Kerry Needs to Campaign with more BLACKS, LATINOS, ASIANS & WOMEN

[sandersadu]

. . . campaigning with him. I'm black and a big Kerry supporter. The problem is, that unlike Bill Clinton, you feel like Kerry really isn't comfortable around minorities. You get the feeling that he "consults" with us, but we are not really in the fabric of the campaign. It's subtle, but real.

I'm sure Latinos, Asians, and to a lesser extent, women feel the same way. I'm not advocating adding Jesse Jackson or Dolores Huerta to a formal campaign role, we already have enough advisors. My only point is that people can tell if they're really sitting at the table or on the outside looking in. Right now, it's unclear which is true.

But if we want to win, it better be the former.

[wanpete]

1. Agree big time!

I'm a black georgia very strong Kerry supporter. I don't think he's tapped into the community by getting key players on his side. Where's Maxine Waters et al? Kerry has really gotta step it up. Blacks and other minorities have got to have faith that he's with them. I know he is, but he's got to show it a little more in public. I don't know if he has any minority advisors. Definitely could use a little more polishing in this department, and a very important department it is for ensuring a win for him in Nov.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

2. You guys musta' missed his speech to the National Baptist Convention

of which I will cite this small part:

In the hardest passages of the long march for civil rights -- amid lynchings and beatings and unyielding discrimination, the stalwart foot soldiers of justice did not look around and say, as we have heard so often from Washington these days, that we’ve turned the corner or that the job was getting done or that this was the best that we could do. Like us, they were a generation of optimists. They believed that America’s best days lay ahead…that America could always do better. Against all odds, they saw a new dawn of liberty. They had a dream of a more perfect union – a dream of one America.

But that dream – our dream – is dim and denied in the Washington of today. 140 years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, it is time to again emancipate this land, to live up to our ideals; it is time for a new moment of conscience in America.

The fact is, the wrong choices of the Bush Administration – reduced taxes for the few and reduced opportunities for the middle class and those struggling to join it – are taking us back to two Americas -- separate and unequal. Our cities and communities are being torn apart by forces just as divisive and destructive as Jim Crow – crumbling schools robbing our children of their potential…rising poverty…rising crime, drugs and violence. I say again: Where are the deeds? Where is the substance in our faith?

Four years ago, George Bush came to office calling himself a “compassionate conservative.” Well, in the story of the Good Samaritan we are told of two men who pass by or cross to the other side of the street when they come upon a robbed and beaten man. They felt compassion, but there were no deeds. Then the Good Samaritan gave both his heart and his help.

It is clear: For four years, George W. Bush may have talked about compassion, but he’s walked right by. He’s seen people in need, but he’s crossed over to the other side of the street....

http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2004_0909.html

[Southern Patriot]

3. Yes, yes, YES!!!

Everything is pointing to the fact that Kerry MUST energize the traditional Dem constituencies yet he's plainly playing for the undecided voter instead.

Where are his Black, Latino, Asian and female surrogates? Hasn't he reached out to these communities? I think if he'd heed the advice of these surrogates he'd almost naturally energize their constituencies and win like a stud race horse.