By speaking at his National Action Network conference. From the Associated Press: "Obama remains highly popular among blacks. In 2008, 95 percent of blacks who voted chose Obama. In a Gallup poll last week, 84 percent of blacks approved of Obama's overall performance, about the same percentage as six months ago. So why all the attention now? It's actually harder for Obama to reach out to black voters than it would be for a white president, said Mark Anthony Neal, an African-American studies professor at Duke University, 'because there's a narrative that he's catering to a black constituency.' 'Obama needs Al Sharpton as a certain kind of surrogate for black voters,' Neal said. 'Symbolically, his willingness to speak at the convention is a subtle message to black voters that he is paying attention to their concerns. Because that's the other side of the narrative....there is a heavy critique of Obama among black voters for not being cognizant and attentive enough to issues affecting the black community.'"
More about the liberal Democratic president: "A factor in this dilemma is the view among some whites that the president gives blacks favorable treatment. Carol Swain, a [black conservative] Vanderbilt University political science professor and Obama critic, called that view a misperception, but said it was fed by cases like the New Black Panther voter intimidation lawsuit and the Justice Department asking Dayton, Ohio, to lower its police exam passing score because too few black applicants passed. This dynamic may have made Obama 'overly defensive' about race, said Bill Anderson, a host on the Philadelphia black talk radio station WURD."
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Obama Carefully Courts Black Votes With Al Sharpton
