By Kathy Wray Coleman: Greater Clevelanders that helped president win reelection treat Obama like a homie, president visits ArcelorMittal Steel Factory in Cleveland to discuss his health care agenda, jobs, the economy: The Cleveland NAACP, 100 Black men, city health department hold health care enrollment forum that day, Obama thanks ArcelorMittal CEO Lakshmi Mittal, Sherrod Brown, Marcy Kaptur, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, Ed FitzGerald, Governor Kasich during speech, Congresswoman Fudge, State Senator Nina Turner were key in Ohio to Obama's 2012 reelection
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| President Barack Obama delivers remarks at ArcelorMittal Steel Factory in Cleveland, Ohio on November 14, 2013 (Official White House Photo By Lawrence Jackson) |
From Left: Cleveland NAACP Executive Director Sheila Wright, Dr. Charles Modlin, a Cleveland Clinic kidney transplant surgeon who chairs the Cleveland NAACP Health Committee, 100 Black Men of Greater Cleveland President Terry Maynard, and City of Cleveland Department of Public Health Director Karen Butler. They spearheaded a health care insurance enrollment forum under the Affordable Care Act in conjunction with President Obama's visit to the Cleveland area on Thursday.
Ohio 11th Congressional District Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge (left), a Warrensville Heights Democrat who also chairs the Congressional Black Caucus,
and state Sen. Nina Turner, a Cleveland Democrat. Both were key to President Obama's 2012 campaign for reelection and campaigned heavily for the president.
President Barack Obama thanked Republican Ohio Gov John Kasich (in blue tie) and some of his fellow Democrats during his speech on Thursday, November 14, 2013 at the ArcelorMittal Steel Factor in Cleveland, Ohio. From Left: Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson , 9th District Congresswoman Marcia Kaptur, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, and Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald.
President Obama shakes hands with steelworkers after an afternoon speech at ArcelorMittal Steel Factory in Cleveland, Ohio on Thursday, November 14, 2013 (Photo by Associated Press)By Johnette Jernigan and Kathy Wray Coleman, Cleveland Urban News.Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black newspapers (www.clevelandurbannews.com) and (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com). Reach us by phone at 216-659-0473 and by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio-After a morning White House press conference with a group of testy reporters demanding an explanation for the national uproar over his universal health care plan, and his approval ratings below normal, Barack Obama boarded Air Force One on Thursday and flew home to Cleveland, Ohio for an afternoon speech at ArcelorMittal Steel Factory, one of the world's leading steel and manufacturing plants.
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| Steel Baron Lakshmi Mittal |
"I want to thank CEO Lakshmi Mittal for investing in America and the Cleveland area," said Obama during his speech to steelworkers on Thursday.
A largely Black city with Black mayor Frank G. Jackson at the helm, and with 18 Democrats and nine Blacks on the 19-member Cleveland City Council, Cleveland may have felt like home to Obama last week.
Though Cleveland is not the president's hometown, his homecoming on Thursday did not suggest otherwise, particularly since he chose it for his safe haven for a key speech away from the White House at a time when ObamaCare, his health care initiative, was clearly under attack by the Republican regime.
The local mainstream media, which can be fickle, were gracious with headlines of his arrival.
Labor unions, Black people, and Democrats, some of the same groups that help catapult him to president, were among his allies, close up, and from a distance, many waiting for the president to step foot in the city, once again.
The president spoke for nearly 28 minutes at the steel plant located on Harvard Avenue on the city's largely Black east side , and he said that it felt good to be back in Cleveland since his visit late last year during a campaign stop. He said that the economy was in a free fall and on the brink of collapse when he became president and that its has improved tremendously under his leadership.
"It's a win, win," said Obama, who won a second term in 2012 against Republican Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney with help from a cadre of greater Cleveland politicians, many Black, and a handful of them who aggressively campaigned for the president, including state Sen. Nina Turner (D-25), a Cleveland Democrat, and Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, a Warrensville Heights Democrat and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.
"Our economy is growing, we are creating jobs," Obama said to cheers and applause.
The president thanked some key fellow Democrats, including Jackson, Cleveland's mayor since 2006 and a former city council president, and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, Toledo Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, and Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, the Democratic frontrunner to take on Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich in next year's gubernatorial race.
After touching on issues such as natural gas, and what he said is the country's declining dependency on foreign oil, the former Illinois senator preached on the importance of working with schools and colleges to continue enhancing the nation's workforce.
As widely anticipated, the president focused on his universal healthcare plan, a comprehensive overhaul of the nation's health care system under a federal law, the Affordable Care Act, legislation passed by a divided Congress in 2010 that takes effect next year.
Obama complimented Gov. Kasich during his speech, who broke ranks with his fellow Republicans to endorse the sweeping health care reform plan. He teased a little on the malfunctioning government website that let's people apply for health care insurance online, though mail-in applications are accepted.
But he spoke in a serious tone in saying he expects improvement and better access to the website, which has to date generated roughly 28,000 online applications from the 36 participating states, including some 1,200 from Ohio.
Later that day Cleveland NAACP, in partnership with the City of Cleveland Health Department and the Greater Cleveland Chapter of 100 Black men held a forum at the University Circle United Methodist Church in Cleveland to give people an opportunity to prepare applications on the spot to enroll for health care insurance and before next month's application deadline for federal subsidies to begin in January.
Efforts to eliminate disparities and achieve health equity have been at the cornerstone of Obama's presidential agenda, and while he has support for one of the most important domestic issues of his presidency, and primarily along partisan lines, he has caught all out hell for pushing it at the hands of some right wing congressional Republicans.
Those needing it most, studies show, are small business owners, poor people and people in low income jobs.
A 2012 U.S. Census Bureau analysis found that 16 percent of Americans live below the poverty line, most of them White, but a disproportionate number of them Black or members of other minority groups of color.
"This is to make sure that we take care of the least of us," Cleveland NAACP Executive Director Sheila Wright told Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's most read online Black newspaper.
"Tonight's forum was well attended and was to educate the community about the Affordable Care Act and the open enrollment process, said Dr. Charles S. Modlin, a kidney surgeon, director of the Minority Health Center for Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute at the Cleveland Clinic and chair of the Cleveland NAACP Health Committee.
"It was a critically important forum," said Terry Maynard, president of the Greater Cleveland Chapter of 100 Black Men
Karen Butler, director of the Department of Public Health for the City of Cleveland, took an opportunity at the forum to stress Jackson's support of Obama.
"The mayor supports the president," Butler said.
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