Can We Defeat the Racist Southern Strategy in 2012?

By Bob Wing*

Progressive America Rising

*Bob Wing has been an organizer since 1968 and was the founding editor of ColorLines magazine and War Times/Tiempo de Guerras newspaper. He lives in Durham, N.C. and can be contacted on Facebook. Thanks to Max Elbaum for his always insightful suggestions. This article was posted on Oct. 11, 2012.

The 2012 election is a pitched battle with race at the center.

It may not be “polite” to say this, but far from an era of “post racialism”, the United States is in a period of aggravated racial conflict. Though often denied and certainly more complex than the frontal racial confrontations of the past, race is the pivot of the tit-for-tat political struggle that has gripped the country for the past twelve years and, indeed, for decades prior.

The modern era of this conflict jumped off with the white conservative backlash against the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and has been deepened by their decades-long fearful reaction to the dramatic change in the color of the U.S. that resulted from the civil rights-motivated immigration reform act of 1965.

The conflict heated to a boil when white conservatives flatly rejected the legitimacy of the “premature” victory of our first Black president in 2008. Nearly 40 percent of Republicans are so enraged they cannot even admit that Obama is a U.S. citizen. Isn’t this really another way of saying they refuse to recognize a Black man as the president? Or perhaps it is the white conservatives’ modern day Dred Scott decision declaring Obama a Black man that has no rights that they are bound to respect?

The bottom line is that we have now come to a point where voters of color are so numerous and so united behind Obama that, to be victorious, Mitt Romney must carry a higher percentage of the white vote than any modern Republican candidate has ever won. If recent trends among voters of color hold, he must carry about 63 percent of white voters. Not even Reagan won more than 61 percent.

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Saving Obama, Saving Ourselves

 

By Tom Hayden

Progressive America Rising

The threat of a Romney-Ryan regime should be enough to convince a narrow American majority to vote for Barack Obama, including the disappointed rank-and-file of social movements.

A widening of economic and racial inequality. Cuts in Medicare and Medical. More global heating. Strangling of reproductive rights. Unaffordable tuition. The Neo-cons back in the saddle. Two or three more right-wing Supreme Court appointments to come. Romney as Trojan horse for Ryan the stalking horse and future presidential candidate.

The consolidation of right-wing power would put progressives on the defensive, shrinking any organizing space for pressuring for greater innovations in an Obama second term.

Where, for example, would progressives be without the Voting Rights Act programs such as Planned Parenthood, or officials like Labor Secretary Hilda Solis or EPA administrator Lisa Jackson?

But the positive case for More Obama and Better Obama should be made as well. History will show that the first term was better than most progressives now think. A second-term voter mandate against wasteful wars, Wall Street extravagance, and austerity for the many, led by elected officials including Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Barbara Lee, Raul Grijalva, Jim McGovern and Keith Ellison, would be a target-rich field of opportunities as they say in the Pentagon.

Why Obama's achievements are dismissed or denied by many on the white liberal-left is a question worth serious consideration. It may only be a matter of legitimate disappointment after the utopian expectations of 2008. It could be pure antipathy to electoral politics, or a superficial assessment of how near-impossible it is to change intransigent institutions. It could be a vested organizational interest in asserting there is no difference between the two major parties, a view wildly at odds with the intense partisan conflicts on exhibit every day. Or it could even be a white blindness in perceptions of reality on the left. When African American voters favor Obama 94-0 [that's right] and the attacks are coming from the white liberal-left, something needs repair in the foundations of American radicalism.

I intend to explore these questions further during the election season. The point here is that they cumulatively contribute to the common liberal-left perception that Obama is only a man of the compromised center, a president who has delivered nothing worse celebrating. The anger with Obama on the left, combined with broad liberal disappointment with the last three years, results in a dampened enthusiasm at the margins which could cost him the election.

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Will Young People Vote This Year?

Key 2012 Demographic: 30% of

Young Voters Still Undecided

By Susan Saulny
Progressive America Rising via The New York Times

Maria Verdugo, a 20-year-old graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, barely remembers the presidential election of 2008 -- the one that spawned a youth movement that was singular in its scope and political effectiveness -- except for "something about Obama saying we needed a change."

