Obama: Reaching Out to Minority Voters for 2012

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As President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign moves into high gear, he is at long last paying much-needed attention to his political base and the groups which were responsible for electing him in the first place. Instead of portraying himself as the politician who can reach across the aisle to the other party, Obama is showing himself as the candidate who can reach out to different ethnic groups within the United States. 

Obama’s campaign has been dubbed “Operation Vote” and is designed to recruit a large volunteer base from a wide variety of ethnic communities within the nation. The efforts will be coordinated by campaign staff from some of the main ethnic groups; a Jewish campaign strategist has already been hired by the Obama campaign. 

This tactic represents a shift from Obama’s 2008 political campaign when Obama was still “a fresh face.” The shift may be necessary because of the feeling the many liberals and many leaders from a variety of different ethnic groups have that Obama has forgotten who his true supporters. Many believe that Obama has “turned to the dark side” and has been focusing too much attention on the concerns of Wall Street and the banking industry. 

In addition, polls now show that Obama’s approval ratings are in the 40's, which means that Obama still needs to garner more support from his political base. His numbers are even down among African-American voters, something that could affect Obama’s overall election results if he doesn’t reach out to them to re-gain their support. Obama’a main problem with African-American voters seems to be the high unemployment rate, which has particularly adversely affected the African-American community. 

That said, according to the Washington Post, Obama has made headway among Jewish supporters; he and his campaign are making efforts to get the word out to Jewish voters that Obama has been a friend to Israel.

Again, the Washington Post also highlights another website which touts the success of the high-ranking women within the Obama administration. 

I suspect that Obama may have a problem in convincing every minority group that he is a special friend to each group; as a president to a nation as diverse as the United States, there are a lot of minority voters to represent. In addition, I’m not exactly sure how he is reaching out to Latino voters--now a huge voting block within the United States.