By Caryn Freeman

Now that November has arrived and the presidential election is less than twelve months away voters are starting to look back on Obama’s first term and recognize what they were promised in 2008. The President has definitely had some wins and losses but the past few months in particular have been rough on the Administration.

• The Solyndra solar panel manufacturer scandal that cost taxpayers half a trillion dollars after the company filed bankruptcy less the two years after it received a $535 million dollar loan funded by Obama’s Stimulus plan.
• Attorney General Eric Holder has been subpoenaed by Congress to answer more questions about when he first became aware of operation Fast and Furious, the gun smuggling operation run by the Department of Justice and the ATF that left Arizona border patrol agent Brian Terry dead from an untracked firearm that U.S. officials let fall into the hands of Mexican gun runners.
• As if that’s not enough, the president is still working to revitalize an economy that nearly collapsed in 2008.

All of these matters and much more will have to be explained to voters by the president as he asks them to put their faith in him once more as commander and chief.

President Obama has found himself in a cleft stick having to explain what happened to the hope and change he promised voters in 2008. The same voters who have watched the political process become increasingly dysfunctional in his first term. The change they could believe in campaign that stirringly landed Obama in the oval office just three years ago have become fallacious mantras simply used to persuade voters they had met their political savior. Recent polls suggest he has a lot of explaining to do and to a lot of different groups. All of whom are asking Obama to show them more of what he promised in 2008.

In a new Black Planet/News One poll, it was reported that 88% percent of African-Americans believe that President Barack Obama deserves a second term and only 12 percent of those polled believe he should be a one-term president. Compare those poll reports to the findings in a new USA Today poll that revealed half of the country believes Obama doesn’t deserve a second term while 47 percent believe that he does and a notable disparity between black and white voters is revealed. The USA Today poll was gathered from a mostly white caller-list compared to the predominantly African-American base on Blackplanet.com. While the majority of African-Americans polled believe that Obama hasn’t done enough to focus on the record number of unemployed African-Americans, they also believe they would be better served by a second term presidency than by any Republican candidate.

Vertulie Pierre-Louis, whose first ever vote cast in a presidential election was for President Obama, believes the president came into a difficult situation but still must show voters more if he expects the same level of support he received in 2008. “In the next year something has to be accomplished in order for him to gain enough support to make it in the next election,” she said. “I would like to see some of the things he promised from the beginning. Not so much talk of the yes we can campaign I would like to see him put in place policies that I can have faith in and make me more comfortable with him in his second term as President. I don’t have that kind of faith right now.”

That seems to be the general sentiment amongst some of Obama’s most ardent 2008 supporters. All the more so the Hollywood community who fervently supported the president in 2007 and 2008 has been very vocal about their disappointment with the president in his first term. Michael Moore documentary filmmaker made famous for his scathing political documentaries told the BBC he finds the president’s first term “heart breaking.” Actor Matt Damon, another celebrity who campaigned heavily for the president in 2008 has said that he will not campaign for President Obama in 2012. Damon also said he is “no longer hoping for audacity.” Damon is referencing the best-selling autobiography “Audacity of Hope” written by the President and released just three months before he announced his candidacy in 2007.

By and large it seems that the president’s re-election campaign will be an uphill battle. This time around Obama will have to work a lot harder explaining exactly how he plans to bring about the change he promised voters in the last election while at the same time defending why they haven’t seen more from him in his first term.

Caryn Freeman is Editor-in-Chief of thecaxtonpress.com, an online political news magazine established spring 2010. Prior to joining ClotureClub, Caryn worked as research associate at Harpers Magazine online. While @ Harper’s Caryn interviewed Alex Gibney, Academy Award winning producer of “Taxi to the Darkside”, “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room,” & “Casino Jack & the Bank of the United States of America.” Caryn has also received a public service award from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation for her time on Capitol Hill in Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke’s office (D-NY). Follow Caryn on twitter @CarynFreemanDC.

Did you enjoy What Happened to Change We Could Believe In?, check out her other articles.

