Obama worried about black apathy

It's clear that Barack Obama is worried not just about independents/centrists/moderates, but about his core, too.

Why else, especially in the face of recent complaints from one or two of its members, would he tell the Congressional Black Caucus, in essence, to "shut up and follow me, period"?

"If Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House," the caucus chairman, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, recently told McClatchy Newspapers.

At the same time, Cleaver said he and other CBC leaders are performing a balancing act in keeping most of their complaints private. Well, sure, wouldn't want to upset America's first black Wall Street president, would we?


Reality? If black support for Obama in 2012 shows the same dropoff that it did for generic Democrats in 2010, he can probably write off Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida, off the top of my head. And that changes everything right there.