Obama’s pitch: Former president urges Black men, young people not to sit out election.
PHILADELPHIA — Former President Barack Obama made his first inperson campaign pitch Wednesday for his former vice president, Joe Biden, urging voters in Philadelphia — especially Black men — not to sit out the election and risk reelecting President Trump.
“The pandemic would have been tough for any president,” Obama said at an afternoon roundtable with 14 Black men. But he asked the group to consider “the degree of incompetence and misinformation, the number of people who might not have died had we just done the basics.”
Obama presented Biden and his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, as ready to confront the coronavirus pandemic. Obama later addressed a drivein rally.
“I am so confident in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris surrounding themselves with people who are serious, who know what they’re doing, who are representative of all people — not just some people — and us being able to then dig ourselves out of this hole,” Obama said.
The significance of the roundtable was difficult to miss: The nation’s first Black president urged Black men especially not to give in to apathy. The host city, Philadelphia, is among the Democratic bastions in battleground states where Black turnout four years ago fell off from Obama’s 2012 reelection in large enough numbers to flip key states to Trump’s column and deliver him the presidency.
Obama, 59, said he understood young voters’ skepticism and disinterest, recalling his own attitude decades ago.
“I’ll confess, when I was 20 years old, I wasn’t all that woke,” he said, adding that young Black men are “not involved because they’re young and they’re distracted.”
But he said not voting gives away power.
“The answer for young people when I talk to them is not that voting makes everything perfect,” Obama said. “It’s that it makes things better” because politicians respond to and reflect the citizens who cast votes.
“One of the biggest tricks that’s perpetrated on the American people is this idea that the government is separate from you,” Obama said. “The government’s us. Of, by and for the people. It wasn’t always for all of us, but the way it’s designed, it works based on who’s at the table.”
Four years ago, Obama delivered Hillary Clinton’s closing argument in the same city — at a rally for thousands the night before election day on Independence Mall. Now, with the coronavirus pandemic upending campaigning, far fewer voters will see the former president in person.
The format reflects the challenge Democrats face in boosting enthusiasm and getting out the vote in a year when they’ve eschewed big rallies in favor of small, socially distanced events, drawing a contrast with Trump and Republicans on the coronavirus.