In the closest presidential contest in 40 years, between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush, race mattered. Sure, for most of the campaign, the candidates' — and the media's — attention focused on swing (read: white) voters in a handful of Midwestern states. But from the beginning, race, specifically black voter turnout, was a subtext of the presidential election. Up until the final weeks of the campaign, the mainstream media downplayed the importance of the black vote.

One hundred years after W.E.B. DuBois' prediction that "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line," race still matters. With the changing demographics, however, America's racial dilemma will involve color lines in the 21st century. California, for instance, is now a "majority minority" state. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the state's white population is 49.9 percent; Latinos and blacks represent 31.8 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively, of the population, with the rest of the majority made up of other minorities.

That said, the 20th-century black-white paradigm was an underlying theme of the 2000 election. The reason: The battleground states where the presidential race was likely won or lost are states where black voters can determine the outcome. In contrast, Latinos are concentrated in five states: California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas. With the exception of Florida, no serious campaign was mounted in those states because they were presumed to be safe in either the Bush or Gore column.

So both candidates used code and symbols to appeal to black voters. Gore made frequent campaign appearances before black groups and in black churches. The Democratic National Committee paid for radio and print ads that featured Gore discussing the party's positions on affirmative action, hate crimes and racial profiling. The ads ran on black-oriented radio stations and in black newspapers in battleground states.

The mainstream media often accused Gore of "pandering" or "race-baiting" on issues that resonated with black voters such as the Confederate flag flying atop the South Carolina statehouse. Truth be told, Gore used those issues to draw a bright line between the Democratic and Republican parties. And for good reason.

Since 1964, the GOP's Achilles heel has been its relationship with African-Americans. Black self-identification with the Republican Party fell from 22 percent in 1960 to 6 percent in 1964 in the wake of then-GOP presidential candidate Barry Goldwater's opposition to civil rights. The perception that the GOP is hostile to minorities limits the party's appeal to such voters.

The Republican establishment rallied around Bush in the expectation that he would be able to duplicate on the national level his success in attracting nearly a third of the black vote in his gubernatorial reelection campaign in 1998. Bush's supposed appeal to black voters was one of the pillars of his "electability." Much to the GOP's chagrin, Bush's failure to condemn the Confederate flag and his appearance before Bob Jones University, which banned interracial dating, shook that supposition to its foundation. Bush's racial blunders triggered widespread media condemnation in both the mainstream and the black press.

Even in the wake of the Bob Jones University debacle, Bush did not directly address race. Instead, he continued to stage "pretty pictures" with minority children and made campaign stops in inner city neighborhoods. Bush hoped his made-for-television nominating convention, which showcased blacks, would establish his bona fides as "a different kind of Republican."

A Parody Of Inclusion
Did Bush's media strategy work? In a word, no. The efforts to put a different face on the GOP culminated in a national convention that was a parody of inclusion. The Republican stage show was panned by pundits, including this writer. Indeed, my op-ed piece in The New York Times, "The Republicans' Illusion of Inclusion," was "all the talk around the country," according to MSNBC.com. The metaphor described the disparity between the convention delegates, who were more than 90 percent white and about four percent black, and the convention speakers, 21 percent of whom were black.

Failed Tactics
As for bringing new voters into the GOP fold, a recent poll by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies found that black self-identification with the Republican Party fell from five percent in 1999 to four percent this year. A mere nine percent of those surveyed said they supported Bush. In fact, during the same period, Bush's favorability rating among blacks declined from 43 percent to 29 percent and his unfavorability ratings almost doubled. As the Joint Center noted: "Over the course of the 2000 presidential campaign, as Bush became better known to African-Americans, their views of him became more negative."

Though mainstream journalists did a good job exposing the hollowness of Bush's outreach efforts, they gave superficial attention to the reasons why blacks did not support him. Typically, the disaffection was attributed to Bush's positions on affirmative action or hate crimes. Other than Bush's appearance at Bob Jones University, insufficient coverage was given to campaign tactics such as the endless photos with black children that increased his unfavorability rating among black voters and deepened distrust of Republicans.

The mainstream media's myopia on racial issues may be due to its own lack of diversity. According to a Freedom Forum study, journalists of color are underrepresented in the nation's newsrooms. In 1999, the Census Bureau reported the U.S. nonwhite population was 28 percent. At the same time, the American Society of Newspaper Editors estimated that 11.6 percent of journalists are nonwhite. The racial gap is even wider among political reporters and columnists.

In the broadcast media, a casual TV viewer would notice the racial chasm among political analysts and the general population. The homogenous pundits missed the "big picture" on black turnout and intensity because the voter mobilization activities took place outside of the old-boy network.

The Role Of The Black Press
Not surprisingly, the black press — print, broadcast, cable and new media — offered more complete coverage of racial issues. Black talk-show host Tom Joyner, Black Entertainment Television and new media outlets like BlackPressUSA.com, BET.com, Black Voices, The Black World Today and 360HipHop.com played a critical role in ferreting out the differences between the two major parties on issues of importance to African Americans.

As in the 1998 midterm elections, the black press was a key player in a voter education and mobilization campaign conducted by a national coalition of grassroots organizations. Unity 2000's mission was to boost black voter turnout in states with a significant black voting-age population. To that end, both old and new media outlets sounded the alarm: All souls to the polls on Election Day.

The mainstream media pundits and analysts notwithstanding, the outcome of the first presidential election of the 21st century will turn on whether black voters heeded the clarion call to "lift every voice and vote."
 

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