Ben Smith, Politico
- As Barack Obama trekked through the Philadelphia suburbs, Northern Virginia, and Greensboro, N.C., in recent days, his campaign was ramping up a massive parallel effort in big cities like Detroit, Cleveland, and Miami.
In the largely black precincts of those metropolises, radio broadcasts blast constant reminders to vote for Obama, field organizers swarm, and megastars including Jay-Z, Russell Simmons, and LeBron James have led massive rallies, working to reach not just the substantial portion of the black community who regularly come out to vote, but the younger people and others who have never before cast a ballot.
Though the rallies are publicized, much of the advertising directed at black voters isn’t. Get-out-the-vote ads on radio and television aren’t released to the media, and the number of new voters Obama has registered is a closely-held secret. He is, however, leaving no stone unturned when it comes to registering African-American voters. The campaign has, for example, a major initiative aimed at turning barbershops and beauty parlors into voter registration offices. This week, Kimora Lee Simmons’ E! Network reality show, Life in the Fab Lane, carried a campaign ad at the bottom of the screen reminding citizens to register to vote.