These days, Ms. Verdugo is so busy working to pay off her student loans that she has not decided whether to register "as a Democrat, a Republican, or what," she says.

Chad Tevlin, 19, a student trying to pay for college by cleaning portable toilets in South Bend, Ind., cannot recall if he registered to vote at all. "Pointless" is how he describes politics.

And Kristen Klenke, a music student in central Michigan, has decided to skip this election altogether. "I know it sounds horrible," said Ms. Klenke, 20. "But there's a lot of discouragement going around."

In the four years since President Barack Obama swept into office in large part with the support of a vast army of youth, a new corps of young men and women have come of voting age with views shaped largely by the recession. And unlike their counterparts in the Millennial generation who showed high levels of enthusiasm for Mr. Obama at this point in 2008, the nation's first-time voters are less enthusiastic about him, are significantly more likely to identify as conservative and cite a growing lack of faith in government in general, according to interviews, experts and recent polls.

Polls show that Americans younger than 30 are still inclined to support Mr. Obama by a wide margin. But the president may face a particular challenge among those voters ages 18 to 24. In that age group, his lead over Mitt Romney -- 12 points -- is about half what it is among 25- to 29-year-olds, according to an online survey this spring by the Harvard Institute of Politics. And among whites in the younger group, Mr. Obama's lead vanishes altogether.

Among all 18- to 29-year-olds, the poll found a high level of undecided voters -- 30 percent indicated that they have not yet made up their mind. And turnout among this group is expected to be significantly lower than for older voters.

"The concern for Obama, and the opportunity for Romney, is in the 18- to 24-year-olds who don't have the historical or direct connection to the campaign or the movement of four years ago," said John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Institute of Politics.

Experts say the impact of the recession and slow recovery should not be underestimated. The newest potential voters -- some 17 million people -- have been shaped more by harsh economic times in their formative years than anything else, and that force does not tend to be galvanizing in a positive way.

Indeed, for 18- and 19-year-olds, the unemployment rate as of May was 23.5 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For those ages 20 to 24, the rate falls to 12.9 percent, compared with the national unemployment rate for all ages, at 8.2 percent. The impact of the recession on the young had created a disillusionment about politics in general, several experts suggested.

Today, specifically, the youngest potential voters are more likely than their older peers to think that it is important to protect individual liberties from government, the Harvard data suggest, and less likely to think that it is important to tackle things like climate change, immigration reform or health care. Mr. Tevlin, for instance, found the Supreme Court's upholding of the Affordable Care Act troubling. "I don't think the government should force you to buy anything," he said.

Brandon Dennis is one voter who says he is open to someone new. Mr. Dennis, 20, comes from a black family of Obama supporters. But when he came of age to vote, he registered as an independent. He is listening to Mr. Romney's appeals. "This time, it's more about what you're going to do for the economy," said Mr. Dennis, a chemistry major at Clark Atlanta University.

First Published 2012-07-02 00:22:09

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It's Not Over Yet - Keep on Truckin'

Photo: Hayden at Antiwar Action

Obama Has FDR's Gifts:
Oratory & Pragmatism,
But Can He Restore US?

By Tom Hayden
Progressives for Obama

The collapse of American finance capitalism, being an event beyond the control of Karl Rove and the Republican apparatus, may well be the decisive factor in electing Barack Obama president. Or so say the pundits. That analysis, however, underestimates the risks that lie ahead this final week before the election and the qualities of Obama's campaign that enable him to take advantage of this crisis.

Despite the biggest crash since 1929, the closeness of the election already suggests that a masked American racism is alive and well. The hidden racial factor is immeasurable, and the threats to Obama will increase as he nears the victory line. There will be nothing easy on Election Day, as polling places will surely be overwhelmed with voters.



If John McCain wins, yet another generation will learn the bitter lesson of our continuing prejudice. The neoconservatives will have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. The lines will be drawn. A larger Democratic Congress will try to counterbalance McCain, at best plunging the country straight into the 2012 confrontation.

