Obama campaign opens Shiprock office
By Chee Brossy
Navajo Times
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The Barack Obama campaign opened an office Wednesday in Shiprock, looking to get out the Navajo vote in New Mexico.
Obama is running on a platform of ending the war in Iraq and universal health care. In Indian Country Obama would like to make his name as a president who gives Native nations a voice in the White House.
At first glance, Obama's stance in regard to Indian Country is very similar to Sen. Hillary Clinton's Native American agenda.
Both support government-to-government relationships between tribes and the federal government, and the Indian Health Care Improvement Act now before Congress.
But Keith Harper, Obama's advisor on Native policy issues, said there are marked differences in the two candidates' agendas.
Harper, Cherokee, is also an attorney in Cobell v. Kempthorne, the lawsuit seeking millions of dollars on behalf of Indian allottees whose royalty payments went missing under the federal trustees.
Obama has stated that he will create a position on his senior staff that will be devoted to Indian issues, a groundbreaking development for the White House, according to Harper.
Clinton also promises to appoint Native Americans to key positions, but there is a "fundamental" difference, he said.
"What (Clinton's) talking about is what we already have," he said. "People are not at the White House - it's exactly what Bush is doing, exactly what her husband did, to have people at the agency levels like (the Department of Interior)."
Obama will have someone in the White House, where it counts, Harper said.
Matthew Tso, lead volunteer organizer for Obama's Shiprock office, spoke of the potential for Native American votes to swing the vote in New Mexico. Tso cited a low voter turnout anticipated at the New Mexico Democratic caucus.
"This is a close race, the Navajo vote could really be an X-factor," said Tso, noting that pre-primary polls usually don't track Native American preferences.
Tso said they are looking to get out 5,000 votes in New Mexico from the Navajo Nation. That would be roughly 10 percent of the voters anticipated in the entire state of New Mexico for the Democratic caucus.
The opening on Wednesday was to provide information to interested voters on Obama's plan for Indian Country.
Tso, originally from Hogback, N.M., also plans to recruit get-out-the- vote volunteers by traveling to the many Navajo chapters on the New Mexico side of the reservation.
"Everything is happening so fast," he said. "We're trying to generate excitement for the election. If you look at Barack's early work, it was on turning out the vote. That's where he started, doing work in his community, registering people in his community to vote."
Prominent Native Americans supporting Obama include Ned Norris, chairman of the Tohono O'odham Nation; Michael Marchand, chairman of the Confederated Colville Tribes; Suzan Shown Harjo, the writer and former director of the National Congress of American Indians.