Some of McCain’s black relatives support Obama
October 16, 2008
ELGIN JONES, South Florida Times
- In the rural Teoc community of Carroll County, Miss., where the ancestors of Sen. John McCain owned enslaved Africans on a plantation, black, white and mixed-race family members unite every two years for their Coming Home Reunion, on the land where the plantation operated.
Some of McCain’s black family members say they are not sure exactly where they fall on the family tree, but they do know this: They are either descendants of the McCain family slaves, or of children the McCains fathered with their slaves.
White and black members of the McCain family have met on the plantation several times over the last 15 years, but one invited guest has been conspicuously absent: Sen. John Sidney McCain.
“Why he hasn’t come is anybody’s guess,” said Charles McCain Jr., 60, a distant cousin of John McCain who is black. “I think the best I can come up with, is that he doesn’t have time, or he has just distanced himself, or it doesn’t mean that much to him.”
Other relatives are not as generous.
Obama’s Ambitious Urban Renewal Agenda: New Schools, More Jobs, Community Policing
October 15, 2008
Michael H. Cottman, BlackAmericaWeb.com
- While Barack Obama holed up at a lakefront resort preparing for his final debate against Republican John McCain tonight, his surrogates on Tuesday extolled the Democratic senator’s expanded urban renewal agenda to rebuild dilapidated schools and create jobs and affordable housing in America’s inner cities.
Indeed, as Obama talks on the stump about the need to improve the quality of life for everyone, the message from African-American politicians and business leaders who embrace his vision is that blacks will have a staunch advocate in the White House – someone who will listen to their concerns and address their problems – if Obama is elected Nov. 4.
At the heart of Obama’s proposal – a plan that hasn’t received much attention on national television – is his ambitious plan to overhaul the nation’s urban centers, city by city.
Is Obama Doing Enough to Get Out the Black Vote?
October 15, 2008
Steven Gray, Time
- For weeks, Charles Cherry II has tried to get Florida’s Republican Party to buy ads promoting Senator John McCain on the seven African- American targeted radio stations and two newspapers that make up part of the Cherry family’s sprawling Tampa business empire, the largest black-owned media entity in the Sunshine State. The ads would have enabled McCain to make his case to potentially millions of black Floridians, about 13% of whom voted for President Bush in 2004. Instead, Cherry, 52, recalls a Republican official saying, “We’re ceding the black vote in Florida to Obama.” Last week, Cherry’s statewide newspaper, the Florida Courier, featured a house ad asking, “Why aren’t Crist [Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who was elected in 2006 with 18% of the black vote] and John McCain campaigning in Black Florida?”
But if the McCain campaign is writing off the black vote, some say Obama is taking it for granted. It wasn’t until three weeks ago that Obama’s campaign bought two half- page Courier ads for $3,000 each, and a half-page ad in Cherry’s other newspaper, the Daytona Times, for $1,500. The Democratic National Committee and Obama’s campaign, Cherry says, bought a 60-second “register to vote” ad to run on WPUL-AM in Daytona Beach five times a day, for seven days, ending on Oct. 5, the eve of Floridians’ last day to register to participate in next month’s elections. There are no more orders for ads. “The Democrats will spend pennies on black voters, when they spend dollars on the general population,” says Cherry, an Obama supporter. Given the stakes in Florida, and Obama’s unprecedented fundraising success, Cherry adds, “It’s a wasted opportunity, and it’s going to show up at the polls.”
Cherry’s sentiment reflects the broader anxiety and frustration about Obama’s candidacy that persists in many segments of black America. While the campaign has successfully increased voter registration levels among blacks, getting them to the polls is a very different matter.
McCain Transition Chief Aided Saddam In Lobbying Effort
October 14, 2008
Murray Waas, Huffington Post
- William Timmons, the Washington lobbyist who John McCain has named to head his presidential transition team, aided an influence effort on behalf of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to ease international sanctions against his regime.
The two lobbyists who Timmons worked closely with over a five year period on the lobbying campaign later either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal criminal charges that they had acted as unregistered agents of Saddam Hussein’s government.
During the same period beginning in 1992, Timmons worked closely with the two lobbyists, Samir Vincent and Tongsun Park, on a previously unreported prospective deal with the Iraqis in which they hoped to be awarded a contract to purchase and resell Iraqi oil. Timmons, Vincent, and Park stood to share at least $45 million if the business deal went through.
Timmons’ activities occurred in the years following the first Gulf War, when Washington considered Iraq to be a rogue enemy state and a sponsor of terrorism. His dealings on behalf of the deceased Iraqi leader stand in stark contrast to the views his current employer held at the time.
McCain’s African-American Vote: L.A. Conservative Joe Hicks Is a Race-Weary Republican
October 14, 2008
Tara Graham, Huffington Post
- Joe Hicks has a voice that commands attention. Deep in tone, yet smooth in delivery, it punctuates every sentence with an audible period, pauses for commas along the way, and serves the man well when he leans across his desk to elaborate a point.
“Obama believes that racism is still a big problem in the lives of black Americans — something I don’t believe,” says Hicks.
His claim is uttered with such conviction that most folks would flat-out dismiss his three-year stint with Ron Karenga’s black cultural nationalist United Slaves (US) organization, his very vocal defense of affirmative action during the 1990s, or his past leadership of a civil rights group founded by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
For most of his life, Hicks was a proud liberal, even a Communist. But today, he sits in his downtown L.A. office, with a tie around his neck and a fountain pen tucked deep into his shirt pocket, pledging his support to John McCain and the Republican Party.
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