But Obama has the edge.

He continues to break all fundraising records, a bottom-up trend which began with the internet-driven solicitations for MoveOn.org and the Howard Dean campaign, estimated to be $230 million in 2003-2004. Meanwhile, a silent army of Obama volunteers is preparing a historic get-out-the-vote campaign. Their effort is qualitatively different than past operations, which mostly consisted of out-of-state staffers occupying a handful of battleground arenas, ignoring local groups, treating voters like consumers and packing their bags the moment the election was over. While the Obama campaign deploys paid staff, too, the difference is that they are judged by community-organizing standards, which means empowering neighborhood teams from the streets up, leaving a vast new resource in place after the election.

Obama's story of rejecting a Wall Street career for community organizing in Chicago resonates now more than ever. He has introduced the model of community organizing not only as an alternative campaign model but as an alternative career model.

This new generation of Obama organizers will become the source of social activism for decades to come.

If Obama wins, November will be a turning point in the past decade's struggle to make every vote count, and a culmin-ation of voter-registration campaigns begun many years ago in the Deep South, where today it is possible that Obama will win actually one or two states. Voter turnout will swamp the polling places. Election chicanery is thriving again. It will be a brutal and contested day.

Third-party voters could still throw the election to McCain. The 2004 margins in close states are instructive: Kerry won Wisconsin by 0.38 percent, New Hampshire by 1.37 percent, Pennsylvania by 2.5 percent; he lost Iowa by 0.67 percent, New Mexico by 0.79 percent, Ohio by 2.11 percent and Nevada by 2.59 percent. Obama is bettering Kerry's numbers in those states, but the race could tighten and boil down to third-party voters. If there is an Obama victory, countless tears will flow among people carrying the deep post-traumatic stress disorder of our generation. To those now filled with hope and those allowing themselves to hope again, defeat might be unbearable. On the day after, the work will begin anew for those who really want change in America. The current debate over Wall Street contains a populist streak but little progressive content. The initial $750 billion bailout package - now climbing toward $2 trillion - was a gift to those responsible for the crisis, with only modest regulatory conditions attached. We are very far from the "Green New Deal" that some dream about. Congress has not suggested transferring funds from the Iraq war to energy conservation and renewables.

It is difficult to imagine waiting until late January for a progressive reworking of the Wall Street package. Immediately after the election, Congress is likely to go into special session with a president-elect among the sitting senators. Anti-war and environmental forces need to make themselves heard in the din of debate. The paradox is that the time has come for economic democracy, just as its advocates have waned in influence and resources.

The stark fact is that the current bailout package will so strain the federal budget as to threaten the health-care and green-jobs agendas. Perversely, the good news is that the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other fronts will become increasingly difficult to fund as well.

The New Deal began slowly and gradually, with personal acts of belt-tightening. The most famous New Deal programs - the Wagner Act, Social Security, the Works Progress Administration - were formulated conceptually in the heat of subsequent struggle. When America turned leftward in a time of factory occupations and liberal congressional majorities, Franklin Roosevelt had the ability to devise pragmatic yet radical measures to restore stability by extending democratic rights.

Obama has Roosevelt's gifts of oratory and pragmatism, but as yet there is little movement and no threat on the streets, only a predictable sense of personal shock when Obama needs a public storm.

Unlike Roosevelt, Obama cannot implement a traditional Keynesian public works program without an environmental underpinning, a green-jobs program which is just now being formulated. And unlike Roosevelt, Obama cannot prime the pump with more expenditures on war. Iraq alone costs $11 billion per month that could be invested in domestic priorities. The contradiction in the Obama campaign is that he generates a new historical force from below while relying on a small coterie of inside advisers at the top, individuals who are trained to believe in military intervention and market-based economics. The Obama campaign method, which has generated a superior ground game, is about mobilizing voters, not about generating policy input from the bottom up into the debates among his circle of advisers.

