By Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - In late September the “nonpartisan” website Real Clear Politics (realclearpolitics.com) reported that President Obama leads Republican nominee Mitt Romney is several battleground states.  According to the polls, President Obama leads by 5.2 percent in Ohio, 4.5 percent in Virginia, 4.2 percent in Nevada, 4 percent in Iowa, and 3 percent in Florida.  Do we believe the polls?  I’m not so sure.  But I surely don’t believe these polls should alter an aggressive effort to re-elect this Democratic president.

There are lots of ways to do voter suppression.  One is to deny people ballots, or to change the rules on voting.  Mandatory state-issued ID, new and more distant polling places, and all of the shenanigans documented by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (www.lawyerscommittee.org) are other methods of voter suppression. In some cities or states, police cars have been parked outside polling places, intimidating those who may have minor infractions of law, including unpaid parking tickets.

Another ways to suppress the vote is to attempt to influence voter attitudes.  For example, in the 2008 election, a Republican operative did robo-calls into the Black community telling people they didn’t need to vote because Democratic candidates President Obama and Governor O’Malley had already won.  He was convicted of four counts of fraud last year and faces jail time.  Other communities have experienced similar pranks, including one that crudely told people that the election was on a Wednesday instead of a Tuesday, and another that said polls were open until 10 p.n. although they closed at 8.  Well-informed voters repel these shenanigans, but some voters fall for them.  If such tawdry tactics affect only a few voters in a few precincts, they can have an impact on an electoral outcome. That’s why it is so effective to go door to door on Election Day, to provide rides for those who need them, and to do anything and everything to ensure that every voter gets out. That’s why it also makes sense to encourage early voting, especially for the elderly and others who may have challenges getting to the polls.

I am wondering if these polls showing President Obama in the lead in key states represent another form of subtle voter suppression.  If we think the President is leading, then some will pull back on their efforts.  And that’s exactly what some Republicans are counting on.  Jay Cost, who writes for the conservative Weekly Standard, told radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt that “Democratic enthusiasm is going to recede”.  Another analyst said that the current polls are assuming a “record Democratic turnout”.  Still another said that while 90 percent of registered Republicans will vote for Romney and 90 percent of Democrats will vote for President Obama, the race will be decided by independents, many of whom are not polled.

My grandmother used to say, “Don’t feed me fat meat and tell me it ain’t greasy”.  Or, “Don’t spit on me and tell me it’s raining.”  In other words, don’t believe the hype.  To be sure, President Obama may be leading the polls in some states, but polls are like putting your finger in the air to see which way the wind blows.  They are like calling the basketball game based on who is leading after the first quarter.  They are like handicapping the horse race based on who is first out of the gate. They tell a story about a point in time, but not about the outcome.

Thus, polling results are both good news and provisional news.  The good news – the polls tell us that an Obama win is not only possible but likely.  The provisional news – President Obama won’t win unless we work for it.  Imagine that the basketball team started chilling in the second quarter because they led in the first, or that the horse first out of the gate decided to slow up because, after all, the win was decided.  We’ve all heard about the flash in the pan, the tortoise and the hare, and the importance of persistence.

Julianne Malveaux is a DC based economist and author.

By Gary L. Flowers

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “Can’t understand why we treat each other in this way…no matter what is said or done, we are one…” - Frankie Beverly and Maze

National politics in the United States of America has not been so divisive since the American Civil War 150 years ago.  Similar to the period leading up to the American Civil War our nation is divided along entrenched ideological lines.  Unlike the Civil War the possible second term of a sitting president may well further divide the Union.  Presidents Lincoln and Obama—leaders caught in the middle of historic downturns of national economies and civility—share some qualities, among them their home state of Illinois and the vitriolic relationship between Americans who share the same country.

Yet, at the end of the day, we are one people, occupying one nation.  As such, despite our political differences, civility should be the predicate to patriotism.

Not long after the ink was dry following the Inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44^th President of the United States, who became the first African American to serve as America’s Commander-in-Chief the highest ranking U.S. legislator, Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), stated publicly that the Republican Party’s top priority was not to make our nation a more perfect union, but to limit President Obama to one term.

Similarly, the highest-ranking member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), since taking office in 2010 has led a transparent band of Republican obstructionists in Congress to any and every policy proposal of the Obama Administration.  Worst still, Speaker Boehner has been unwilling or unable to corral the vulgar words and actions of so-called “Tea Party” members of the Republican Party.  For example, he stood with House colleagues, who furled banners over the Capitol railings in support of Tea Party protesters as they spit on African- American Democratic Congressmen who walked through crowds to enter the Capitol Building.  Yes, spitting!

