U. S. candidates avoid talk on poverty; Part II

The candidates for the U.S. presidential election have focused on the issues important to the middle class, and senior citizens. They do that because those two groups vote in the largest numbers. So talk of poverty and the poor rarely occurs in the campaign, because those who are poor vote in small percentages.  What should be one of our most important issues gets little attention just because of polling numbers.

From the Christian Science Monitor, writer Eric Spanberg gives us this analysis.

The last time poverty was a major issue in presidential politics was the 1960s, when President Lyndon B. Johnson instituted a national War on Poverty and Robert Kennedy made a poverty tour in Mississippi. While Mr. Obama’s health-care reforms could have a profound impact on the poor – and were clearly designed to help them – they were often couched in terms designed to appeal to the middle class. 

Partly, that is because of what Mr. Johnson’s Great Society achieved. The programs led to a dramatic reduction in the poverty rate down to about 14 percent by the 1970s. While the rate has not declined since then, it has not gone up much, either, meaning the poor remain a significant minority of the population. Today’s rate fluctuates between 14 and 16 percent, says Professor Parker.  

In addition, the poor consistently vote at much lower levels than other groups, says James Henson, a political scientist at the University of Texas in Austin. “People with low incomes have a harder time finding the time and getting out to vote,” he says. “They tend to be less directly engaged, and they have less political information pushed to them.” 

 Voting participation among the poor could decline further if voter ID requirements percolating in many red states become law, Professor Henson and other experts say. The obvious conclusion for campaign strategists: Why cater to populations that vote less?

...

We also found this iten near the end of the article very important. Superstar economist Jeffery Sachs weighed in on how even the voices of the middle class is quited during the campaign.

The bigger problem is that money has changed politics so that it serves neither the poor nor the middle class anymore, says Jeffrey Sachs, an economist and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York.  

“It’s a serious distortion of our political process,” he says. “In a two-party system the poor might get neglected anyway because of an aim for the middle class. But in our political system even the middle class is relatively neglected to the interests of the affluent. They pay for the campaigns.” 

Despite pronounced philosophical differences in how to address poverty, both parties are motivated by money, Sachs says. That leads to an unwillingness to advocate policies that could hit the wealthy too hard. 

An African view of the U.S. election

We have mentioned in a previous post how poverty in America has barely been mentioned in the campaign for president. What has been discussed even less by the candidates is poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Many Africans have felt ignored by the U.S. over the last four years. This cold shoulder has been reflected in trading statistics as well. China is now the biggest reading partner with Africa, eclipsing a record that the U.S established in 2008.

From Reuters Alert Net, writers  Njuwa Maina and Tosin Sulaiman have this view of the U.S. election from African eyes.

Looking across the Atlantic to the Nov. 6 presidential election, the continent is cooler now towards the "son of Africa" who is seeking a second term. There are questions too whether his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, will have more to offer to sub-Saharan Africa if he wins the White House.

Obama, who hailed his "African blood within me", only visited sub-Saharan Africa once in his four years - a stopover of less than a day in Ghana in between summits elsewhere.

In Kogelo, which was put on the tourism map by Obama's election and where his grandmother still lives, locals take this personally.

"He should have come to at least say 'hi' to the people of Kenya so that we can know that we are still together in spirit, rather than abandoning us as if he was not our son," said Steven Okungu, 21. "It is a disappointment."

Many in Africa feel their enthusiasm for Obama was not requited by him in terms of increased U.S. commitment and fresh concrete initiatives on the world's poorest continent, a deficit they see being filled by other emerging players such as China, Brazil, India and South Korea.

Sub-Saharan Africa has gone virtually unnoticed as a topic in the U.S. presidential election campaign, focused heavily as it has been on pressing domestic issues such as the lack of jobs and how to prod America's stuttering economy into faster growth.

But analysts see a strong counter-terrorism focus increasingly driving U.S. policy towards Africa, as Washington throws its weight behind efforts on the continent to confront the spreading presence there of al Qaeda and its Islamic jihadist allies in hotspots from Somalia to Mali and Nigeria.

"These concerns don't recognise borders," Mark Schroeder, Director of Sub-Saharan Africa analysis at STRATFOR Global Intelligence, told Reuters, predicting this security focus will figure strongly whoever wins the election.

In 2009, China overtook the United States as Africa's largest trading partner. According to the Brookings Institution, President Hu Jintao of China has made up to seven trips to Africa, five as head of state, and has visited at least 17 countries. In contrast, Obama's 20-hour 2009 sojourn in Ghana has been his only trip to sub-Saharan Africa as president.

"We would have expected to see more American involvement instead of a retreat. If you go to many countries and ask them about who is doing more, they will tell you China," said Mwangi Kimenyi, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Audio: An American single parent in Poverty

WBEZ in Chicago has this great profile on a single mother living below the poverty line. Children born to single mothers are four times likely to live in poverty. In this story, the single parent Sarah reveals how sometimes minimum wage work doesn't pay when you need to pay for daycare. In part two, we learn of how juggling the many government programs can seem like a full time job in itself.