President Obama Should Say Yes to the NAACP Convention

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

An Obama will again address the NAACP’s annual convention starting July 9 in Kansas City. It just won’t be President Obama. First Lady Michelle Obama will give a talk, and it’s not really billed as a keynote talk, more an informal workshop type discussion on her signature issue, the campaign against childhood obesity. She’s not listed in the confab’s ten-page schedule of speakers, panels and workshops.

There are two thoughts about the president’s no-show at the convention. One — he’s adhering to his avowed, cautious goal of doing and saying nothing that belies his race neutral stance as the president of all the people. An appearance or a message to the convention wouldn’t violate that. He appeared last year and there was no issue. And every Democratic and GOP president including Reagan and W. Bush has either spoken to the convention or delivered a message to the convention since there’s been an NAACP convention. With the exception of Bush, and only because he boycotted the convention for the first six years of his White House tenure, presidential addresses raise no eyebrows.

 

The other thought is that Obama fears that an appearance before a racial
advocacy group like the NAACP will give more ammunition to the Obama
loathers, Palin, and tea party activists. This is even less plausible. A
no-show at the NAACP convention won’t do anything to stop their
non-stop pounding of his agenda and him. And he almost certainly knows
that.

Obama did not give an official reason why he’s skipping the convention.
But one can fill in the surface blank. His plate groans with Afghanistan
funding and logistic problems, putting the finishing touches on the
financial reform bill, the BP spill, and the looming fight over energy
reform bill, stalled jobless funding bills, and the never-ending press
of requests to promote Democratic candidates.

These are all plausible reasons for skipping the convention. But there
are problems with his no-show. He’ll be in Kansas City the day before
the start of the convention to attend a fundraiser for Democratic Senate
hopeful Robin Carnahan; so isn’t a schedule tweak possible? If not, a
video message from Obama to the convention is certainly more than
doable. An appearance or a message from him is the politically
expedient, practical, and just simply the right thing to do.

The black vote has been the Democrats’ trump card in every election for
the past half century, win or lose. If black voters had not turned the
2008 Democratic presidential primaries into a virtual holy crusade for
Obama, and if Obama had not — openly in the South Carolina primary and
subtly in primaries thereafter — stoked the black vote, he could easily
have been just another failed Democratic presidential candidate. Through
its voter education, vote awareness, and get-out-the-vote campaigns,
the NAACP played a colossal role in galvanizing and boosting the numbers
of black voters, nearly all votes for Obama.

This is not old history. The 2010 mid-term elections are fast
approaching. Political analysts, pundits, and even Democratic
consultants are near unanimous that the Democrats will lose seats in
Congress to Republicans. The only real question is how bad the political
hemorrhaging will be.

A solid and united GOP, and droves of independents who are
disillusioned, disgusted, and even hostile toward Obama, should make the
black vote loom even bigger in Obama’s calculus. There’s little margin
of error with this vote. He needs a reasonable facsimile of the November
2008 black vote outpouring to save as many Democratic seats as
possible, and serve as a partial shield against the withering non-stop
assault from the GOP leaders, tea party activists, Palin, and Limbaugh
on his agenda and his person.

It’s the right thing to do. For the past half century, the NAACP has
fought tough battles in the courts and the streets for voting rights,
affirmative action, school integration, and an end to housing and job
discrimination. The group still accurately captures the mood of fear and
hostility the majority of blacks feel toward the Republicans and the
chronic Obama-bashers. Whether Obama appears, sends a message, or simply
comes and quickly departs Kansas City the day before the convention,
the NAACP will still exhort, implore, and cajole blacks to vote, which
again means votes for Democrats. The aim is to insure maximum support
for Obama’s agenda and to do damage control against GOP attacks.

Obama needs the NAACP and the NAACP needs Obama. He’s still their best
hope to hold the line against the GOP assault on job-, education- and
healthcare- spending and programs, as well as the fight for immigration
reform, and the always crucial Supreme Court appointments. These are
bread and butter issues and concerns for Obama and the NAACP. President
Obama should say yes to the NAACP convention.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book
is How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage
Press). Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/earlhutchinson.