While Obama's 300 national-security advisers include many critics of the Iraq debacle, none would describe themselves as anti-interventionist, not to mention anti-imperialist. Nor are any of his economic advisers proposing to scrap or fundamentally revise the corporate-based protocols of the World Trade Organization or the North American Free Trade Agreement. They cautiously avoid attacking Sarah Palin on global warming and polar-bear extinction, while dropping their opposition to offshore drilling and nuclear power as too much "baggage." These counselors could be the newest version of The Best and Brightest.

Obama showed he could dissent from this Democratic orthodoxy when he stood against the Iraq war when it truly was out of fashion. He may prove willing to reconsider whether Afghanistan and Pakistan are winnable wars in any moral or strategic sense, or whether they are driven too much by the Democratic fear of looking weak. He may be forced, like Roosevelt, toward Keynesian economics with green amendments from Al Gore.

But to revise his course in a progressive direction, he will need a movement, clear and passionate, on the inside and outside, transcending the quibbling cliques that proclaim themselves national progressive organizations. He will have to allow the movement that elected him an effective, independent voice in setting the policy agenda.

The Republican fallback strategy will be to foil Obama by mobilizing an extreme countermovement against his agenda. Only a stronger social movement, empowered by rising expectations, might save his presidency from the strain of military, economic and political stalemates and deliver on the promise of real change in America. Tom Hayden is a lifelong peace and human-rights activist, former California legislator, professor and author of more than 15 books. scene@clevescene.com

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An Appeal to Third Party Voters

Photo: Barack Victory Helps Greens

Make the
Difference
for Obama

BY Tom Hayden
Progressives for Obama

Progressive voters leaning towards Ralph Nader or other third party candidates could make the difference between Barack Obama winning or losing the presidency.

Being marginal myself, I am very aware of how decisive third-party voters can be. I won the Democratic nomination to the California senate by less than one-percent in 1992. In the final two weeks, I mailed out an appeal to Green Party voters in my district, urging them to switch parties in order to vote for me. The mailer included cards to re-register from Green to Democrat for the primary, and another card to register again as a Green once the primary was over. Those hundreds of votes made the difference.

Late in 2000, I found myself enmeshed in torrid conversations between the Gore and Nader campaigns. The process wasn’t good. The Democrats were trying to push Nader off the ballot anywhere they could, thus refusing to recognize his core interest in establishing a new party. The Nader people refused to acknowledge that there was any difference between Gore and Bush, and denied that their votes could affect the outcome. My “Gore-Nader” proposal – that Nader endorse Gore in Florida and other close states, and become our most important progressive advocate in Washington after a Gore victory – went nowhere because Nader would have none of it.


So much was at stake in 2000 that, to this day, the wounds then inflicted have not healed. One side [in the tens of millions] believes that Iraq and the Alito Court would have been avoided and the first environmental presidency would have been launched. The other side [a few thousand] denies that the Nader vote caused Gore to lose Florida.

Rather than scrape those scabs one more time, my proposal is that progressives thinking of voting third party this time consider the historic chance to elect Barack Obama president. Such an open gesture would be enormously important to the people who most fervently favor Obama – young people, African-Americans, Latinos, and labor for example – and go a long way to heal and unify the progressive movement this time around.

Many of those Obama supporters share the criticisms of Obama made by the third party advocates – that he needs more pressure on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, domestic spying, trade. But there is no sympathy, no comprehension, only something between irritation and rage, towards the third-party view that it doesn’t matter if John McCain wins and Barack Obama loses.

It is hard for many to grasp that an infintesimal fraction of voters could deny progressive hope and revive the failing fortunes of the neo-conservatives and the right-wing evangelicals. It is possible that Obama, fueled by the Wall Street economic scandal, will pull away, in which case everyone can vote their first preference.

But with 29 days left before the election, it is crystal clear that racism and other forms of submerged resistance are blocking an Obama runaway victory.

If this race is like 2004, here are some reminders of how close it will be. Democrats lost Iowa by 10,059 votes, or .67%. Democrats won Wisconsin by 11,384 votes, or .38%, and New Hampshire with 9, 274 votes, just 1.37%.

