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Former President Barack Obama recorded a get-out-the-vote call for Democratic Alabama Senate candidate Doug Jones, CNN reports. In the pre-recording, he implores voters to go to the polls Tuesday to reject the candidacy of Republican party member Roy Moore. Obama's involvement is just the latest in a combined, aggressive Democratic effort to counter President Donald Trump's full endorsement of the controversial Republican candidate.
"This one's serious," Obama says in the call. "You can't sit it out."
<p>The former president's call to Alabama voters is meant to aid Jones’ special election campaign, filling a U.S. Senate seat left vacant by Jeff Sessions <a href="https://thesocialedgen.wpengine.com/news/politics/things-keep-getting-worse-embattled-sessions/">when Trump appointed him to Attorney General</a>. Democratic New Jersey Senator Cory Booker has campaigned in Alabama for Jones, while other Democratic senators have fundraised on Jones’ behalf.</p><p>But some of Jones' advisors fear that the former president's endorsement could backfire and hurt Jones, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/10/us/politics/richard-shelby-roy-moore.html?mtrref=www.google.com">according to <em>The New York Times</em></a>. While Obama is well-loved by the black voters, he is still unpopular among some of the Republican-leaning white voters Jones needs.</p><p><div data-conversation-spotlight=""></div></p><p>"Doug Jones is a fighter for equality, for progress," Obama says in the recording, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/11/politics/barack-obama-alabama-senate/index.html">via CNN</a>. "Doug will be our champion for justice. So get out and vote, Alabama."</p><div class="content-list-component bn-content-list-text yr-content-list-text text"><p><span dir="ltr">Doug Jones is counting on black voters to choose him -- in fact, their turnout is critical for his campaign to win the special election -- and Obama's message to voters is intended to specifically reach that demographic audience.</span></p><p>“Certainly, the clearest path for Jones is to get the African-American share,” <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/11/politics/barack-obama-alabama-senate/index.html">said</a> Zac McCrary, a Democratic pollster at Anzalone Liszt Grove Research in Montgomery, Alabama. “It’s deceptively simple arithmetic to see how he gets there.”</p><h5></h5><p></p><p>But in this special election Senate race in which polls show that Alabama voters are more comfortable voting for a Republican candidate plagued with sexual allegations than they are voting for a Democrat, Jones <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/doug-jones-roy-moore-black-voters_us_5a296220e4b0b185e539def4">needs black voters to turn out at levels similar to when they turned out to for vote for Barack Obama in 2008</a>. And Doug Jones, a white 63-year-old male who has never held a public office role in government, is no Barack Obama.</p><p>Working in Jones' favor, though, is his opponent <a href="https://thesocialedgen.wpengine.com/news/politics/roy-moore-says-time-america-great-slavery/">Roy Moore's belief that America was a better country to live in when slavery was a legal institution</a>. During his campaign earlier this year, an audience member asked Moore for his opinion on when America was last great — a question we all too often now hear thanks to our current president.</p><p>Moore <a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-alabama-senate-runoff-20170921-story.html">responded</a>: "I think it was great at the time when families were united—even though we had slavery—they cared for one another…Our families were strong, our country had a direction."</p><p>Moore is a former Alabama Chief Justice who was suspended, twice, <a href="https://thesocialedgen.wpengine.com/news/advocacy/alabama-judge-defies-federal-order/">for refusing applications for same-sex marriage licenses</a>, even after that the United States Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right.</p></div><p>Obama's pre-recording follows President Donald Trump's own 90-second recording that is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/the-latest-trump-robocall-urges-support-for-roy-moore/2017/12/10/65df141e-de07-11e7-b2e9-8c636f076c76_story.html?utm_term=.9a4673576733">scheduled to go out today to Alabama voters</a>, in which he explains why he needs Moore in the U.S. Senate. In the <a href="https://youtu.be/ENpZpxHfruI">recording</a>, Trump says that progress on his agenda would be "stopped cold" if Alabama elects Democrat Doug Jones. He also attacks Jones, calling him a liberal who’s a puppet of Democratic congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.</p>
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