Can Ferguson Swing the Election?

The Daily Beast ^ | October 26, 2014 | Joshua DuBois

[2ndDivisionVet]

Low African American voter turnout helped create Ferguson’s mostly white government. Black leaders nationwide are using that fact to get their constituents to the polls.

For many African Americans, this is shaping up to be the Ferguson Election.

Around the country, black voters are being mobilized to vote in the 2014 midterms with the argument that the death of Michael Brown resulted, in part, from lack of black civic participation. While the population of Ferguson is nearly 70 percent African American, only 6 percent cast a ballot in the last municipal elections. This led to a majority-black city where the mayor and five of six city councilpersons are white—and a police force that many see as rejecting standards of community policing and ignoring concerns of black residents. As the argument goes, Michael Brown may have been felled by a bullet in August, but the context around his death was created at the ballot box the year before.

In response, political parties, advocacy groups, and prominent spokespeople are pointing to the crisis in Ferguson to motivate blacks to go to the polls, often in striking ways. The Dream Defenders—a Florida-based organization of young activists formed in the aftermath of Trayvon Martin's death—has gone viral with its "Vest or Vote" campaign, anchored by a powerful tongue-in-cheek video which presents a stark choice between dressing black children in bulletproof vests before they head to school, or voting in the midterms. The video is accompanied by a photograph of a young black girl wrapped tightly in Kevlar, and a pledge card asking people to vote....

[2ndDivisionVet]

The author with Mr. Obama.

Joshua DuBois is the former head of the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in the Executive Office of the President of the United States under President Barack Obama. DuBois served as an informal spiritual advisor to President Obama, and still sends the President a devotional message each morning. Obama remarked at the National Prayer Breakfast that these devotions "mean the world to me."

DuBois has authored three cover stories for Newsweek magazine, including "The Fight for Black Men", which historian Taylor Branch called "stunning".

DuBois grew up in Nashville, the son of an African Methodist Episcopal pastor, Antoni-Sinkfield. His early religious foundations were found in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

[RIghtwardHo]

Hmmm. Hadn’t thought about it. Maybe.

[varina davis]

No.

[rockrr]

Lost in the language of this article (and others like it), but implicit by virtue of their voting habits, is the fact that the residents of Ferguson will see no change unless they vote Republican. Only that would be a vote against the status quo they’re so upset about.

And I bet not a one of them would recognize it if you rubbed their noses in it.

[CPT Clay]

Dems certainly think so.

[RIghtwardHo]

lol Or maybe not.

[RIghtwardHo]

Indeed.

[2ndDivisionVet]

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Oddly enough, Ferguson may increase the white vote against Democrats.

Democrats always want to believe that radicalism is popular. In fact, they are desperate to believe that radicalism is what people want. This is why Democrats imagine some really stupid things, like that the Occupy protests would become popular riots across America; or in this case, that Ferguson would result in an uprising of blacks against whites.

The truth of the matter is that whites hold their noses at the riots and looting of Ferguson, and root for the police. And even many blacks see the riotous dirtbags as what they are: public pests who mostly victimize black people.

[Argus]

“Low white voter turnout and failure to block-vote against Obama helped create the mostly all-black federal government we have in the US.”

[jocon307]

“And I bet not a one of them would recognize it if you rubbed their noses in it.”

I think there is at least ONE guy who realizes this. I saw some fellow quoted as saying just that, we’ve been voting for Dems all this time, it is they who have given us this cr*p world we are living in. I’m voting R from now on.

And there were those reports of the (supposedly) elderly black woman who called into the TV show and said the same thing. I say supposedly because if she was just a caller you can’t be sure she’s who she says.

I don’t know if either of these people were from Ferguson or talking about Ferguson, but a few a getting a clue.

You’d think Detroit would be an object lesson enough for all, but alas the media continues to obfuscate and to mislead the low info voters, who sadly make up the majority of our electorate I believe.

[Jack Deth]

Not a snowball’s chance in Hell.

Ferguson is a non entity. That’s why second and third rate hacks keep trying to fan the fires.

Blacks won’t come out to vote in the mid terms. Unless there is a large tax funded “payday” for their efforts.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Even more important than voter turnout is the ‘voter fraud army’:

Obama might need a polarizing event in Ferguson for voter fraud because you NEED POLARIZATION to recruit your voter-fraud army. Massive voter fraud requires tens of thousands of radicals in key places who fully support you. But this ebola crisis undermines wholehearted fanatical support at the lowest levels [which are most important].

[tioga]

So he “sends” Obama a spiritual message each day....so Obama ignores that like he does his daily security briefings. Nice.

[2ndDivisionVet]

He never said it was a “Christian” spiritual message, now did he?

[tioga]

Are there ANY Christians near O’s administration?

[Dilbert San Diego]

What horse blank this is. Blacks better vote, and vote Democrat, otherwise they have to send their kids to school in bullet proof vests?

Honestly, their kids have an exponentially greater chance of getting shot by a black gang type, than a white policeman or white Hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer. But why let facts get in the way of a narrative????

[blam]

Your error in thinking is that they care about their children. Children = federal pay check.