Today’s Political Cartoon for November 1, 2011

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Daily Political Cartoon Wrap-Up for October 3, 2011

It’s time for LUNCHTIME LINKS!

- Tech: Amazon joins the tablet market with the Kindle Touch [Amazon]

- Facebook: “All you’re base belongs to us”. Yep, they still track you after you log-off Facebook. [DailyMail]

- #Christie Drama – Listen, He’s really not running. Jeez! [Video ABC News]

- Not smart. Kid shoots laser pointer at Helicopter. Is hunted down by cops within minutes. [Gizmodo]

- Haters gonna Hate. “Bipartisanship is dead, at least until 2013.” [WaPo]

- Today’s INFOGRAPHIC – The Economy Recession Paradox [Good]

Viral pleasure of the day:

We have more Lunchtime Links, Check em out!

What a week ahead. GOVT threatens to shut down again (wtf) and Chris Christie MAY jump in to the ring also. We’ll let the lunchtime links speak for themselves!

- Obama told the CBC to Stop Whining. Check out our coverage of the Phoenix Dinner Gala. (ClotureClub)

- Seriously, don’t piss off a drug lord by posting negative comments about him online. Off with your head! (Gawker)

- Whats up with Putin? He’s running again on Hope and Change. Or maybe just change because he takes whatever he wants. (cnn)

- Herman Cain came out victorious in yesterdays straw poll. Can the republicans make up their minds? (WaPo)

- President Obama’s Approval Rating Infographic. (GoFigure)

Video of the day:

Did you enjoy our Lunchtime Links then check out what else we have!

By Caryn Freeman

President Obama’s speech Saturday night at the Congressional Black Caucus Phoenix Awards dinner was a call to action for the black community. The President probed the crowd to press on in the face of adversity. He asked the jam-packed crow of three thousand gathered at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center to share in his fight against the Republicans and help him get working class American’s back on their feet. “Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes…. “Shake it Off and stop complaining’. Stop grumblin’. Stop cryin’. We are going to press on. We have work to do.”

He reminded the audience that progress often takes time and the struggle for success has never been a straight line. “When it looked like we couldn’t find a way we’ve always found a way. We know the rightness of our cause, we know our cause is just,” he said. “The future rewards those who press on.” He encouraged the audience to become entrepreneurs and job creators. “I want you go out and start a business, build something.”

Hosted by local news anchor Maureen Bunyan and actor Hill Harper, a former Harvard classmate of the president. This year’s black tie ceremony honored EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson for her attention to environmental health impacts on the poor through the agency, boxer and entrepreneur George Foreman for his Houston-based ministry and youth charity work, civil rights leader and Southern Christian Leadership Conference founder Joseph Lowery for his lifelong commitment to justice, and Georgia Congressman John Lewis for his bravery in SNCC and the Freedom Rides during the 1960s.

After the speech, several CBC members said they were pleased with the message. Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Maryland, said it was a “call to action.” She said both sides of the aisle know where the battle lines are drawn on the issues and that complaining about that will not accomplish anything, members must fight for what they want. “He showed he’s going to fight,” she said.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, said the president “took his gloves off” and that it was the right approach. “This is the first day of the beginning of a season of pressure” on Republicans in Congress, she said. “I think that this is now, for his own sake, a sense of reckoning that although his temperament as president of the United States for everybody – is to include everyone – there’s a time now that the marching has to begin, because he’s got to save this country and we’re willing to save it with him.”

Rep. Greg Meeks, D-New York, said it was important to see the president transition from governing mode to campaign mode and that he must keep the pressure on Congress, travel to districts where people are hurting and show them that he feels their pain.
“He needs to fire up the base and that’s what tonight will do,” Meeks said

With campaign season fast approaching the president’s speech looks like an effort to galvanize the African American voting block while pulling the community out of despondency of high unemployment rates. The president needs the black community to turn out in record numbers as they did in 2008 to insure his presidency will continue to a second term. Independent voters dismayed by the economy may not come out and support the president as they did in the last election. Without widespread voter turnout among blacks and Hispanics the president will have a difficult time regaining the White House in 2012.

We got other articles like Shake it Off and Stop Complaining!

The Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference held this week at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center attracted a diverse group of activists, professionals, business leaders, policy wonks, academics, entertainers, students and media together to discuss and learn about the most critical legislative and social issues facing African American’s. Jobs, education, gentrification, ownership, political empowerment and the cradle to prison pipeline were considered the central issues and of greatest consequence to the black community.

Wednesday’s “2010 Census Changing Faces and Changing Faces in Urban Communities” sparked a discussion on gentrification. Howard grad and panelist Shani O. Hilton, a writer for the Washington City Paper discussed her views on young middle class blacks moving into the cities in her March 2011 article “Confessions of a Black Gentrifier.” The article explored young African Americans coming to grips with their role in gentrification and distinguishing weather their presence was a part of what was displacing other African Americans.

The audience also raised questions about what happens to black political power as the urban demographic changes. For elected officials the ability to make decisions about the distribution of government resources especially in cities the power to allocate of billions of dollars of public funds is at stake. Initially the drive for political power evolved from the dregs of segregation. But what are the political and racial implications of these demographic changes? Panelist Dr. Michael Fauntroy explained the possible ramifications, “political power holds only if the constituency stays together census suggest an altered political for blacks is on the horizon,” he said.

Education, another rallying point drew large crowds with varied opinions form legislators and education advocates. The blueprint for reform seemed to be shared amongst both parties. Fostering programs that respond to current market needs such as science, technology and math. Attracting qualified teachers to urban communities that are skilled in these areas and leadership in the schools themselves. Congressman Bobby Scott (D-VA) talked about the future job market facing the next generation, a high tech information based economy. “If you don’t get an education past high school you will not get a job in America. Under educating blacks by only to the ninth grade and then allowing them to dropout is a violation of the constitution. Get these children out of the cradle to prison pipeline and put some of the money we are spending on incarceration into education and we will get more of our children past ninth grade,” Congressman Scott told the crowd.

Another session explored the “Rise and fall and Rise Again of the Black Middle Class.” LaPhonza Butler, President of SEIU, Services Employees International Union, talked about organizing and jobs in the new economy as a way blacks will make their way back into the middle class. African Americans make 35-45% more when they are organized in a union and African Americans are more likely to join a union over any other group in the United States. She also talked about the explosion of jobs in healthcare in the next decade. How does that relate to African Americans? Four million jobs between now and 2018 will be healthcare jobs. Americans will need to be provided care and with recent reforms it’s going to be a very different healthcare system than the system that we know today. The number of people who will be over sixty-five in the next ten years that is more than the total population of Canada. Butler serves as the youngest labor leader in the country in the second largest union in the country, SEIU. She grew up and went to college in Mississippi. “My mom worked three jobs to put me and my two brother through school, my father died from heart attack,” she explained, “I knew what healthcare meant because my mom didn’t have any SEIU gave me the opportunity to work on behalf of women like her mother.”

Journalism and Media were examined in “How Advertising in Black Media Affects Jobs.” Black journalists talked about the images depicted of African Americans in media as a reflection of laziness not necessarily racism. The panel emphasized the importance of having a relationship with the local community your reporting on. “If your reporting murders talk about the impact on the community. The lack of commitment and research are what makes reporters and producers reach for B- roll that supports negative stereotypes,” Camille Edwards, Vice President of News at NBC 4 told the crowd. “Stupid producer news,” as one audience member described it, “adds nothing to the public discourse.” Noting that often in local news nothing is said about education, homelessness or serious health issues. The National Association of Black Journalists, NABJ released the 2011 Diversity census report at the conference highlighting significant disparities in hiring minorities to management positions at the nations leading news outlets.

The panel encouraged young journalists to pursue management positions to help influence decisions on how images are used in an effort to reduce the perpetual use of ruinous imagery of African Americans, particularly young males. It seems that journalists are not asking management what’s the news agenda or what’s the public agenda or even where is the relevance and why we are putting on this on air? These questions are typically asked and answered by management where there is virtually no minority representation.

Obama & Solyndra: MAKIN’ IT RAIN