Nov. 17, 2013

Nov. 11, 2013

Black Vote Wins Governorship for Former DNC Chair
By Jeremy M. Lazarus

Gov.-Elect Terry McAuliffe, former chair of the Democratic National Committee

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Black voters appear to have made the difference in businessman Terry McAuliffe’s narrow victory last week in the hotly contested Virginia governor’s race.

McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate who campaigned on promises to create jobs, expand Medicaid and health care and reduce partisan bickering, is estimated to have won at least 370,000 votes from Black Virginians or nearly 90 percent of the votes they cast in Tuesday’s election. That critical vote was six times his victory margin of 55,743 votes over Tea Party Republican Ken Cuccinelli and Libertarian Robert Sarvis.

Unofficial results show McAuliffe received 1,067,108 votes, or 48 percent, to 1,011,365 or, 45 percent, for Cuccinelli, the current attorney general. Sarvis was a distant third with 145,768 votes, or 6.5 percent, in the race to become Virginia’s 72^nd governor in January. McAuliffe needed a strong Black turnout to win just like other Democrats in recent decades. One of the big questions before the election was whether the he had done enough to court the most loyal segment of the Democratic base.

Aided by last-minute stumping from President Obama and former President Bill Clinton, McAuliffe seems to have done so in besting his most significant rival, Cuccinelli, to win the right to succeed current Republican Gov. Bob

McDonnell. Exit polls indicate the Black turnout was impressive by the standards of a governor election, fueled in part by Cuccinelli’s adamant opposition to Obamacare or the Affordable Health Care Act that is the president’s signature law to provide health coverage to the uninsured.

Cuccinelli, who was tarnished by a scandal involving Gov. McDonnell, also put off many Black voters with his opposition to abortion, his promises to reduce the size of government and his promotion of tax cuts that many saw as potentially damaging to public school funding.

The polls indicate Black voters represented about 20 percent of the total turnout of 2.2 million people who went to

the polls or about 445,000 of those who cast ballots. That’s a 38 percent jump from 2009 when an estimated 330,00 Black voters — 125,000 fewer — participated when Creigh Deeds was the Democratic nominee.

Richmond is a prime example of the increase in voter numbers. Tuesday, 57,774 residents went to the polls, a 28 percent increase from four years ago when 45,127 city residents voted in the governor’s race. The unofficial results show that McAuliffe received 42,756 of the Richmond votes, or 11,542 more votes than Deeds received.

Democrats also celebrated the victory of Dr. Ralph Northam, a physician and state senator, for lieutenant governor.

Northam won by a 55 to 45 percent margin over extremist Republican E.W. Jackson Sr., a Black Chesapeake minister who condemned gay people and non-Christians, among others, during the campaign and never garnered much Black support even though he was the only Black candidate on the ballot.

Northam’s win means he will become presiding officer of the 40-member state Senate and could aid Democrats to regain control of that body from Republicans. Like outgoing Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, Northam will be able to vote to break ties on legislation and help give the Democrats a majority.

Nov. 17, 2013

The Obama Administration is Hustlin’ Backwards
By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, III

NEWS ANALYSIS

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - "I am sorry that they (people losing their health insurance) are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me. We've got to work hard to make sure that they know we hear them and we are going to do everything we can to deal with folks who find themselves in a tough position as a consequence of this." - President Barack Obama November 7, 2013

After the Republicans in Congress held America hostage by shutting down the government, their public approval numbers hit an all time low.  According to Gallup polling on October 9, 2013, the Republican Party was viewed favorably by 28 percent of Americans, down from 38 percent in September.

This became the lowest favorable rating measured for either party since Gallup began asking this question in 1992.  The Washington Post reported on October 14^th “…Republicans are not only less popular than Democrat’s; their popularity is falling faster than Democrats'. They are, in other words, losing, and badly.”

On October 22^nd the Daily Kos reported, “So while Democrats and President Obama saw their net ratings drop by 10 and 1 points, respectively, Republicans and tea partiers saw their ratings drop by 17 and 19 points…The other part of the story is that the GOP's numbers went down by more despite starting out in the toilet.”

The shutdown of the government was led by a small band of ultra-conservative elected officials who were more focused on their narrow political ideology than operating in the best interest of the American people.  According to The New York Times, “Shortly after President Obama started his second term, a loose-knit coalition of conservative activists led by former Attorney General Edwin Meese III gathered in the capital to plot strategy.”  The result was the "blueprint to defunding Obamacare."  