Now look at today’s electoral map, as detailed by RealClearPolitics.com. Obama leads by six percent, 49.3-43.3 in a national average, by four percent in the ABC-Washington Post calculations, and only three percent in the Democracy Corps poll. When you include and Nader and Bob Barr in the count, Obama’s six-point lead is cut by nearly one-third, to 4.2 % [47.5% over McCain’s 43.3, with Nader at 2.5% and Barr at 1.5%.] Cynthia McKinney and others are not included.

These projections cannot estimate the numbers of new voters or the turnout of African-Americans who will offset Obama’s losses among some conservative Democrats. But neither can they fathom whether six percent of white voters who say they are voting for Obama will wind up secretly voting for the white man, which is the historic pattern.

That means that the national numbers, for now, are dead even. If that pattern holds, the third-party left can make a big difference in ensuring a majority vote for Obama by increasing their support in safe states like California and New York.

When we get down into the key electoral college states, it doesn’t matter if solid red state voters drift from McCain to Nader or others. Where it matters decisively is in states like Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and North Carolina, where there are crucial progressive pockets.

At this point, the map shows these states too close to call:

- Ohio, Obama by 3%.
- Wisconsin, Obama by 5%.
- Virginia, Obama by 4.9%
- Florida, Obama by 3%.
- Colorado, Obama by 3%.
- Nevada, Obama by 1.8%
- Indiana, McCain by 2.2%
- North Carolina, Obama by 0.5%

Perhaps these states will turn decisively to Obama. We may know in ten days. But at this moment, the Obama movement needs all the votes at the margin.

Third party voters should watch the polls very carefully, and think long and hard about the choice presenting itself.

In the face of McCain-Palin, is it possible to argue that there is no difference between the candidates this time? Is it really credible to argue that voting for Nader individually doesn’t matter because it doesn’t matter to the outcome, which seems to be Nader’s argument for the 2000 Florida result?

In addition to voting for Obama, third party activists can make a huge local difference in fighting to see that every vote counts in states with unreliable registrars, histories of stolen elections, and long cold lines on election nights. This will be a street battle for democracy that citizens of every persuasion should engage in.

In the end, the only question in November is the basic question of which side you are on, a question that goes back decades and centuries and which this generation has the historic opportunity to answer.

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Youth Vote: Critical Battleground Everywhere

[Note: A second article appended stresses the financial crisis on youth and students]

26,000 Young Voters
in Virginia brave
rain for Obama rally

By Rachael Dickson
Youth Vote 2008 Correspondent

Fredericksburg, VA, Sept. 28, 2008 - Thousands of Sen. Barack Obama's supporters cheered him Saturday night as he spoke through the pouring rain at University of Mary Washington.

According to UMW student Peter Ceo, a College Democrats member, people started arriving at the event at 10 a.m., nine hours before the Democratic presidential nominee and his vice presidential running mate, Sen. Joseph Biden, arrived.

"The line was well over half a mile long this morning," Ceo said.

Virginia is a key state in this year's election as the landscape is changing from a historically conservative state to more liberal in recent years.


According to The Washington Post, Jay Snipes, chief of the University of Mary Washington police force, estimated that 12,000 people were at the rally and another 14,000 were unable to get in after the United States Secret Service stopped allowing people in around 5 p.m.

The large, diverse and fiercely loyal crowd withstood the afternoon's high heat and humidity, which left many dehydrated. Though event volunteers passed out water bottles to the densely packed crowd, at least two attendees were observed taken away by emergency medical staff.

Later, when the sky opened up and it began to pour, the audience shielded itself with trash bags, jackets, Obama/Biden signs, blankets and whatever came to hand. Much of the press members took shelter, wrapping expensive cameras in ponchos as they retreated to a tent reserved for the traveling press or ducked under the risers.

Obama's supporters took the opportunity to dance and sing in the rain to the music pumping out over the loud speakers- a mix of classics such as Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and newer songs such as "Move Along" by the All-American Rejects.

The sun came out and dried the crowd in time for a few preliminary speakers to give abbreviated speeches before Biden and Obama arrived. Fredericksburg's state Sen. Edward Houck jazzed up the audience by leading cheers commenting on last night's first presidential debate.

