Former President Bill Clinton electrified the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night. Now it is President Obama's turn. There are a lot of issues that can and will be discussed but the albatross around this administration's neck is the economy. So how will he address the issue tonight at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina?
Obama 2012 Campaign Advisor, Patrick Gaspard says, "I think that President Obama is gonna tell the story about this economy and what he has done to pull us out of this economy, by walking us again through the prism of the shared values he has with middle class Americans."
Democratic strategists contend the president's poll numbers are directly tied to the middle class pocketbook.
Robert Johnson, founder of BET and of The RLJ Companies, contends "the moment has arrived "for the President to step up with an aggressive outreach for black America in his speech" to get them enthusiastic about going to the polls like he has with other communities to include the women’s, Hispanic and LGBT vote.
Johnson says, "We have suffered through four years of 14 percent and above African-American unemployment. If the whole country were facing 14.3 percent unemployment, it would be total turmoil in demanding change to put people back to work. I think its incumbent of the president to talk about the fact and we cannot tolerate 14.3 percent among African-Americans any more than we tolerate 8.3 percent for all Americans."
Congressman Xavier Beccerra is attending the DNC and says the most important factor for minority America is, "jobs, jobs, jobs. That's it!" Becerra, the vice chair of the Democratic Caucus says, "if we are working we are doing much better…It is all about jobs. If you look at every study, it shows that our net worth as a family, our ability to send our kids to a good college, everything is dependent on having money. That means good jobs."
In the past few months, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis acknowledged a million jobs were created and half of that number went to the Latino workforce. Becerra was asked to respond to that statistic. "More and more jobs in America are requiring high skill. More and more, you've got to have college or some college in order to be able to keep a good paying job." The Los Angeles Congressman admits labor jobs may not keep families afloat like years ago, saying they "are not paying as well and are going away."
On the jobs front, the August 2012 jobs numbers are to be released Friday by the labor department. The numbers could be one determining factor as to how long and much of a bump in poll numbers President Obama receives after his Thursday night DNC speech. The numbers are released early Friday morning; just hours after the president's speech that is expected to rally the Democratic Party.
Meanwhile, last week at the Republican National Convention, Governor Mitt Romney said if he were elected president, he would create 12 million jobs in four years’ time.