Based upon the weakness displayed by House Speaker Boehner (R-Ohio) and the baseless rhetoric of Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other Tea Party backed Republicans, the damage to the Republican Party and its brand was significant and possibly long-term.  According to a national CNN poll taken in late October, “three-quarters of Americans said that most GOP members of Congress don't deserve to be re-elected.  A majority said that the Republicans' policies are too extreme. And according to the poll, Democrats have an 8-point advantage over the Republicans in an early indicator in the battle for control of Congress.”

In August and September of this year, experts projected that Republicans would hold on to the House and could pick up seats in the Senate during the 2014 mid-term election.  In October the Republicans shot themselves in the foot.  A majority of Americans blamed Republicans for the government shut down and saw President Obama as the winner in that standoff. 

Then the administration turned the tables on itself with the failed October 1, 2013 launch of the Healthcare.gov website and the recent admission by the President that his stump-speech promise that, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan” was untrue. According to Kaiser Health News, “Florida Blue, for example, is terminating about 300,000 policies, about 80 percent of its individual policies in the state. Kaiser Permanente in California has sent notices to 160,000 people – about half of its individual business in the state.”

How could the administration not be prepared to successfully launch the website that would facilitate American’s ability to access the benefits of its signature piece of legislation?  At the October 1 launch there were “front-end” and “back-end” problems.  On the front-end, most people, including the President were unable to gain access to the site.  On the back-end, insurance companies received inaccurate and unsecured data from many of those who were finally able to access the site and sign up for coverage.

CEI Federal, one of the primary contractors responsible for designing the Healthcare.gov website sent a report to the administration stating, there were "open risks" "open issues" and “significant” problems that needed to be resolved.  CEI told the administration that testing timeframes are "not adequate to complete full functional, system, and integration testing activities."

John King of CNN reported that the President knew as early as July of 2010 that as many as two thirds of those in the individual marketplace would be negatively impacted by the ACA; their healthcare plans could change.  Armed with this information President Obama continued to mislead the American people by saying, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.”

Many of the supporters of the ACA have been making the argument that you have to separate the need to provide greater access to health care coverage from the challenges of implementing the legislation.  This is correct.

As the challenges of implementing the website prove to be less technical and more an issue of honesty and competence, defending the administration has become harder and harder.  Even former President Clinton is on record saying, “So I personally believe, even if it takes a change to the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got.”

The Obama administration worked hard during its first term to get the ACA passed and signed it into law on March 23, 2010. At the end of the day, the issues with implementing the ACA have nothing to do with an intransigent Tea Party or untra-conservative ideologues.  We don’t have to “understand the opposition and what the president is up against.” The problems with implementation are due to incompetence, poor advice, and poor planning.

At the end of October, when the Democrats had the Republicans on the ropes, President Obama and his cadre of “brilliant” advisors found a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Instead of building upon the success of passing the ACA, constructing a powerful message leading into 2014, and forcing the Republicans to compromise from a position of strength, Americans are stuck hearing the president apologize for problems that he has brought upon himself.

They’ve been workin’ hard but hustlin’ backwards.

Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the Sirius/XM Satellite radio channel 110 call-in talk radio program “Inside the Issues with Wilmer Leon” Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. www.twitter.com/drwleon and Dr. Leon’s Prescription at Facebook.com  © 2013 InfoWave Communications, LLC

Nov 11, 2013

NAACP Interim President Declares No Interest in Permanent Job
But Adds, Gender Does Matter 

By Hazel Trice Edney

NAACP Interim President/CEO Lorraine Miller

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – With increasing buzz about the possibility of a woman becoming the next president/CEO of the NAACP, both the woman in the interim position and the current chairman have declared they have no interest in the permanent job.

“Absolutely, positively, emphatically no,” said Interim President/CEO Lorraine Miller answering whether she is interested in the permanent position. “Doing this now is not something in my career upon my retirement,” she said. She said she was assured it would be brief interim. “That’s why I decided to do this.”

Chairman Roslyn Brock, who is currently leading the search for a successor for outgoing President Ben Jealous, has declared her non-interest with equal fervor.

“I have no interest in the position of president/CEO of the NAACP. The chairman of the NAACP national board of directors is and has always been the highest position in the NAACP. The National Board of Directors of the NAACP hires the president/CEO to be the chief spokesperson and public face of the organization,” Brock responded in an email.

As the organization continues its national search this week, Miller – known widely as a trailblazer - says she sees her role as a delicate balancing act of sorts.