"Who won the debate last night?" Houck said, smiling at the crowd's roaring answer of "Obama." "The difference between Obama and McCain could not have been more obvious."
He also commented on the importance of registering to vote, saying, "All across America we have the opportunity to reach out and touch the future."

Raucous cheers greeted Biden and Obama as they walked out on the stage. Biden began the program to cheers of "Joe! Joe!" by talking about the differences between Obama and McCain at the debate.

"Last night McCain's silence was definite," Biden said. "You did not hear him say the words middle-class or working class once."

Biden also criticized McCain's foreign policy positions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"We need more than a brave soldier," Biden said. "We need a wise leader. And that's Barack Obama."

Obama cracked a joke to begin his speech.

"I know some of you got a little damp, and I'm deeply sorry," he said. "Those of you wearing that special outfit, I would like to cover everyone's dry cleaning bills tonight, but I can't cause I got to use it on the campaign. So consider it one more modest effort to help the campaign."

Later on in his speech, as another deluge of rain began, Obama took off his jacket after joking about his own dry-cleaning bills and then proceeded to continue speaking to the crowd for another ten minutes, without cover.

Obama also spoke on the debate, calling McCain "out-of-touch" and saying ""On issue after issue, you heard John McCain make the case for more of the same."

He also joked about McCain's use of "change" in recent political advertising by saying
"Change is more than a slogan."

Obama referred to McCain's lack of mention of the words "middle-class" or "working-class" by saying "In 90 minutes, John McCain had a lot to say about me- but he had nothing to say to you...We need a president who will change the economy so it finally works for your family."
Obama spoke of the American dream to succeed as well, saying, "In America, our destiny
isn't written for us, it's written by us."

After talking for almost half an hour, Obama said good night to the crowd, leaving the stage with Biden. The crowd dispersed quickly, eager to get to their dry cars and dry-cleaning bills.

[Rachael Dickson is a junior at George Mason University and an award-winning journalist who works as a freelance contributor for WashingtonPost.com's LoudounExtra.com.]

----------------

September 26, 2008

Failing Economy Has
Young Voters Worried

For young Americans, it’s the economy too, stupid.

A new Rock the Vote poll of voters ages 18-29 has found that 41 percent said the next president’s first concern should be the economy, compared with just 17 percent who listed it as their chief concern in February. Eleven percent said gas prices were most important, while the war in Iraq and the cost of higher education garnered 10 percent each.

Although young voters have changed their focus to the economy, their presidential choice remains steady: The poll found that Barack Obama leads John McCain, 56 percent to 29 percent, among young voters. Those voters also appeared likely to defy the idea that they won’t turn out at the polls: 87 percent said they planned to vote, compared with 82 percent in February.

“Democrats are winning big this year among young voters, and young voters’ high level of engagement has the potential to turn into record turnout at the polls,” said Celinda Lake, president of Lake Research Partners, which helped conduct the poll. “Senator Obama nearly doubles Senator McCain’s vote share, Congressional Democrats lead by more than 20 points, and young people want change. Every Democratic campaign should pay close attention to the growing youth movement.”

Though just 2 percent of those polled said they considered climate change as their top concern, an advocacy group is hoping a wind farm will change that. Starting with tonight’s presidential debate at the University of Mississippi, Power Vote will be installing 30 nine-foot-tall windmills at each of the debate sites, as well as various other college campuses, to encourage the use of clean energy.

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'Watching Party,' Beaver County Style

Photo: Obama rally in Beaver County

The Debate Highlights
A Hard Battle Here,
But Tough Fighters, Too



By Carl Davidson
Progressives for Obama

An Obama-McCain 'Debate Watching' party in Beaver County last night, Sept. 26, 2008, promised to be a fun evening, but it also offered as good an occasion as any to measure the progress, tasks, and difficulties of the Obama campaign here in Western Pennsylvania.

The polls here are currently giving Obama a slight edge, but there are too many wild cards to put anyone at ease.

