Unless Mr. Bush makes a very drastic change in his image, he's not likely to get much more than the usual 10 percent, more or less, that black voters typically have given Republican presidential candidates since the mid-1960s.
The reason is simple: Black voters vote their interests, the same as other voters do, and, overall, black Americans are not better off than they were four years ago. Quite the contrary, many see themselves as worse off.
After narrowing the gap with whites for the first time in decades, black income, employment and poverty rates are again falling further behind their white counterparts. This year, for example, the black unemployment rate has been rising twice as fast as the rate for whites. Black unemployment surged to 11.8 percent in June, helping to take the overall jobless rate up to a nine-year high of 6.4 percent, according to the Labor Department.
In the mid-1990s, by contrast, black employment and income actually rose at a higher rate than they rose for whites, according to David A. Bositis, senior political analyst for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a leading black-oriented, Washington-based think tank.
"During Bill Clinton's second term, white household income went up $4,000, while black household income went up $5,000," he said. "Since then, a lot of black manufacturing jobs have been lost, along with a lot of funding for government programs that have helped African-Americans get by or get ahead."
| The meat of a Clarence Page sandwich column "President Bush's ricochet romance with black voters" in the Baltimore Sun
posted in articles on August 1, 2003 4:17 AM | t (0)
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