African-Americans were hoping to elect their first Black president - many Blacks mentally shipped Jackson off to a political Siberia, a never-never land where they didn't care if he was never heard from again.

 

As Obama extends the olive branch to his ardent political foes, he should invite Jackson to visit him in the White House. If nothing else, President Obama can thank Jesse Jackson for paving the way for his two memorable victories.

 

 

George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine, is editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service (NNPA). He is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. Curry can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com. You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Supreme Court to Hear Voting Rights Act Challenge

 

 

 

 

  

Black Chamber Supporting Challenge   

 

By George E. Curry

NNPA Editor-in-Chief 

Nov. 12, 2012

    

 

WASHINGTON (NNPA) - After hearing oral arguments earlier on whether an affirmative action program at the University of Texas is constitutional, the United States Supreme Court has agreed to review a challenge to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, paving the way for the court to rule on two major civil rights issues by next summer.

 

The court agreed last Friday to hear a case from Shelby County, Ala., 23 miles southeast of Birmingham, that questions whether Congress exceeded its authority when it voted in 2006 to renew Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires jurisdictions covered by the legislation to pre-clear any election law changes with the U.S. Attorney General or the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. to prevent discriminatory voting changes from going into effect. 

 

READ MORE 

 

 

 

 

 


Romney Blames Loss on Obama's 'Gifts' to Minorities and Young Voters  

 

 

 

By Ashley Parker

� New York Times

November 14, 2012

 

Saying that he and his team still felt "troubled" by his loss to President Obama, Mitt Romney on Wednesday attributed his defeat in part to what he called big policy "gifts" that the president had bestowed on loyal Democratic constituencies, including young voters, African-Americans and Hispanics.

 

In a conference call with fund-raisers and donors to his campaign, Mr. Romney said Wednesday afternoon that the president had followed the "old playbook" of using targeted initiatives to woo specific interest groups - "especially the African-American community, the Hispanic community and young people."

 

READ MORE  

 

 

 

 

Why Romney Never Saw It Coming  

  

     

  

  

 

By John Dickerson

� Slate

November 9, 2012

 

Mitt Romney says he is a numbers guy, but in the end he got the numbers wrong. His campaign was adamant that public polls in the swing states were mistaken. They claimed the pollsters were over-estimating the number of Democrats who would turn out on Election Day. Romney's campaign was certain that minorities would not show up for Obama in 2012 the way they did in 2008. "It just defied logic," said a top aide of the idea that Obama could match, let alone exceed, his performance with minorities from the last election. When anyone raised the idea that public polls were showing a close race, the campaign's pollster said the poll modeling was flawed and everyone moved on.

 

READ MORE 

 

 

 

A very tough election for black candidates not named Obama 
Allen West

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.)  Still Challenging Outcome 

 

 

By Aaron Blake

� Washington Post

November 14, 2012

 

President Obama won a second term last week, but it wasn't a great week for other African-American candidates.

Despite Obama's big win, there remain no black senators, only one African-American was even nominated for major statewide office, and black candidates lost seven of eight competitive House races - six of them by very close margins

  

READ MORE  

 

 

  

 

 

How the GOP's War on Voting Backfired

    

 

    

 

By Ari Berman

� The Nation

November 8, 2012

 

Since the 2010 election, Republicans passed new voting restrictions in more than a dozen states aimed at reducing the turnout of Barack Obama's "coalition of the ascendant"-young voters, African-Americans and Hispanics.

 

"This is not rocket science," Bill Clinton said last year. "They are trying to make the 2012 electorate look more like the 2010 electorate than the 2008 electorate." By pushing voter suppression laws, Republicans wanted the 2012 electorate to be older, whiter and more conservative than the young and diverse 2008 electorate.

 

But the GOP's suppression strategy failed. Ten major restrictive voting laws were blocked in court and turnout among young, black and Hispanic voters increased as a share of the electorate relative to 2008.

 

READ MORE 

 

 

  

 


The GOP Must Choose: Rush Limbaugh or Minority Voters

  

 

 

  

By Conor Friedersdorf

� The Atlantic

Nov. 9, 2012

  

Rush Limbaugh is confused.

 

He just can't understand why the Republican Party has so much trouble with blacks, Hispanics and women. Here's how he put it on his nationally syndicated radio show, channeling the way that a lot of conservatives are feeling after looking at the demographic breakdown of Election 2012:

  

READ MORE  

  

 

 

How Democratic Groups Beat the Republican Super PACs in 2012 


 


   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Rodell Mollineau

� The Daily Beast

Nov. 13, 2012

 

Much has already been written about the influence of outside spending on this election cycle. One could make a compelling argument that in 2010 super PACs were undervalued, especially by Democrats. Conversely, one could argue that in 2012 the impact of these groups was overestimated, this time to the detriment of Republicans.

 

READ MORE   

 

 

 

 

 

Chris Rock's Message to White Voters: Obama's One of You

 

 

  

 

By Christopher John Farley

� Wall Street Journal

November 5, 2012

 

 

Comedian Chris Rock has a message to white voters: President Barack Obama is one of you.

 

Rock argues that whites should support the president's reelection because Obama actually has a lot of white cultural influences in his life.

 

"Let's take a look at the facts," Rock says in a comedic video that aired on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," "For the first two-thirds of his life, Barack Obama was known as Barry-which is the third whitest name on Earth, right after Cody and Jeff."

 

READ MORE 

 

 

 

 Find me on Facebook    Follow me on Twitter
Speaking Engagements
Microphone

 
November 14-18, 2012
State of the Black World
Washington, D.C.

November 15, 2012
Young DC Cartoons & Cocktails
Washington, D.C.

December 8-15, 2012
Vising Journalist
Bijing, China

January 23-26, 2013
National Newspaper Publishers Assn.
Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

February 28, 2013
Black History Month Program
Davenport, Iowa

March 2, 2013
Freedom Flame Award
Bridge Crossing Jubilee
Selma, Ala.

July 20-25, 2014
International AIDS Conference
Melbourne, Australia




 
Book George Curry for a Speech
Lectern











Let Curry Spice Up Your Next Event 
Quick Links
 
Join Our Mailing List!
"Keeping it Real
with Al Sharpton "
Al Sharpton Headshot
 
.
Listen to George Curry on Al Sharpton's radio show every Friday, 2:30-4:00 p.m., EST
 
 

 

Austin says: "It's time to get an early jump on your tax returns. Let my Dad help you."

 Derek Ragland

Owner

Liberty Tax Service
805 Glynn St. South
Suite 139
Fayetteville, Ga. 30214

678/817-4500
DerekRagland@
gmail.com

 

"We service clients throughout the U.S." 

Books by George E. Curry 

 

Emerge

 

The Best of Emerge Magazine
Edited by
George E. Curry

 

"This whopper of an anthology perfectly captures black life and culture...This retrospective volume is journalism at its best: probing, controversial and serious...Although Emerge was devoted unequivocally to African-Americans, Curry's vision and editorship of this book will instruct, provoke and sometimes entertain or inspire any reader."
- Publishers Weekly

Order Book
AAction

 

 

 The Affirmative Action Debate
Edited by George E. Curry

"... Collects the leading voices on all sides of this crucial dialogue...the one book you need to understand and discuss the nation's sharpest political divide."
 
Order Book


 

 

Gaither Cover

 

 

 Jake Gaither: America's Most Famous Black Coach

 

By George E. Curry

"Curry has some telling points to make on the unlooked for effects of court-ordered desegregation."
- The New York Times
 
"... an excellent example of sports writing."
- Library Journal

Order Book

Featured Article
Kemba Smith book
 
Featured Article
Rosa book