If there is nothing like the prospect of getting the White House in Washington to respond to a telephone call, how about having a President of the United States at the other end of the line?
So it was ten days before Americans went to the polls on Tuesday and gave President Barack Obama and the Democrats what was described as a “shellacking” that ended their control of the House of Representatives but preserved their majority in the Senate.
Looking back, it was as if Obama had seen what was coming and wanted to limit the damage by reaching out to his strongest base: black voters across the country.
And what better way to get his message across to African Americans, West Indians, Barbadians among them, and African immigrants than to discuss national issues with the editors of newspapers and Internet news services that serve black audiences.
That explained why the Obama White House organised a conference call with about a dozen or so key black editors across the country and how come my name was placed on the carefully selected list of writers to join in the session with the president.
It was an exceedingly rare, if not unprecedented occasion for a president to do what Obama did, but these are desperate political times and he obviously decided he had to pull out all the stops to generate support for his party.
Two years ago, energised by the prospect of electing the country’s first black president, people of color turned out in droves at the polls and in the process played a major role in putting Obama into the White House. At the same time, black support contributed significantly to the strength of Democrats in the House and Senate.
But with the economy sputtering along, dampening people’s enthusiasm for Washington and with the Republicans and the Tea Party movement linking arms, President Obama, who didn’t run for re-election this time around, wanted a repeat of the black voter turn-out and what better way to achieve that than by garnering black media support.
“I know that you have the pulse of the community and folks listen to you,” President Obama told me and other journalists. “Folks listen to you and you have enormous credibility out there and we appreciate you helping to get the word out about what we have done.
“The most important thing over the next two weeks is making sure that people understand the importance of voting and participating in the next election and all of you can communicate directly to your readership that the president of the United States specifically asked them to turn out to the polls.”
But did it pay dividends? It’s too early to tell in terms of the black-voter turnout.
But what’s known is that the black members of Congress were, by and large, successful at the polls, retaining more than 40 seats in the House of Representatives.
However, Kendrick Meek, a black member of Congress from Florida who wanted to become a US senator, was handily defeated by Marco Rubio, a Cuban American.
The conference call involving the White House and the black editors was a prized occasion for those selected by their papers and accepted by the White House to interact with the president. It was a once in a career, if not in a lifetime experience.
Obviously, the editors were eager to put questions to the country’s first black chief executive who must contend with mounting criticism from the Republicans,
Tea Party supporters and others, especially the right wing conservatives, who oppose everything his administration does and after Tuesday will continue with that mindset.
The White House invitation was extended to me mainly because of my role as the senior editor of the New York Carib News, one of the country’s leading black-owned weekly newspapers.
Some of the handful of editors were able to put questions to Obama during the session, curtailed by time constraints.
The two questions I didn’t get a chance to put to the president were about immigration reform and how his administration planned to respond to Caribbean appeals to rich nations for help to cope with the global financial meltdown.
Obama was gracious in his handling of the Press as he rattled off a long list of achievements in education; health care reform; stimulation f the economy; providing tax cuts to 95 per cent of all Americans; aiding state and local government; and creating or saving more than a million jobs.
But he was quick to admit that despite the successes of the past two years, more must be done.
It was the same kind of contrition that was evident during his Wednesday afternoon news conference.
“Now, I’m not recommending for every president that they take a shellacking like I did last night,” was the way he put it.
