Barack Hussein Obama's campaign plans to relaunch his "urban agenda" Monday in what people close to the strategy say is an effort to assure urban leaders and voters of the Democratic nominee's commitment to cities and minorities without alienating skeptical white voters.
The plan features an increase in the minimum hourly wage, a new White House office focused on metropolitan areas and $60 billion to establish a national bank to finance public-works projects.
The campaign didn't give a total cost for the plan, but the 32-page blueprint that will be released during a meeting of the Democratic Party's African-American caucus includes tens of billions of dollars in annual spending on antipoverty programs, the new federal bank, education efforts and other new initiatives. Obama aides say much of the funding would come from an estimated $200 billion saved from reducing government waste and ending the Iraq war.
In a nod to the concerns of urban leaders and voters, Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, a registered independent who supported Sen. Hillary Clinton in the primaries and has been a critic of Sen. Obama's urban positions in the past, has been given a Monday-night speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention. Mr. Diaz is president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
The plan is a repackaged version of one the campaign first unveiled in January, but it is being promoted in a recalibrated way. The campaign is wrestling with how to reassure Sen. Obama's urban and African-American supporters -- whose backing is the bedrock of his electoral strategy -- without alienating skeptical white voters.
People familiar with the strategy discussions inside the Obama camp say Sen. Obama won't be the main spokesman for the urban agenda, in an effort to insulate him from potential backlash.
Michael Coleman, the black mayor of Columbus, Ohio, will lead the discussion Monday before the caucus. A series of town-hall meetings staged in various cities will follow, each led by mayors and other local leaders.
"We have a number of surrogates who are speaking on many issues on a daily basis," said Obama spokesman Corey Ealons.
"I don't think that there is any hesitancy at all to be associated strongly with this," said Melody Barnes, senior domestic-policy adviser for the Obama campaign.
Sen. Obama first unveiled his urban policies during the South Carolina primary, the first Democratic contest of this election cycle in which African-American voters were pivotal. At the time, most established black Democratic leaders were backing Sen. Clinton, and polls showed the majority of African-Americans planned to vote for her.
Since handily winning there in a vote that galvanized blacks behind him nationally, Sen. Obama has discussed the urban plan only twice, and before largely friendly audiences.
The wide-ranging plan contains bedrock Democratic principles, pledging to increase funding for affordable housing, raise the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011, triple the income-tax credit tied to that wage and fully fund the federal No Child Left Behind policy for schools.
Centerpieces include creation of a new White House Office of Urban Policy and the restoration of billions of dollars cut from community block grants, a key source of funding for cities.
In a nod to one of the mayors' top priorities, Sen. Obama would open a national bank, seeded with $60 billion over 10 years, to finance road, bridge, airport and other public-works projects in metropolitan areas. The bank would be modeled on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., with an independent board of directors.
Sen. Obama says his administration would shift urban-policy making to so-called smart-growth strategies that synchronize transportation, commercial and housing needs for entire regions, rather than following the tradition of focusing first on fighting poverty and crime. He would fund $200 million in annual grants to develop "regional clusters," such as the high-technology-focused area known as the Research Triangle in North Carolina.
Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the likely Republican presidential nominee, told the National Urban League that Sen. Obama's initiatives would increase the federal debt through tax increases, which he said are "the last thing we need. Raising taxes eliminates jobs, hurts small businesses and delays economic recovery."
Sen. McCain hasn't released a formal policy identified as targeting urban issues. But he has said he would cut business taxes to spur companies to create new jobs and pledged to create 700,000 jobs through the construction of 45 nuclear power plants by 2030. In education, Sen. McCain promises to fully fund the Bush administration's signature program, No Child Left Behind, to issue vouchers for students in failing schools to use toward private educations and to give merit pay to teachers. He says funding would come from existing money dedicated to Title I and Title II programs, which target schools with large enrollments of low-income students, and from funds dedicated to professional development for teachers.
Obama strategists say they face a delicate balancing act. Their candidate must energize huge turnouts among African-Americans and residents of cities in order to win. But the support of white voters, particularly those in the working class, remains elusive for Sen. Obama. Last week's Wall Street Journal/NBC survey found whites prefer Sen. McCain over Sen. Obama 49% to 37%, with the two candidates in a statistical dead heat among voters overall.
The stagecraft at the Democratic National Convention is aimed at making whites feel more comfortable with the Illinois senator's positions and mixed-race background without making minority voters feel taken for granted, Obama strategists say.
The Obama camp is being careful to characterize urban policies as "economic" rather than "social" -- avoiding a label commonly associated with government assistance to poor, mostly black and Hispanic inner cities.
Topic: Obama Promotes Plan For Urban Development (Read 520 times)