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US elections: Obama, in pitch for Biden, urges Black men not to sit out Barack Obama made his first in-person campaign pitch for Joe Biden, urging voters in Philadelphia especially Black men not to sit out the election and risk reelecting President Donald Trump
Former President Barack Obama made his first in-person 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 Donald 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 Senator Kamala Harris, as ready to confront the coronavirus pandemic. Obama was slated to address a drive-in rally later Wednesday. "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," Barac Obama said. The significance of the roundtable was difficult to miss: The nation's first Black president urged Black men especially not to give into 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...