DALLAS MORNING NEWS
By Todd Gillman
September 1, 2012
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/national-politics/20120901-barack-obamas-re-election-hinges-on-appeals-to-targeted-groups-women-hispanics-young-voters.ece
Having watched Republicans use their convention to amplify anxiety and bash the president’s ability to cope with a bad economy, Democrats will use their turn to plead for more time.
They’ll make the case that Barack Obama has done the best he could under historically bad circumstances. They’ll paint GOP nominee Mitt Romney as an out-of-touch plutocrat. And, rather than lavishing too much energy on elusive swing voters, they’ll be sending carefully honed messages meant to stir passion among black Americans, Hispanic voters and other key elements of the Democratic base.
As Obama heads to Charlotte for a three-day convention this week, the coalition that got him into office is somewhat tenuous. There’s impatience over chronic joblessness, and an inability to break through Washington’s partisan culture. But what one side views as pragmatic outreach targeting youth, seniors, gays and lesbians, women and other core groups, the other side views as an effort to divide and conquer.
“Look, there’s broad messages that are important for the broad electorate, but there are messages underneath the economy that are also tremendously important to those groups of voters, and we want to make sure we’re speaking to everyone,” said Robert Gibbs, a senior Obama adviser and former White House press secretary.
Republicans predict that economic malaise will suppress turnout among traditional pillars of the Democratic base.
“They may not show up and vote for our candidate, but I suggest to you they won’t show up and vote for the president, either,” House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said over lunch with reporters last week at the Republican convention in Tampa, Fla.
That is precisely the specter that motivates Democrats’ target marketing.
“They’re trying to cobble together through fear and wild rhetoric what they think will be their winning coalition,” said Michael Steele, a former Republican national chairman.
All campaigns are a balance: pushing up turnout among core groups and trying to win as many swing voters as possible. But for Obama, focusing more on the former than the latter may be the only clear path to victory.
Young voters
Young voters served as a major engine of the Obama surge in 2008, during the extended Democratic primaries and into the fall.
Four years ago, the youthful nominee drew throngs in college towns, with vows to end the war in Iraq and scrap the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy toward gays in uniform, but more with a candidacy of soaring rhetoric and a promise of a different kind of presidency.
He won the under-30 set by a 2-1 ratio. In North Carolina alone, the youth vote was big enough to account for his narrow, 14,000-vote margin. So it’s a crucial part of the Obama math.
But this is a segment hit especially hard during his presidency.
They face piles of college loans. Once they do join the ranks of taxpayers, they could face a lifelong burden of helping to pay down a $16 trillion federal debt. They are disillusioned by ongoing military engagement in Afghanistan and the failure to close the Guantánamo Bay prison as promised.
Unemployment is 12.7 percent for young Americans, far higher than the national average and the worst since World War II.
Paul Conway, president of Generation Opportunity, a right-leaning group that studies the 18- to 29-year-old “millennials,” said Obama’s team has been relentless in its outreach, with good reason.
“The biggest problem for them is not losing” the youth vote, said Conway, chief of staff at the Labor Department under President George W. Bush. “If they do not get 66 percent, they’re already losing.”
Obama makes no pretense that his re-election is at risk if apathy sets in.
He stumps regularly on college campuses this year, too, warning that Romney would cut funding for Pell grants 20 percent. He reminds students that he pulled U.S. troops from Iraq as promised, and that his signature health care law lets children stay on parents’ insurance up to age 26.
He often alludes to his support for gay marriage — a recent policy shift, one that plays well with younger voters and in Hollywood and among gays and lesbians, whose financial support is critical.
“They’ll tell you that if you believed in change four years ago, your faith was foolish and you were being naïve,” Obama told students at Iowa State University in Ames last week. “And what they hope is that by telling you these things, you’ll get discouraged and you’ll just stay home this time.”
Female voters
The segment of the Obama strategy that’s been most visible is the appeal to women.
Republicans handed Democrats a gift two weeks ago when a Missouri Senate nominee asserted that “legitimate rape” rarely leads to pregnancy. Even before that, Democrats were accusing the other side of waging a “war on women” and were planning to salt the Charlotte convention lineup with women to push that line of attack.
