The Virginian-Pilot
©
CHESAPEAKE
Jimmy Carter was the last Democratic presidential candidate to win over Chesapeake voters. That was 1976.
So it surprised a few people when Barack Obama edged Republican John McCain in Chesapeake last week by 1,369 votes.
Chesapeake had been a conservative stronghold for three decades, but on Nov. 4, this city turned blue. Local Democrats say the Obama victory here was no stroke of luck.
With the help of paid Obama staffers who swooped in to Chesapeake in the months leading up to the election, Democrats say they made an organized effort to increase registered voters in precincts with a high percentage of minorities. In the past five months, nearly 2,680 new voters registered in half a dozen Chesapeake
precincts that ended up delivering about 12,000 votes for Obama and only 1,400 for McCain.
"That 1,369 margin, you could easily attribute it to the fact that minority precincts went overwhelmingly for Obama," said Al Spradlin, chairman of the Chesapeake Electoral Board.
Registering more voters here was an "effective path to victory" for Democrats, said Pete Burkhimer, chairman of the Chesapeake Republican Party. He said a combination of factors fueled that effort, including dissatisfaction with President Bush, a lagging economy and voters' desire to be part of history by electing the nation's first black president.
"That pushed registration and turnout through the roof on their side," Burkhimer said. "We did our work. I couldn't be prouder of the work my Republican volunteers did. This was a juggernaut."
More than 11,000 new Chesapeake voters registered in the months before the election, and party leaders say a bulk of them were likely Democrats. Obama campaign staffers focused on nearly a dozen "performance" precincts with hundreds of minority voters but traditionally low turnout, said Chesapeake Democratic Committee Chairwoman Ella Ward. In some of those neighborhoods, campaign volunteers helped residents fill out voter registration forms, which were then reviewed and taken to the registrar's office, Ward said.
There was perhaps no better example of the resulting success than at the Providence precinct, where nearly 2,240 residents voted for Obama at the Dr. Clarence V. Cuffee Community Center. F our years ago, the turnout in that precinct was 62 percent, among the lowest citywide. In the past five months, the precinct gained 680 new registered voters - a 25 percent increase since June. Turnout increased to 68 percent Nov. 4. About 96 percent of the voters there went for Obama.
The Democrats also tried to help elderly voters in those neighborhoods to submit absentee ballots, and that seems to have given the Party an edge, too, observers say. More than 8,000 of Chesapeake's absentee voters went for Obama, and just more than 5,000 voted for McCain, statistics show.
Mike Saewitz, (757) 222-5207, mike.saewitz@pilotonline.com
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Importance of voting
Twomiller
Hit in on the head......I'd like to know who the politician you mentioned is...Its refreshing to see one who cares about the people they represent...Instead of the contributors who got them elected.....Until people get more involved in local politics the majority will never be truly represented.
“Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks -- no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea, if there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.” - James Madison, speech at the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 20, 1788
But Elsie-Eye
had it been Martin Luther King, Jr., who would have won? Obama or King?
The Burton Station
type situation is only recently an isolated problem. Several Black neighborhoods in what became Va. Beach were denied access to city water & sewage, even though the city often ran pipelines through their neighborhoods to new neighborhoods. Some of these neighborhoods were also denied access to electricity; Barberton was neglected in this manner 'til the late '80s; a powerful politician discovered the mess & got on the city. The airport is in Norfolk, not Va. Beach. Residents of Burton Station were denied permits for improvement of their property. Va. Beach has been basically trying to steal this area, for years. Cavalier Manor has been around since the '50s. New homes are still being built, on Crystal Lake. Yes, it's a stable, desirable area. I've been aware of 2 White families in the Manor. Both young military, no longer there. College & govt studies have shown that Whites either leave or don't move into, an area that is over 25% Black, unless it's gentrification going on.
Puppets
"Yes we can!" = Bob the builder.
I say in 2012 we have the Gumby/Pokey ticket and the SpongeBob/Patrick ticket so we can finally have ACTUAL puppets instead of just calling them figureheads.
NoSpinDoctor
Obama won because we R's messed up and got everyone mad at us, including members of our own party. There are no stories anywhere of people voting for the mentally ill or elderly because that just didn't happen. They may have registered them, or even brought them to the polls, but pollworkers didn't let people substitute for each other in the voting booth!
Dear NoSpinDoctor.
In case you didn't notice, it wasn't MLK who was running against Obama...it was John McCain and Sarah Palin.
Bought and paid for
Obama won the election primarily on money alone. In true political fashion, he went back on his word to run a campaign on public funding - a promise he made with McCain. When Obama found out there was 10 times the amount of money to be made through other means, he wasted no time in dumping his promise.
Most win elections by flooding the airwaves and papers with ads. That costs money, which Obama made hand-over-fist (over $1 million per day of his campaign, totalling nearly $700 million). Now we have to wait and see how many promises he had to make to secure so much money from "private funders", a.k.a., special interests, and how many of those he’ll have to break.
Not luck, just good, simple, criminal activity
The secret to Obama's election "Nationwide" is in the final paragraph. Take elderly and or handicapped persons, fill out their voter cards for them and 'bingo'. In Kinston, North Carolina, they were going in to the booths and voting for patients at The Caswell Center, a home for mentally handicapped people. I still can't figure why black American's voted for a man who represents NOTHING of what their idol, Martin Luther King, Jr. stood for? King was against abortion, homosexuality and against 'hand-outs'. King was for 'equal rights', not 'extra rights'. And, also, by the way, Martin Luther King, Jr. was a REPUBLICAN and if he held the same values today, that he held then, he still would be. Don't believe it, check it out at www.nationalblackrepublicans.com. I dare you to face the TRUTH. 90% of Black America rejected the man who has his name on a road or highway in just about every city and county in the United States. 90% of Black America rejected the man who is the ONLY man in the United States with a Federal holiday named after him. 90% of Black America rejected their values (see California election on Gay Marriage Ban - rejected by blacks over 70%) just to say that a
still flawed
I don't know from where RCP gets its numbers. The final report from the Federal Election Commission puts President Bush at 50.73% of the popular vote and Senator Kerry at 48.27%. Coastalite's original point is valid - that Obama's victory is reported as a complete remaking of the country but the closeness of Bush's reelection was reported as being proof that the country was deeply divided, despite the fact that there is a difference of less than 2% between the two in the popular vote. Yes, Obama will kill McCain in the electoral college, but if you are looking for an accurate indicator of the mood of the electorate, the popular vote is far more relevant. The same thing happened in 1996 when Clinton was seen to have a massive mandate, despite the fact that more people voted AGAINST him than for him (the ueber-popular Clinton never managed a simple majority). I'll say this - if Obama acts like he has a huge mandate he will quickly overreach and the Pelosi / Reid Congress will happily oblige him. The result will be electoral repudiation.
Twomiler
I know the areas you speak of--my son and husband walk to McDonalds through L&J Gardens on their nightly walk (so, again, it is not like Detroit where you can *drive* for half an hour and not see another white face). In fact, I have referred white couples to homes for sale in L&J and am not sure it is 100% black anymore, though it started out as upscale housing for blacks during the more segregationist era. And . . . it is on the other side of the small, manmade lake from Diamond Lake Estates, which has a lot of white residents.
Burton Station remains black and isolated, I am sure. The land is held by descendants of slaves and once they are ready to sell (if ever), the city will buy it up to have more land for the airport. I think they are a special case.
I only recently heard about Cavalier Manor. Many homes are owned by the original families. When they sell, they do get whites in there, too, right? It is a desirable area.