Black voter outreach becomes critical in light of continuing email scandal.
Black voter outreach becomes critical in light of continuing email scandal.
Hillary Clinton set Black Twitter on fire last week, and with the exception of Cam Newton’s AKA probate outfit, would’ve have won the weekend with her HBCU homecoming stops at North Carolina A&T State University and Bethune-Cookman University.
First up was Greensboro, where Clinton made an appearance at GHOE to the delight of an Aggie crowd still glowing from Barack Obama’s appearance earlier this month.
Hillary Clinton Surprises Students At UNCG, NCA&T
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Hillary Clinton made two unannounced stops in Greensboro following her campaign stop in Winston…www.wfmynews2.com
Next on the black college homecoming road trip was Daytona Beach, where she earned a place in one of the greatest Black Greek slander memes of all time.
Then she addressed the Wildcat homecoming crowd.
The objective was simple — get out the word to black college students on the importance of early voting and encouraging others to the same. Clinton’s numbers on the rate of African American voters participating in early voting have been lower than expected; despite having a lead nationally, the tallies have been down in the battleground states of North Carolina and Florida.
Early voting update: Positive signs for both parties in battleground states
The numbers include some good news for Republicans in Ohio and Iowa, and good news for Democrats in Florida, Arizona…www.cnn.com
The addition of early voting sites in North Carolina and her homecoming southeastern swing may do a lot of good in getting HBCU students and their associates and families out to vote, and without time to spare; Clinton’s campaign took a significant hit over the weekend with the ill-timed announcement of additional inquiry into the once-closed private email server scandal that jolted the summer months of her campaign.
In the meantime, Donald Trump’s campaign isn’t exactly surging in the polls or gaining new trust from African American voters, but is calling into question the choice between a perceived liar and a proven lunatic.
For Much Of Black America, Election 2016 Has Been Rough
Kalena Boller remembers exactly where she was during Barack Obama’s first presidential inauguration: at work. “I was…www.npr.org
There’s little Clinton can do to minimize the coverage or the spin on the email scandal; what she once thought was put to bed has sprung out of it and is running and screaming through the broadcast television sets on every major network and in every single news outlet. People aren’t talking about it, but it doesn’t mean that they aren’t thinking about it.
And when it comes to Nov. 8, how much black folks are thinking about it will come in to play. That’s why her continuing outreach to young black voters and activists remains key down this final stretch. She is not the first black candidate with a legitimate shot to run the country and to be Black Jesus; she is a white woman with a strong political legacy who is perceived to have a difficult relationship with ethics.
Without the outreach to a base the Trump isn’t quite ignoring but certainly is insulting, long lines for early voting and election day poll standing may dissuade a lot of people exhausted by the oversaturated campaign coverage to think that showing up and waiting for a result we don’t want isn’t worth the trouble.
Clinton better find her way to more HBCUs in the coming days, to energize more young voters who will get their friends and families to make social outings of heading to the polls. The same young people who signed black folks up to vote in the last four years, the same young people who carried Obama to the White House for two consecutive terms, the same young people who will be scared out of their minds of a Trump presidency (or even a Trump defeat) will come out for Clinton if she talks to them.
But, as we say with most issues facing HBCUs, coming through to homecoming just isn’t going to get the job done.
