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Subscribe] FinalCall.com News - Refer This Page National News WASHINGTON (NNPA) - Despite all eyes being on the state of Iowa and its early Democratic presidential primary Jan. 3, it is the string of 22 states to hold primaries and caucuses on Feb. 5 that will likely decide which candidate will get enough delegates to be named Democratic nominee at the Aug. 25-28 convention in Denver, pundits predict. Black voters could actually swing those primary elections in either direction. “There are so many delegates up for grabs on Feb. 5 that anybody who has a boost on Feb. 5 will pick up a lot of delegates, perhaps enough delegates that are essential to win the nomination,” said David Bositis, chief political analyst for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank for Black politics. “The single biggest day when most Black people will have the opportunity to vote will be Feb. 5 …. There’ll be an opportunity for close to half the Black voters in the country to vote on Feb. 5.” University of Maryland political scientist Ron Walters agrees that Feb. 5 could be the deciding date. “That big bang is turning out to be a national primary of sorts,” Mr. Walters said. “That’s going to give you a good read.” All eyes are on Iowa and New Hampshire because of their early primaries and talk star Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama in Iowa. But, whether Sen. Obama or Sen. Hillary Clinton wins in Iowa or New Hampshire, the greatest indicators of the presidential nomination will come Feb. 5 or shortly thereafter. With that in mind, several non-partisan Black organizations—anticipating record turnouts in primaries—are joining forces to turn out the maximum Black vote in upcoming primaries and to protect votes, especially in those states with significant Black electorates, such as New York. “I think this will be a very unusually high turnout primary season because you do have such a high interest. And this is the first time the election process has started so early,” said Melanie Campbell, executive director and CEO of the non-partisan National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. “People are more in tune to the election than in my experience ever…. And because we have such highly contested Republican and Democratic primary processes going on, the turn out should reflect that in much higher numbers than seen before.” Probably nothing is intriguing the electorate more than the possibility of America electing its first Black president. That factor and the excitement brought by the charismatic Obama going against Mrs. Clinton, the former first lady to a president who remains popular among Blacks, will in itself turn out votes on both sides. In Iowa, a 95 percent White and two percent Black state, Mr. Obama was narrowly leading Mrs. Clinton in a race pundits described as neck-in-neck. A poll taken for the Des Moines Register, the state’s largest daily newspaper, showed Mr. Obama with 29 percent, Mrs. Clinton with 25 percent and former South Carolina Sen. John Edwards at 23 percent. Following Iowa on Jan. 3, New Hampshire on Jan. 8, Michigan on Jan. 15, Nevada on Jan. 19, South Carolina on Jan. 26, and Florida on Jan. 29, attention turns to the huge block of Feb. 5 state primaries: Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Minnesota, New Jersey, Utah, New York, North Dakota, Arizona, Delaware, Massachusetts, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Illinois, California, Connecticut, Alaska, Kansas, Alabama, Arkansas and New Mexico. Besides high profile Democratic and Republican candidates, hot issues, such as the war in Iraq, jobs and health care are exciting the electorate. Those three issues are the highest priority issues for Black people, according to the Joint Center. Ms. Campbell said based on those three issues, all of which have economic implications, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation is planning economic forums for a string of states with large Black populations. Get out to vote, voter protection and new technological outreach will be launched for the primaries as part of the coalition’s Unity ’08 Black campaign, she said. “With our Black Youth Vote program, they are organizing the additional means of technologies that young people use, such as MySpace, to get messages out about voter protection,” she said. “In addition we’re working with all the legal groups for legal hotlines.” The hotline numbers, as in past general elections, are 1-866-MYVOTE1, which will act as a poll locator to give people information on where to go vote, and 1-866-OURVOTE, the phone number for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, which will lend legal assistance on questions concerning possible voting violations. About 18 more primaries will be slated between Feb. 5 and June 7. Still predictions are that the winner will be known long before June. Blacks vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates, as much as 9-1 in recent years. Though Iowa will not be a deciding factor in who wins or loses the nomination, Mr. Bositis said of the upcoming caucuses, notwithstanding its small Black population, it could have a major impact on undecided Black voters. That’s because, if Mr. Obama wins in Iowa, it could convince undecided or even doubting Black Democrats to see that he could actually win the presidency, Mr. Bositis said. “Obama could do a lot to dispel those (doubts) if he won in Iowa and did real well in New Hampshire, and looked like he has a good chance to win,” he added.
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