“While you have people debating the merits of the messaging of ‘defund the police,’ I wish they would shut up and help us knock on some doors.”Bakari Sellers, former South Carolina state representativeKara Turrentine, a Democratic strategist whose firm worked for Senator Bernie Sanders‘ campaign in Georgia and South Carolina doing direct mail and communications work, said the party must do a better job of explaining how it can change the material life of low propensity voters.
These men may not know the term “qualified immunity,” which shields cops from lawsuits, but they know there is no accountability for the brutalization of Black men by police, Robinson said.
Kara Turrentine, a Democratic strategist whose firm worked for Senator Bernie Sanders‘ campaign in Georgia and South Carolina doing direct mail and communications work, said the party must do a better job of explaining how it can change the material life of low propensity voters.
“Their question is ‘How is my life going to be different if I vote Democrat?’ We have to be able to show through policies that impact lives that voting blue is going to do something to improve your condition in this country,” Turrentine said.
Among those who do outreach to infrequent voters, there is a belief that the party as well as Ossoff and Warnock could be doing a better job engaging them.
Jerry Gonzalez, the CEO of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials (GALEO), said that because of this “folks are looking at not so much the candidates, but what’s at stake,” including “COVID relief, getting COVID under control, jump-starting the economy, and immigration reform, which is still what a lot of Latinos are thinking about.”
Robinson pointed to a Warnock ad with police officers that he felt sought to assuage conservatives that Republican messaging about him being anti-police was wrong, as evidence that the candidates don’t fully understand the potential they have within their own base of voters.
“We’re going to win Georgia in spite of our candidates,” he added.
Bakari Sellers, a former state representative from South Carolina and CNN commentator, told Newsweek he spent time talking to people in barbershops and to truck drivers in Georgia and South Carolina during the campaign cycle. While he acknowledged that meaningful outreach can be “tough” during this accelerated timeframe for the runoff elections, he said there is no substitute to actually speaking to these Black men whom he said feel the government has “left them behind.”
“While you have people debating the merits of the messaging of ‘defund the police,’ I wish they would shut up and help us knock on some doors,” he said. “If we want to have the progressive agenda that enhances and changes people’s lives for the next two years, nothing matters more than what happens January 5.”
For his part, Robinson said he held 4,000 conversations and events with Black men in places likes Atlanta, Macon and Brunswick. Away from the cameras, with no white people or women in the room, Robinson would hear unvarnished opinions from Black men who often were politically invisible in the eyes of campaigns and consultants.
He recalled one of the few politicos he let into the room once lecturing the men in attendance about why they didn’t view health care as a top issue when the Black community is disproportionately affected by co-morbidities that lead to complications and deaths.
“Why do I need health care if a cop is gonna shoot me before I’m 30?” a young man said, drawing the attention of the room. “He’s probably going to aim for my head or my heart so I won’t even make it to the hospital.”
The other men agreed.
“Facts.”
“That’s right.”
“True,” they said.