"Joe the Plumber," Meet the "D.C. Cab Driver"

As we draw closer to November 4, and suffer, daily, through all of the media focus on "Joe the Plumber," I can't help but recall one of the clearest pieces of political insight I ever received in my life. I was just 22 years old, and it came from an older, black cab driver in Washington, D.C.

I was new to the banking industry, a management trainee at the old First Pennsylvania Bank, here in town, and I was invited by some older African Americans in banking to begin making phone calls to black banking officers across the country in an effort to help convene the first national meeting of African-American bankers at large, mainstream banks.The event, which would be held in Chicago, at the Palmer House Hotel, would be an opportunity for us to come together, they explained, to compare notes and to discuss issues that would assist us in moving forward, as African Americans, in a very competitive and racially discriminatory industry.

That, of course, was all I needed to hear.

Once they had me sold on the concept, they persuaded me to use the telephones at the bank where I worked to make scores of long-distance calls during the business day, to explain the concept to others across the country and to invite participation.

After making numerous calls for about a week, with good success, people at my bank, and at other banks across the country, who were not black, began to notice what I was doing. After discussions with leaders of the powerful American Bankers Association (ABA), in Washington, D.C., senior management at First Pennsylvania decided against firing me on the spot but, rather, agreed with the ABA that I should continue to make the calls, but that they should be made from ABA headquarters, from their phones, in Washington. As a result, I wound up in D.C. every Tuesday and Wednesday, over a six-week period, where they assigned me to an office and a telephone to complete my assignment.

One Tuesday morning, as usual, upon my arrival by train to Washington, I caught a cab from Union Station to the ABA offices. After reading my newspaper in the cab for a few minutes, I looked up and said to "the brother" who was driving the cab, as only a 22-year-old might say, that I was certain that things in Washington, D.C. were very difficult for black folks, given that Richard M. Nixon, who had no special record of support for black causes, was the President of the United States.I'll never forget what happened next.

The cab driver looked over his shoulder at me, as if he were talking to a 12-year-old, rather than a 22-year-old, and said, slowly and impatiently: "Young man, Nixon is the President and I'm driving this cab, Johnson was the President and I was driving this cab, Kennedy was the President and I was driving this cab. The Presidential elections don't get down to my level."

At the time, his assessment hit me like a ton of bricks. I had never been faced with such plain-spoken political despair and it made me realize just how much work still had to be done to generate true political engagement in the black community. It was clear that, based on his experience, he had no reason to believe that his circumstances would be improved -- one way or the other -- by any presidential candidate, Democrat or Republican.

As insightful as that was, I hope to God that what the cab driver said back then is no longer true. I hope that when the dust has finally settled on the 2008 Presidential Election, late on November 4 or early on November 5, that we actually will have a president whose policies will directly impact, in a favorable and visible way, the conditions in Black America, as well as in the entire country.

At first glance, you would think it would be easy to understand how that might happen. In addition, Senator Obama clearly seems to have figured out how to generate enthusiasm in black voters. They really do want him to win. But, in far too many cases, if you talk to those same voters long enough about their realistic hopes for an Obama presidency, they confide that they're really not expecting him to make significant changes in their everyday lives, that the mainstream community simply "won't let him" to do so, but that it will be good, anyway, to have an African American in that office. Sounds like the "D.C. cab driver" is alive and well.

For black voters, more and more, their choice for the presidency really isn't "just about race," as right-wing pundits have been so quick to infer. The plain truth is that Obama's opponent, Senator McCain, seems not to have a command of the most important issues affecting our country. He continues to read his speeches from a very bad script and doesn't appear to have the comprehension, or good common sense, to realize just how far off the mark his views actually are. Over the past several weeks, his performances have grown increasingly scary.

How else can you explain why a candidate would look out on audiences of potential voters in the midst of a deep recession, people who are worried about losing their homes, their jobs and their pensions, people who are living in a country with one of the world's largest gaps between the rich and poor, and say, repeatedly, that his OPPONENT is interested in redistributing the wealth, and that, he, McCain, is not? Senator McCain seems to be totally oblivious to the fact that, to a rapidly growing number of Americans, redistributing the wealth, in some fashion, no longer seems like a bad idea.

Here's another thing...the incumbent president, George W. Bush, has had historically low approval ratings over the entire course of the presidential campaign, and is widely blamed for the country's terrible economic conditions and disastrous military record. And yet, Senator McCain, just last week, reaffirmed, in an appearance on Meet the Press, his great "respect" for President Bush. You tell me, is that any way to win an election?

Senator McCain, historians will probably point out, is currently running one of the most ineffective and misguided presidential campaigns in modern history. Curiously, despite that, about 45 percent of American voters are still "leaning" his way. Nevertheless, if Senator Obama can survive the faulty and manipulated electronic voting machines, the Bradley Effect, the "undecided" voters and additional last-minute smears by his opponents, he will most certainly win the election and be the next president of the United States.It is my fondest hope that such an outcome will be a positive one for our country. In the back of my mind, however, I can't stop thinking about the timeless wisdom of that "D.C. cab driver."

When I see that the likely next president of the United States has accepted what will easily be, more than $700 million in campaign contributions, much of it from very powerful donors who are interested in maintaining their control of the country; when I see Candidate Obama continue to shy away from direct discussions of black-specific issues, at every step of his campaign, I can't help wondering if any of this, at the end of the day, will "get down to our level" in the black community.

If it doesn't, then, all of this will have been a terrible waste of a good 20 months worth of campaigning, button-wearing and "hoping" for change.

Hey...don't forget to vote.


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