ON THE MARK -- MARK ALLEN TALKS
News analysis by veteran political activist, with over 40 years in public service on local, state, and national levels and one that the Rev. Al Sharpton calls Mark Allen "one of Chicago's legendary political activists and one of the best organizers of his generation"
ILLINOIS DEMOCRATS MAY LOSE ILLINOIS TAKING BLACK BUSINESS AND GRASSROOTS VOTERS FOR GRANTED
THIS JUST IN -- Of course just one man with one opinion but The Illinois Democrats are on pace to LOSE Illinois with their current arrogance, classism, and the overall preparing to take the Black vote for granted yet again. Yes, its only a few short weeks away from the official kick-off of the Presidential Election cycle and you can see NO engagement by The Illinois Democratic Party, Cook County Democratic Party, The Local Democratic Party, No Clinton, Duckworth Campaigns yet in the Black community. No Party funding of any kind of major voter registration campaign. No announcements of the hiring of any key Black campaign managers and strategists. The Local, County and Illinois Democratic Party REALLY have gotten used to NOT having to make any real financial investment in the Black community yet always expect the Black vote to carry them to victory.
The Party is accustomed to bringing in and engaging high powered and White political consultants who then come and seek experienced Black political operatives to volunteer. Then they wait and only invest in a final month campaign that means nothing but a few jobs for some youth in the street on weekends and they take it because of their desperate need of the money. But the party has all but WITHDRAWN from the days of old when they full time staffs and field operations in the Black community almost 90 days out from actual election day. And they hired the kind of grassroots field staff who could conduct voter registration, voter education and Get-Out-The-Vote Campaigns especially from those disconnected constituencies who have not voted. Former Governor Quinn lost by 50,000 votes while over 300,000 registered Black voters DIDNT VOTE for anybody and could have been the margin of victory for Quinn BUT the Campaign and Party waited until the last minute to even try to engage them and they rejected the appeal to come out and vote although they surely are feeling the pain now for many of the State services they depend on have been cut by Governor Rauner.
For months I appeals to the DEAF EARS of the Quinn Campaign to make an early investment in key grassroots constituencies that needed real 'hands on' outreach to get them reconnected to the electoral process. NO NO NO were the repeated answers I got from the Blacks who I knew who were publicly identified as key field staff for the campaign, and they finally even opened an office across the street from my own offices. It was ALL symbolism and no substance and Quinn paid the price with his loss, but he had political consultants that were evidently more knowledgable than me and totally rejected my over 40 years in politics at the grassroots level. I was told they had all the workers they needed coming for free from the various supportive labor unions. Couldnt even get a campaign stop by Quinn at my offices on the next block!!
As I predicted, the Quinn Campaign waited until the last minute to put together any kind of real grassroots field budget where we could really go out and engage the non traditional grassroots voters and then I responded by helping recruit almost 1,000 street workers; and then at the request of Elder Sister Alice Tregay I returned to my old Field Director type position at Rainbow/PUSH Coalition to help recruit and pay over 500 street workers with their partnership with CITIZEN ACTION to help get the vote out. It was too little, too late, for our field workers got an earful from disconnected voters who were just ticked off that here we come with these desperate phone calls, personal visits trying to get them out to vote, after months and months of no contact by the party or campaign. Yes if we had that budget and operation earlier we could have indeed gotten 100,000 of those non voting 300,000 to get Quinn the victory. And here we are again expecting a major turnout for Clinton and Duckworth in Illinois for the November election with absolutely NO physical presence of Black engagement by Clinton or Duckworth with Black political consultants and non traditional Black grassroots leaders to get them the turnout needed for a win in Illinois. And the you have other Dem candidates like Susan Mendoza who are counting the alleged large Black turnout for Clinton and Duckworth to help ensure her coattails victory.
This is about to be the most expensive campaign spending in Illinois history and there is NO SIGN that The Democrats have a serious advance campaign spending budget and presence that the Black community can SEE for their endorsements with just 90 Days from the November elections. The Black community is just as broke before, during and after these campaigns. The Democrats need those 300,000 disconnected Black voters for November and they will NOT get them with that traditional last minute field operation and from not having employed the non traditional Black grassroots political operatives that can reach the disconnected constituencies.
Finally, I am just one man with one opinion and Democrats and their high priced political consultants can yet again NOT HERE MY VOICE and do the same last minute operation as they have always done. They can keep on hiring White consultants while asking Blacks to volunteer and get paid less that the White consultants. They do not have to have campaign accounts in Black financial institutions. They dont have to have real field operations in Black owned and Black managed Black community offices. They do not have a up front budget for a serious Black grassroots voter registration and voter education campaign. But with all this lack of Black financial investment up front to the Black community, Black leadership make absolute fools of themselves being paraded around with desperate appeals to church, community organization members and disconnected Black constituencies having received NO real financial investment that those constituents can SEE and yet expected to return a major Black vote with no earned investment. Social media sites are just full of the debate among Black grassroots groups saying they dont care if they dont vote for they dislike both Clinton and Trump, and NO ONE representing a voice of conscious offers and real opposing view as to why their lives can be different if Clinton, Duckworth wins, but as of this writing, NO SUCH advance investment by Clinton, Duckworth or the Democrats and no advance investment and waiting until the last minute could be costly.
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