I was reviewing some of the credentialed blogger coverage of the two political conventions this summer when I ran across this video of JC Watts. Watts is being interviewed by a credentialed blogger & he speaks about
posted by k @ 11:13 AM
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From Yahoo! News:
Bush, Kerry Campaign for Senior VotesCheck out the article.
President Bush and Sen. John Kerry vied for the senior vote Tuesday, swapping charges over Social Security and a looming shortage of flu vaccine two weeks before Election Day.
posted by k @ 5:48 PM
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Via Dr. Jinx Broussard:
With the presidential election less than a month away, voting rights activists in New Orleans, Miami and other Southern cities are gearing up to make sure that the polling is free and fair. Representatives of community-based, labor, faith- based and youth/student organizations gathered in New Orleans on October 1 and in Miami on October 2 to learn the process of election monitoring and how to train others as poll monitors. The day-long sessions were sponsored by Count Every Vote 2004 (CEV2004), an Atlanta-based nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to protecting the voting rights of underrepresented, marginalized populations.Source: Count Every Vote Newsletter, Oct 5 Edition
"Our goal is to train 800 monitors in nine Southern states who will, in turn, teach other volunteers how to oversee the national elections impartially," said Dr. Keith Jennings, CEV2004 training director and president of the African American Human Rights Foundation. "We expect that 9,000 election monitors will be in the field on November 2."
During the first half of October, CEV2004 is conducting eleven election monitoring trainings in cooperation with civil, human and labor rights organizations in Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, South Carolina and North Carolina. The Miami and New Orleans trainings were attended by volunteers and staff members of Voices for Working Families, a nonprofit, nonpartisan 527 voter education, registration and mobilization group.
The training in New Orleans came on the heels of voting irregularities in the September 18, 2004 local elections. Hundreds of voters in Orleans Parish were prevented from voting or were delayed when nearly 300 voting machines were not delivered on time to 52 polling places.
"I didn't realize that citizens had the right to monitor elections," said Gilda Burbank, one of 17 participants in the New Orleans training. "This coming election, it's imperative that African Americans as a people get out and vote."
CEV2004's trainings equip volunteers with the skills to observe, document and report on the election process. According to Dr. Jennings, an observer of international elections in 65 countries, the presence of election observers can deter irregularities and voter intimidation; reveal problems where they do exist; encourage voter participation and engagement; and restore public confidence in the legitimacy of the political process.
The training addressed several potential election violations, including voter intimidation, irregularities by election officials, improper functioning of the voting machines, the late opening or closing of the polls, the denial of the right to vote, and other problems.
Felicia Ricks, assistant state director of Voices for Working Families in Florida called the training "very informative." Referring to the checklist of election violations reviewed by Dr. Keith, she said the training equipped the seventy-five canvassers from her organization with the knowledge of "exactly what they're looking for." Voices has registered over 35,000 new voters in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, according to Ricks.
One of the Voices canvassers, 21-year-old Patrick Lindor, said, "The training taught me how to stand up for what I believe in and it makes our job easier."
In a recent guest editorial in the Washington Post, former president and veteran elections monitor Jimmy Carter said the international requirements for a free and fair election in Florida do not exist. He particularly pointed out that two elements are not in place in Florida-nonpartisan electoral officials and uniformity in voting procedures.
"Hundreds, perhaps thousands of African American voters were disenfranchised in the 2000 Florida election debacle and in the recent problems in New Orleans," Dr. Jennings commented. "The 2004 presidential election is as hotly contested as the 2000 election. We want to make sure that every vote counts."
posted by k @ 5:34 AM
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Blackcommentator.com offers commentary, analysis & investigations on issues affecting African Americans. Check out the previous issues section for a full listing of coverage.
[Via Dr. Jinx Broussard]
posted by k @ 5:30 AM
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Catching a flight out of San Francisco early this morning after a lovely fall holiday, I picked up a Chronicle and read a interesting article about the reconciliation (or lack thereof) of gays and the Republican Party. The article discusses the failure of an initially successful and influential group of gay Republican leaders who came together to better the relationship and image of the LGBT community and the GOP. You can check article out in full at the SFChronicle Web site, but I will give you an overview.
The authors explain how a small but prominent group of gay activists brought President Bush to the drawing table, spoke to him heart to heart and got the president to deliver on several of their requests. For example, the article sites Bush's decision to keep Clinton's anti-discrimination executive order, despite massive pressure from conservatives to repeal it. It also points out Bush's more than 40 gay or lesbian appointments in governmental positions, a record for a Republican. (Surprisingly, these are just two of about five examples the story talks about) Things for this small group were going great until a huge dark cloud came looming over their heads. The cloud was a little issue called gay marriage.
This changed everything. Bush received monstrous threats from conservative religious groups to support a constitutional amendment banning it, and he buckled. And by doing so, the group (they call themselves Austin 12 because the original meeting w/ Bush was in Austin) had to abandon their new found ally and accept failure. The article takes about how the individual members of Austin 12 could not go against their conscience. They each took Bush's support of an amendment denying them civil rights as a personal blow to the heart of their movement. And they quit.
Their are many aspects of this situation we could analyze and pick apart, but I think the main point here is that this group was trying a new approach to the same old political game and seriously trying to make progressive changes. Whether you agree with their political ideologies or not, the article points out how with compromise and work the government can address minority issues and be successful. But the majority truly wins out. In this case, it was the Christian conservatives that are deathly afraid of change that won and the minorities again were left by the waste side. The religious right lobby forced Bush to make a decision -- loose 4 million votes in November or appease 1 million gays? President Bush chose the majority, surprise, surprise.
posted by Leigh Shelton @ 1:42 PM
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Watching last night's town hall debate solidified my previously held thoughts that the candidates & campaigns focus too much on homogenous communities in the midwest. From the Iowa caucuses to campaigning in predominately white areas, I see the same faces in a campaign each year. These people don't look like modern America.