They’ll highlight the fact that the first law Obama signed, nine days into his term, helps women secure equal pay at work.
They’ll feature Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood and daughter of the late Texas Gov. Ann Richards. They’ll also spotlight Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University law student denounced as a “slut” last March by radio host Rush Limbaugh after she testified in Congress that insurance plans should cover birth control.
“We don’t want a president who is going to be up in our business,” Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the party’s national chairwoman, said outside the GOP convention.
Whit Ayres, a leading Republican strategist and pollster, predicted that Romney can erode some of the party’s chronic “gender gap” because women — who often pay the household bills — are attuned to such workaday indicators of Obama’s economy as rising gasoline prices.
And women aren’t monolithic, he noted: “Romney does better with married women. Obama does better among unmarried women.”
Hispanic voters
Female voters are hardly the only group where Obama faces trouble if he can’t keep enthusiasm high.
Polls show Obama leading among Hispanic voters 2-1. But both sides recognize that disappointment among this group — over immigration policy and economics, in particular — could affect turnout, which could tip the balance in Nevada, Colorado and other battlegrounds.
Weighing in the president’s favor: Whatever the disappointment toward him, Romney’s image is far worse.
Latino Decisions, a top polling firm, found a 39 percentage-point lead for Obama among Latino voters — a huge deficit to overcome, even with last week’s convention showcase for Hispanic leaders such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who introduced Romney for his convention speech.
Democrats will showcase San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro in Charlotte, along with other high-profile Hispanic officeholders.
In outreach to Hispanics, Obama and his allies focus on expansion of health care, which means a great deal in a demographic with 1 in 4 people uninsured. But many Hispanics grumble that Obama never seemed to make immigration policy a priority, barely pushing the issue in his first two years, before Democrats lost the U.S. House.
Six weeks ago, the Obama administration dropped a bombshell that has re-energized Hispanic support — a no-deportation policy that affects some 800,000 young illegal immigrants, a central element of the DREAM Act that Republicans have stalled.
Republicans called it pandering and a violation of the Constitution by going around Congress.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is chairing the Charlotte convention, dismissed that as cynical. He predicted 70 percent Hispanic support for Obama and eagerly contrasted the president’s policies with those of Romney, who during the primaries called for the “self-deportation” of 11 million illegal immigrants.
“You can’t just trot out a brown face or a Spanish surname and expect people are going to vote for your candidate or your party,” he said. “Window dressing doesn’t do much for a candidate. It’s your policies, your platform.”
Texas Senate nominee Ted Cruz used part of his prime-time speech at the GOP convention to complain that Democrats falsely insist that Hispanics are unwelcome in his party.
“They’re going to try to separate us into little groups, and try to scare everybody,” he said. “It’s tragic, how far we’ve come from hope and change.”
At a glance: Tasks for Democrats at their convention
Plead for more time
Benefits: Partisan gridlock has stymied much of the Obama agenda, and voters may sympathize with the idea that with a solid mandate, Obama could have a better second term.
Risk: Lots of voters prefer Romney’s agenda. And after more than 31/2 years, a president is responsible for everything under his watch, no matter how bad a hand he was dealt.
Remind Americans why they fell in love with Obama
Benefits: Voters crave inspirational leadership. And ousting a president is like breaking up a marriage; voters need good reasons to seek a new relationship and often prefer to work on the old one.
Risk: As great as the affection was, the disappointment has been just as acute for some voters.
Talk about things other than the economy, but not too much
Benefits: It can’t be avoided. But other issues will motivate certain blocs of voters.
Risk: Republicans will pounce every time Obama tries to pivot.
Get specific
Benefits: Romney stayed vague at his convention. If Obama can persuade voters he has good ideas to help the middle class, and that Romney would slash Medicare benefits, he’ll come off as more thoughtful and less slippery.
Risk: The more specifics, the more fodder you give opponents.
Talk about Romney’s record, agenda and wealth, a lot
Benefits: Romney’s term as Massachusetts governor included raising the tax burden on many businesses and a sweeping health care law that raises divisions among conservatives. His Bain Capital work has proved a potent weapon for Democrats. Seniors fear his approach to entitlements.
Risk: It will sound like Democrats are changing the subject from the economy.
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