Registration drive credited for flipping Chesapeake to Obama

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

had it been Martin Luther King, Jr., who would have won? Obama or King?

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.

"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.

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!

In case you didn't notice, it wasn't MLK who was running against Obama...it was John McCain and Sarah Palin.

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.

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

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.

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.

President-elect Obama IS bi-racial! Speaking as the mother of two beautiful bi-racial daughters myself, I am sure HIS mother liked to think she had a little to do with his genetic makeup too!

Ethan - the "bailout" ie - government involvement in private business, is/was a socialist move. Look up the definition of Socialism.

JB1793 - Obama did not play by the rules regarding his financing.

Vollie - The Electoral College has not yet voted. They will vote on December 15th. Based on the States/Counties that Obama won, he should also win the Electoral vote, but to say it is a landslide is exageration of something that has not even taken place yet.

I can name many working & middle class neighborhoods in Tidewater that are over 90% 1 racial group or another. In Portsmouth , there is Cavalier Manor & the subdivisions within it's borders. The range in that area is starter homes to McMansions, on Crystal Lake. L & G Gardens in Va. Beach, on Northampton Blvd., across from The Lake Wright Golf Course & the very old, neglected by the city, neighborhood of Burton Station. There are several, stable, working & middle class neighborhoods that have few or no Blacks or other minorities & the same holds true for several , stable, working & middle class neighborhoods, having few or no Whites. Newer neighborhoods are sometimes more diverse. When people don't feel as though they matter, they sometimes don't get involved. Take an honest look, again, at the crowd at McCain's concession speech. Then look, again, at the crowd at Grant Park, for Obama.

". . . if we R's only won the last two times because many minorities didn't register and/or vote, that kind of leaves me with a cold feeling . ."

given historical voting patterns, popular wisdom has it that the greater percentage of the American population overall who vote the more likely democratic candidates will win. Poor people tend to vote democratic. A greater percentage of the poor are minorities. The poor tend not to participate in elections. I'm not sure how much I buy into this--Hispanics apparently have trended republican in the past--,but on its face the facts I know are pretty compelling. Dems do generally concentrate on getting new voters and Republicans generally on firing up their base (no puns this time!).
So yeah, the most cynical view is that Republicans are best served if only the wealthy and lily white vote . . . and that leaves me with a cold feeling too.

This "argument" about Obama not being African-American but he is Bi-racial is the dumbest argument on semantics I’ve ever heard. ? 1) If you want to get technical, most Americans are bi or multi racial, though we tend to classify ourselves as Caucasian. Why? Because we can. 2) Not every form has those “bi” or “multi” classifications. We are forced to choose White, Latino, Asian or Black. 3) His father is African and his mother is American = African-American. In fact, there are a good number of African-American people with mixed backgrounds due to Slave rape yet for 300 years we called them Black and shunned them from the white community. 4) Obama identifies himself with the black community, he looks black, he married a black woman, and he has black children. But now he’s not allowed to call himself black because you have to find something to ague about because you can’t focus on the issues? Go find something better to do and stop gracing us with your ignorance.

I'm from Michigan which truly has what seems to be segregation. You can drive for miles in some areas and only see a white face; drive for miles in some areas and only see black faces.
You can't truly *target* a black or white neighborhood here, hasn't anybody noticed that? They don't exist. If someone targets a very ethnically diverse neighborhood to register voters, well, good on 'em. I say that as a Republican, knowing people vote for a variety of motives (for example Cuban-Americans tend to vote Republican--and I am sure that Obama's people did not exclude any Cubans they met in those mixed neighborhoods).
But, really, if we R's only won the last two times because many minorities didn't register and/or vote, that kind of leaves me with a cold feeling . . .

If I follow your logic, the Chesapeake Democratic Committee doing a good job registering voters of multiple generations and ethnic backgrounds is akin to the KKK (a white supremacist group that waged a war of terror against African Americans for decades) conducting a voting drive.

That's really sad.

YOU miss the point, WHEN white candidates only canvas in white neighborhoods because they know that minorities don't vote because they feel ignored and rightfully disenfranchised, it's politics as usual. When ANY candidate actively reaches out to actively involve minorities in the political process, some obviously for the first time in their lives, it's a change of strategy that shows our democracy is maturing and it is news worthy.

Are you also indignant that Sarah Palin called out to parents of children with Down's Syndrome to say she understood their special situation and would work extra hard for them?

What do the US recessions of 1953, 1957, 1980, 1990, and the 1973 oil crisis all have in common? The executive party in charge was not elected back into office. Why would anyone think that the current “worst economic crisis since the Great Depression” is any different?

It was a no brainer that the democratic nominee would win. For a race that isn’t about race people sure are making it one. The man whose father was African was elected because he wasn’t a republican, NOT because he is black. The “not-a-republican” nominee could have been Gumby and would have been reigned in as the first still action clay figure to be elected. Remember Clinton’s slogan when he defeated Bush 41 “It’s the economy stupid”??? Well it’s the economy plain and simple.

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it! It is now pay up
time. Don't be suprised what happens now.