Yesterday Bush's blog post said that the Latino vote was where it is at. I tried, but I didn't see one Latino face in the crowd. Kerry has several community groups listed on his Web page (Africian Americans, Arab Americans, lesbian & gay community, etc.). But I barely saw these faces in the crowd either. The candidates obviously say they support & work for these minority communities ... but why are these communities going unrepresented in the town hall debate that is supposed to represent the voice of the average voter?
The average voter is not a middle-aged, midwest-living, white person. That is what I all I saw (with some exception) in the Gallup chosen Missouri audience last night. Diversity means more than allowing a few women & African Americans in the hall. That might explain why so few questions actually dealt with the minority issues we focus on here.
posted by k @ 9:26 AM
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The past week has been full of debates & now we're gearing up for debate #3. This time, I hope the candidates for president will address more "domestic issues." While the veep debate did cover some minority issues earlier this week, the last presidential debate (which was centered around foreign policy) didn't do much for our topic here. It is expected that tonight will provide more opportunity for us to see how the candidates differ on important minority issues.
Checking each candidate's blog, I already see that they are gearing up for the debate. President Bush's campaign blog posts about what one can expect tonight. While most of the post lingers on foreign policy issues, the last line in the post is promising:
"Latinos are the new swing voters" [NY Post article]
posted by k @ 12:05 PM
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African-American media personality Tavis Smiley addresses some aspect of the presidential campaign every day on his NRP show. Tomorrow he's hosting a conversation with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) to talk about the upcoming presidential election.
Last week, featured did a feature on the Top 10 Secrets They Don't Want You to Know About the Debates. On another note, Tom Joyner, another radio personality, also frequently discusses the election.
[via Dr. Jinx Broussard]
posted by k @ 7:24 PM
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Via Dr. Jinx Broussard:
Democratic Presidential Candidate Senator John Kerry has accepted BET's invitation for a prime time interview special to address African-American voters. This special will be televised Thursday, October 7 at 8 p.m. ET/PT, with an encore showing on Friday, October 8 at 11:30 p.m. ET/P.
posted by k @ 7:06 PM
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40 million women did not vote in the last election. Wow. That number is larger than the number of residents in the state of California.
Yesterday, Oprah hosted a "vote party" on her show. She had the A-list of Hollywood's engaged there - Cameron Diaz, Sean P-Diddy Combs & Drew Barrymore. The focus was on getting women & young voters to understand the importance to vote.
Quotable
Here are some quotes from the show:
posted by k @ 7:13 AM
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Chuck Olsen, a filmographer known for his documentaries on blogs, just posted a "History of Blogs" movie (.mov). The short piece talks about the history of blogging most of us know about (Blogger, LiveJournal) ... but then steps back into time to people just like the bloggers in this little corner of the net.
The original bloggers weren't bloggers because they had a computer a Blogger account. They were bloggers in spirit because they had something to say & a desire to communicate their ideas:
"Our very democracy was founded upon personal political writing intended to inform, motivate and bring like-minded people together to act. But somewhere along the line, mass media took over for the voice of the people."
And so today, with the other several million bloggers out there - we take our voices back. In this blog we discuss a topic important to us - minority issues - because we feel there is still room to have our voices heard.
posted by k @ 5:26 AM
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Everyone talks about how the campaigns are courting minority voters. But what does this really mean? Are they going to areas with a dense population of minorities? Are they talking about the issues important to minorities? Are they posting pictures of minority supporters?
In an effort to understand the face of the campaigns, I went to each candidate's Web site photo gallery today to see which faces made the cut to be included from the campaign events (Bush, Kerry). After all, these are the faces were are supposed to connect with & say "that person looks just like me & she supports him ..."
So how did they do? Overall, both candidates receive high marks for minority representation in their photo galleries.
Suggestions for improvements?
Don't make me go to your silly photo gallery - where are the minorities on the front pages? Only John Kerry had minorities (women, African American, seniors) on his front page ... & even then they were mixed in a crowd. Don't show me I'm just another face in the crowd, take the time to concentrate on me.
Overall, the Hispanic and Asian representations were next to nothing. Come on now, we have more minorities than just women, seniors, & African Americans. Let's diversify this definition of diversity.
posted by k @ 6:44 AM
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The great thing about blogs is that they give a ‘voice to the people.’ This election cycle in the United States, the people want to be heard. Our collective voices will help shed light on minority issues being covered by the candidates & the media – as well as those not being covered.
Who are we? We are a group of young citizen journalists in Louisiana who have come together to cover the election from this perspective.
Minorities can be people of different races, gender or sexual orientation. We don’t discriminate in our definition. Here you’ll find us compiling a non-partisan view of the election so you can decide which candidate best represents the minority issues you believe in.
And so, this is our ‘community project.’ Only, our community isn’t confined to our city or even our state. Our community is the nation. We hope that this project will serve that community by providing a non-partisan examination of minority issues in this election.
posted by k @ 7:57 PM
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As a community project, this blog looks at minority issues in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. Race, gender, age -- you name it, we cover the minority representation. This blog is a collaboration between Dillard University and Louisiana State University mass communication/journalism students.