I got my invitation to one of these events about two hours before the party began, and changed plans quickly to attend. It was pulled together by the young volunteers of the county's Obama campaign in partnership with Local 712 of the IBEW, SEIU activists, and some organizers with the 4th CD Progressive Democrats of America.



The union hall is on Sassafras Lane near a strip of small businesses and nonprofit agencies in Vanport, PA a working class suburb next to Beaver, the county seat. Beaver is relatively stable with government offices and a large medical center, but just a few miles in any direction are the distressed mill towns of Midland, Beaver Falls, Monaca, New Brighton, Rochester, Baden, Aliquippa, and Ambridge. The old village of Shippingport, is home to a big energy complex and the country's first nuke plant.

All the industry here in the post-WW2 years meant plenty of work then for the IBEW and many other workers. But everyone feels the tough conditions of globalized de-industrialization now, and it was a natural to see stacks of 'Workers for Obama-Biden' posters at the door.

'Is this where we watch the fights tonight?', I asked a bunch of young apprentices gathered for a smoke outside the door. They laughed and said I was at the right place, followed with some friendly sports banter about whether McCain was 'the Great White Hope' or the 'Great White Dope.''

Inside a young Obama worker, Chris, is hooking up a laptop and projector to stream the video of the debate onto a giant screen. Together, we figure out how to get the blue tones right. Three young African American women, Obama volunteers from New Brighton, just across the river, are discussing how some people they've canvassed haven't a clue about the difficulties bringing up kids compared with what Sarah Palin's daughter faces. An older white union worker starts talking with them about attending a dinner and rally to bring more manufacturing back to the Ohio River Valley.

But a quick look at the room shows this place is used by people who take elections seriously, warts and all. The walls are hung with county maps of the 4th CD, with critical townships highlighted. On a long row of tables are neatly stacked piles of folders, labeled by township and precincts, with lists of registered union voters inside, each one tagged with the number of workers needed on the canvass team. This is where the Saturday morning 'Labors Walks' of doorknockers are pulled together, and it's clear that a quality of the working class, as well as the Obama volunteers, is knowing more than a little about organization. The walks will take place every weekend up to the big mobilization on Election Day.

More people arrive and start filling the room, laying out a spread of snacks next to the coffee pot, beer, and wine. There are 30 or so altogether. About half are older white electrical workers, letter carriers, and younger service employees, with a few PDA people; the other half is a rainbow of young Obama volunteers.

An Obama staffer, Kyra Ricci, comes up to greet me, thanking me for helping them earlier with some media work. Like all of them, she's wired and tired, working 16 hour days every day. 'But it's less than 40 days to go, we'll make it', she says. Both she and Chris query me about other campaigns were like in Chicago, going back to Obama's first run. I explain that I started before that, with Jesse Jackson's runs, and Harold Washington's victories. I give them my five-minute short course on running independent campaigns against tough old machines.

I ask about the canvassing. 'We're getting down to the wire,' one union guy tells me. 'Some people tell me they're still making up their minds. I tell them, look, if you want me to stop bugging you, just declare one way or the other, if you really know but aren't saying. That way we won't waste each other's time, we can argue later, and I can get to more people in the next 39 days.'

A cheer goes up when the debate finally starts and the room darkens. People listen intently and excitedly to Obama, but started groaning at McCain. The first 'boos' start when he's defending taxes cuts for the rich: 'Why? So they'll invest it in cheap labor abroad?,' yells one older worker. Of course this room is self-selected and pro-Obama-there's no unbiased cross-section of voters here. But the response is interesting nonetheless.

The older workers shout out challenges to McCain on every economic point, especially health care. I'm sitting next to Randy Shannon of PDA and Charlie Hamilton of the postal workers, and they're comparing notes about the banking system's undue influences throughout. Charlie tells me he's retired. 'I am too,' I reply, 'but I've never been busier!' He laughs out loud. 'That's right, me too, and you know what? If you don't stay busy, you die early!'

The entire room, however, cheers Obama when he nails McCain on the war's being a fundamental mistake in the first place, that should never have been fought. The older workers laugh when McCain comes back that Obama doesn't understand 'strategy and tactics.' 'We'll teach him a thing or two about strategy and tactics,' say one worker.