“I have a vision of my own, some things that I want to do,” said Miller, who served as the first African-American clerk of the U. S. House of Representatives. “Part of what I believe I’ve got to do is figure out a balance between trying to be a placeholder and trying to be a change agent because a new person coming in has the right to shape the organization as they see fit. So, I don’t need to break down any barriers.”

Miller is accustomed to holding her own. The Fort Worth, Texas native rose to the historic position of clerk of the House after serving U.S. Rep. Jim Wright, (D-Texas); in the Clinton administration, Congressman John Lewis, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) who named Miller clerk of the House in 2007, a position she held until 2011 when the GOP took control of the House.

As a life-long NAACP activist, Miller has an equal balance of civil rights in her blood. She was elected as president of the D. C. Chapter of the NAACP in 2004 and joined the national board in 2008.

“The NAACP knows the direction it’s going in. What I hope to do is assure that our programs are being aligned with the strategic plan that our board and our branches have agreed to,” she said, ticking off a few of her focuses as interim president:

• Economic development: “We have got to make sure that jobs, training, education are available – not only to our 1,200 branches, but to the people that we consider ourselves working for.”
• Health Care: “The reason we are in this fight is because 40 million Americans does not have health care…There are so many health problems in our community that we’ve just got to take a stand and get people involved in trying to improve their quality of life so that the emergency in the hospital is not the first item of choice for people that can be preventative.”
• Youth and college: “For us to sustain this 104-year-old organization, we’ve got to have an aggressive, active, motivated youth movement,” she said.
• Voting rights.

Although she will not have a vote on the next president/CEO, Miller describes what she would be looking for: “Someone who has a vision of where civil rights should be going; someone who feels compassionate about it. One of our mainstays is making sure there is unfettered access to the ballot box,” she said. “Someone who is passionate about that, who has a vision for civil rights and a little experience at managing a large organization, would be the kind of candidate I’d look for.”

As the first woman to serve in the salaried office of interim or permanent president/CEO of the NAACP, Miller believes gender does matter.

“As a woman, I think women have an unusual power and finesse that men just don’t have. It’s like the velvet glove,” she says. “You can get done what you want to get done when you don’t have to be disagreeable about it. And I think that is a characteristic of a woman in leadership.”

On the flip side, having observed Speaker Pelosi for four years, Miller also described the inner strength, resolve and leadership that a woman can exude amidst controversy. “She had a big stiletto that she didn’t mind using.”

Actually, Miller was first confronted with the idea of serving as NAACP president during a conversation with the now late Dr. Dorothy Height. As new House clerk in 2007, she visited Dr. Height at her National Council of Negro Women Headquarters and she recalls Dr. Height repeatedly insisting, “‘You need to do the NAACP.’ I hadn’t thought of that,” she said.

In the wake of Jealous’ resignation, she said Brock asked her to take the interim presidency after she’d sent an email offering, “If there is anything I can do to be of help during this transition, just let me know.”

She continued, “When they initially approached me about it, I hedged and said that’s not where my head is; that’s not where my career is right now. And I said no. And then Roslyn said, Lorraine, just think about it, pray about it. We need you. This is a short period.”

But it was not words that convinced her to take the interim job. It was simply history, she described. She recalled the harrowing scenes documented in the civil rights museum in Memphis that she’d visited about two years ago.

Recalling the “high powered water hoses that were pressing people against the walls,” and the suffering of so many people, she recalled saying to herself, “This is what people went through for us to have the right to vote…I have to do this.”

As Miller assumes leadership, she expects there is already a long line for the job. When people approach her, she refers them to the National Headquarters, telling them to contact Search Committee Chair Rev. Theresa A. Dear.

“I don’t think there’s been a time table set. They’re organizing now and getting a search done. I think they’re looking for the right person. They’ve got, I think, a lot of people that are interested. But, it’s about getting the person that can build upon what Ben has left us.”

Miller says she is planning to return to the board once someone is hired. Yet, she is enjoying her day job as a real estate developer and quietly longs for the farmland of her home town of Fort Worth.

“I’m going back to my real estate role. What I’m really passionate about doing is bringing retail into underserved communities,” she said. Miller is currently working on an economic develop project in South East DC and is trying to bring a shopping center into her Fort Worth neighborhood.

Ultimately, she said she will enjoy the leisure of retirement back home in Forth Worth, "go down to our little family farm and deal with the cows and shuck some corn and chase a pig or two.”

Meanwhile, civil rights duty calls. “If I could be of help to the association that I love for an interim period to make sure that we maintain the strength of our organization, take what Ben has given us and build upon that, that is a calling I couldn’t refuse.”