Black voters describe a new motivation

[bigtree]

JACKSONVILLE, Florida
Tuesday, October 12, 2004

{snips}

"We feel betrayed," said Rod Owens, 22, a student at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee. "We're looking for revenge."

Black Americans, for four decades among the most reliable reservoir of Democratic support in presidential elections, now are also part of a torrent of new voter registrations in swing states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and others.

Here in Jacksonville, new voters in black neighborhoods were signing up at a pace two-thirds faster than in 2000. In Philadelphia, election officials reported the greatest surge of registrations in 21 years, resulting in more than 70,000 new voters added to the rolls since April, with growth heaviest in black sections. In Ohio, new registrations in Democratic strongholds, many of them black areas, have increased 250 percent over 2000.

In interviews here in northern Florida, in southwest Philadelphia and elsewhere, some two dozen black voters spoke about the broad band of issues that define their personal stakes in this campaign: the war in Iraq and what it means to a son or grandson in the military; the economy and how it shapes a bricklayer's week; the tax code and its effect on an independent business person's prospects; and the seats of aging Supreme Court justices, watched warily by a generation of business executives, many of whom began their climb to prosperity in a society freshly opened by the federal bench.

Much more: http://www.iht.com/articles/543046.html

[ibegurpard]

1. If African-Americans are the deciding factor in this election

then this country will owe them an undying debt of gratitude.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

7. We owe them for the debacle of 2000 period.

Embarrassing debacle that it was. And we should bring up Bush's fight against the Michigan diversity case the USSC ruled on last year.

[ibegurpard]

9. Absolutely

eom

[NMDemDist2]

2. god bless those fine people, every one of them

we have a customer who does charity work for her church at an old folks home, she got 7 or 8 voter reg forms from me over the last few months (i always had a few with me) and registered a bunch of the old folks.

she told me the old folks figured they didn't need to vote "my fight is done" and she shamed them into voting for their kids and grandkids so they wouldn't lose what the old folks had fought so hard for in the 60's

i love that gal! she is also taking a vacation day to drive them all to the polls on election day!

let's all say a little prayer of thanks to patriot activists like my friend Caroline

[TlalocW]

3. This is fantastic

There's nothing scarier to republicans than the African-American community getting out the vote.

TlalocW

[Heath.Hunnicutt]

5. It's so beautiful how these ugly four years are creating lasting backlash

Consequences couldn't be flailing around on a nicer bunch of white guys.

Everybody, stay registered and register your kids for their 18th birthdays.

[cheshire]

4. Good I white as they come and I'm mad as hell about that. To screw anyone

should be immediate jail time. If not public flogging.

[roseBudd]

6. As I street canvass in the innercity of SW Ohio I make a point of

asking the older men who stand or sit on the street corner to talk to the younger ones and to kick them in the butt, drag them by their ears, do whatever it takes to get our newly registered voters to the polls.

[qanda]

8. My cousin who hasn't voted in years was just over

And she said she has been having nightmares about Bush being elected by one vote and her missing vote being the one that put him over the top. When she left my house she was headed over to the Election's office to drop off her registration. The black community is fired up and we are not going to take four more years of Bush-- I have NEVER seen anything like it.

[dave502d]

10. One Americans now and forever.