I was a little surprised at the enthusiasm of some for Obama’s war talk on Afghanistan, where I think he needs a different and wiser approach. I bring it up my critical point on the matter later talking to two union officials and a few other workers.

But the most interesting reaction was at the very end, when McCain pulled out his POW experience. The older workers groan, 'Here we go again, you were a prisoner, give it a rest!' Now this is from a group that has considerable respect for this part of McCain's story--but 'that was then and this is now' is clearly the mood. They wanted more serious answers to serious current questions, and McCain had none, as least for them.

Everyone cheers when it's over. But Kyra, always on the ball, takes the center of the room before anyone can leave, and lays out the work plan: 'Don't forget, we can still register new voters right up to Oct. 6. We're driving them nuts down at the courthouse, bringing in batches of hundreds. But they thank us, sort of, for the overtime!"

Charlie tells me getting them registered is only the first step; getting them to the polls is even more important. 'Too many of these youngsters register, then forget to vote,' he says. 'We'll get them, we've got the lists, we'll knock on their doors, give them a ride,' Kyra answers. 'No slackers allowed,' I laugh, and then tell a funny story about a ward election in Chicago, where the machine was trying to beat us. I knocked on a door of some 'plus' voters, only to discover them in a little dalliance on the couch. 'Get dressed and get your butts to the polls, we need you,' I said. Sure enough, two minutes before we closed, the young couple came running in, breathless. It made my day, since my candidate won by only 150 votes.

Up front, Kyra continues getting everyone committed, but there's one important point that needs to be made here. This was a good gathering of union workers, housewives, young students, African Americans, PDA activists, and Obama workers. The AFL-CIO is campaigning for the Democratic ticket from top to bottom. Alongside the 'Workers for Obama-Biden' poster are a half-dozen stacks of posters and yard-signs for other local Democratic candidates. But none of them or their reps are here tonight.

It's called the 'Top of the Ticket' problem. When our Congressman Jason Altmire is out campaigning, he doesn't urge folks to vote for Obama. He will only say he expects Obama to win. This problem exists in many places where local Democratic incumbents or the old party machine never supported Obama or are now dragging their feet. There is fear that coming out solidly for Obama will cost them the votes of Democrats who are leaning towards McCain. They work their own campaigns, leaving 'the top of the ticket' to the Obama youth working their hearts out. The situation demands leadership from them, turning Hillary voters into Obama voters. Part of the problem is that racism infects the old boy network and it takes courage to buck it. Some are subtle, or try to be, but it's noticeable enough to spotlight it for progressive activists on the local level everywhere.

Bob Schmetzer, an official with the IBEW, is standing near the door chatting with some folks preparing to leave. Bob tells us he's investigated where McCain stands on veterans issues: 'I was surprised; his stands really suck.' He's making up a special flyer comparing Obama and McCain on the issue, with Obama coming out on top, to have his members take around to the many veterans organizations in Beaver County. 'Maybe it will open some eyes,' he says.

Finally, as I head toward the door, a white-haired woman, a union veteran, brings me to a dead stop, and looks me straight in the eye. 'We're going to win this,' she says. I hope so, I say, it's very tight, and everything counts. 'No,' she says with a steely look in her eyes and a resolute tone in her voice, 'We're going to win this. We have no choice.' Women like her are Obama's ace-in-the-hole, so let's do all we can to bring out and engage a million of them by Election Day.

[Carl Davidson is webmaster for 'Progressives for Obama' ( http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com) and a field organizer for the US Solidarity Economy Network (http://ussen.org ). Together with Jerry Harris, he is the author of CyberRadicalism: A New Left for a Global Age. Along with Jenna Allard a Julie Matthaei, he also edited the newly published 'Solidarity Economy: Building alternatives for People and Planet.' Both are available at lulu.com/stores/changemaker. He was founder and director of Peace and Justice Voters 2004 in Chicago, a past member of the steering committee of United for Peace and Justice, and a member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism ( http://cc-ds.org ). See http://carldavidson.blogspot.com for more information.]

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