And let us not forget the first State of the Union address by President Obama before a Joint Session of Congress in which Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) uncivilly interrupted the President and yelled, “You lie!”  Really?  I say then Speaker Nancy Pelosi should have called the Sergeant of Arms and removed Joe Wilson from the Chambers to enforce the rules of Congress and to restore civility.  What Wilson’s wrath demonstrated was the devolution of basic respect, or in the words of my Mother Dear, “common courtesy.”

Most recently, the Republican Party Chair in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, R. Wallace “Wally” Hudson posted repugnant images of President Obama on the official County Republican website.  The irreverent images depicted the President as an African witch doctor, caveman, and thug.  Hudson first responded the images were spoofs in good fun, only to later claim First Amendment “free speech” rights.

America is supposed to be a better nation than such words and actions reflect.  Maybe Dr. Maya Angelou is right when she says our nation is the “Yet-to-Be United States of America.”  Perhaps Frederick Douglass was prophetic when he opined, “There is no Negro problem.  The problem is whether the American people [White people] have loyalty enough, honor enough, and patriotism enough to live up to their own Constitution. Certainly Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. was correct when he exclaimed, “we must live together as brothers and sisters or perish separately as fools.”

On November 7, 2012, the day after American presidential elections, all Americans—Democrats, Republicans, and more progressive political parties—must make manifest the words, Red, Yellow, Brown, Black, and White, we are All precious in God’s sight.

We are one.  Let respect rule our words and actions.  Anything less is un-American.

Gary L. Flowers is executive director and CEO of the Black Leadership Forum.

By Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Last week, the New York Times reported a horrifying measure of America’s shame. Life expectancy for White women without a high school degree had decreased by five years since 1990, according to a study in Health Affairs. Five years. The least-educated White men lost three years in life expectancy. And the life expectancy for American women is now dead last among developed nations, according to the Human Mortality Database.

Life expectancy in many ways is the measure of civilization. It rises as a society conquers deadly epidemics like smallpox or the plague. It rises as mothers giving birth receive adequate health care and nutrition. It rises as children are well-fed and grow up in safe neighborhoods and stable families. It rises as adults earn enough to feed their families and afford health care for them. It rises as seniors gain dignity and adequate care at the end of a life of working. And, of course, it rises as medical science advances.

I remember the shock at the precipitous decline in Russian life expectancy with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet in the U.S., this report on our own decline came and went with little notice.

Poverty is at record levels in the U.S. — now more than 48 million people. Wages are falling for working families. Health care, paid sick leave, adequate retirement pensions — all have been cut drastically.

The New York Times, citing an American Cancer Society study, reports that 43 percent of working-age adults with less than a high school diploma now go without health insurance, up from 35 percent in 1993.

In many of our urban areas, junk food abounds, but fresh vegetables and fruit are scarce and expensive. Too many poor children go to schools without playgrounds or gyms. In the ghettos and barrios of despair, drugs and violence threaten lives. But as we’ve seen, the drug epidemic extends even into rural areas scarred by meth addictions.

Life expectancy is a meter of our character, of what kind of society we are.

Yet this subject remains almost invisible on the campaign trail. President Barack Obama has focused his message, sensibly enough, on reviving a broad middle class that has been sinking over the last decades.

Republican Mitt Romney mentions poverty, but his agenda features a war on the poor rather than a war on poverty. He calls for more tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, paid for by deep and harsh cuts in programs for the vulnerable — Medicaid, Medicare, aid to poor schools, child nutrition, Head Start, home heating assistance, affordable housing and more.

His harsh view of the “47 percent” as “victims” who can’t take responsibility for their lives essentially writes them off his radar screen.

The contrast with our great leaders is stark. Franklin Roosevelt summoned Americans to build an economic bill of rights that would seek to ensure good jobs, health care and retirement security to all willing and able to work. Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty succeeded in reducing childhood poverty before it was lost in the jungles of Vietnam. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington sought to rally the country to address the plight of the poor.

In the presidential debates, we’re likely to see a lot of “gotcha questions” and sound-bite answers. But surely some focus should be on the spread of poverty and the shocking decline in life expectancy.

Jesus said our character is measured by how we treat the least of these. The debates should probe how the candidates will deal with the most vulnerable among us.