For blacks, the election was remarkably easy call

WASHINGTON — Here’s a statistic for you: George W. Bush, who lost the popular vote by about a third of a percentage point to Al Gore, won the electoral vote and the presidency with the support of 53 percent of American men, 42 percent of women, 33 percent of Hispanic-Americans, 41 percent of Asian-Americans — and 8 percent of African-Americans.

Here was an election so close it took over a month to figure out who had won it — a race in which both major candidates scored well in nearly every socioeconomic subcategory — and black voters wound up with virtually all their eggs in a single basket.

More than a third of union households supported Bush, as did 41 percent of first-time voters. Even 24 percent of gay and lesbian voters backed Bush.

Nine out of 10 blacks went for Gore.

That stark statistic probably explains why so many blacks are taking personally (or at any rate, racially) the Florida undercount and other irregularities that probably tilted Florida’s 25 electors — and the presidency — to Bush.

But what explains the statistic itself? What is it that Gore offered — or Bush threatened to withhold — that led to such black solidarity for the vice president?

The short answer is: Nothing. I’m looking at an October poll done by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a black-oriented Washington think tank. What did this survey disclose as key black concerns? Education, prescription drugs and health care, crime and violence, jobs and the economy, Social Security. Race relations turned up in eighth place on the list of black concerns — tied with taxes and slightly behind family values and gun control.

But even on the high-ranking issues — education, for instance — black voters seem not to have been driven by policy. The Joint Center survey showed blacks favoring school vouchers, which Bush supports, by a wider margin than the general population — 57 percent to 49 percent. Gore opposes vouchers.

What gives? David Bositis, the Joint Center’s senior political analyst, offers this interesting explanation: For blacks, more than for Americans generally, the just-ended race was an economic referendum on President Clinton’s second term.

According to Bositis, whites prospered more during the first Clinton term, but blacks gained at a faster pace during the second. One recent Joint Center poll found 45 percent of blacks saying they were better off than a year ago, 10 percent worse off, and 44 percent the same. The numbers for whites were 27, 17 and 56. "Black voters, in terms of how things were going economically, thought Clinton was spectacular," Bositis said. "White voters, having enjoyed the Clinton-era prosperity for the full eight years, were taking it for granted to the point they divorced their well-being from the president."

It’s not just economics, though, says Bositis. Africa "didn’t exist" in the first Clinton term. He visited the continent during his second. Even more: Blacks like Clinton for reasons of personality more than for reasons of policy or personal behavior. "Black voters sided with him during the impeachment hearings," says Bositis, "because they felt Clinton’s enemies were trying to take the presidency away from their man."

And all this translates into support for Al Gore? I should know better than to argue with people who know what they’re talking about, but I don’t buy it.

I think two things. The first is that the Democratic Party has become a sort of secular Baptist church for African-Americans. We may not understand the doctrine or how the rules get made — we may not even attend the services, except for important ritual occasions. But deep down, we think it’s where we belong.

The second is that African-Americans, as a permanent political minority, seldom are in position to make the critical difference in national elections. Oh, we can say that Kennedy, Johnson, Carter or Clinton couldn’t have won without our support — but so can a dozen other subgroups, from women to labor to government workers. But this time, the number of new black voters in Florida was greater than the margin of victory in a state that a few months earlier had virtually been conceded to the Republicans. If Gore had carried Florida, blacks would have had a solid claim to a share of that victory.

And what programs and policies might that have translated into? Probably not much. When you’re convinced that the church across the street is a short-cut to hell, your pastor doesn’t have to offer much to keep you from bolting. It’s enough for him to remind you just how terrible the other congregation is.