opinion

Understand that this column was written before George W. Bush and John F. Kerry squared off against each other in Coral Gables, to debate foreign policy and the Iraq War. That debate, or the subsequent ones, could decide this years US election.

But I expect that this will not be the case, even if the result turns out so close that it could be blamed on anything.

I think that the fundamental dynamic of this year’s election was well put by one John Pappageorge, a white racist Republican legislator from the upscale Detroit suburb of Troy: “If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we’re going to have a tough time in this election.”

The city of Detroit, of course, is a bastion of African-American voters. A few of them are conservative Republicans, but meanwhile most of the city’s minority of white voters are not the sort of people who get upset about having black neighbors. Detroiters cast the great majority of their votes for Democrats.

Michigan now has a Democratic governor, thanks in large part to the support she received from Detroit voters.

When the previous governor, the conservative Republican John Engler, was first elected, he went into Election Day trailing by double digits in the polls. His incumbent predecessor, Jim Blanchard, thought that he had the black vote in his pocket, so concentrated on white suburbia by running TV ads showing a black prison inmate being abused by a white guard to show how tough he was. Detroit’s African-American voters responded as strongly as possible --- by staying home. There was a less than 20 percent turnout in the city that day, Engler won handily and Blanchard’s career as an elected official was over.

How come the pollsters were so wrong? For the same reason that they were wrong when gauging Michigan’s 1988 Democratic presidential caucuses. At those events they were taken by surprise by unexpectedly huge black participation. Dukakis was supposed to win those caucuses, according to the polls, but how wrong they were. Jesse Jackson soundly thrashed him, largely on the strength of unprecedented black participation.

But the polls were founded upon profiles of “likely voters,” and that is defined by various forumulae derived from usual voting trends.

In recent weeks pollsters have seen a close US presidential race, with George W. Bush hanging onto a slight lead, one that is often within the margin of error.

Let me suggest, however, that based upon reports of absentee ballot applications and new voter registrations, this will not be an ordinary election year.

Even though the US Department of Defense has blocked off the Internet absentee voting website to Americans who use British Telecom, Wanadoo, Telefonica, or China Telecom as their Internet service providers --- for “security reasons,” Donald Rumsfeld’s underlings argue, but not so curiously in countries where antiwar feelings are running high among expatriates --- Americans abroad have registered to vote and applied for absentee ballots in record numbers.

Even though Jeb Bush sent armed police officers to the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando, Florida, to question them about whether their absentee ballot applications were criminal; and even though the president’s brother attempted to pull his 2000 trick again with a list of “convicted felons” to be stricken from the voter roles that was composed primarily of black people, thousands of whom were not actually convicted felons, a list that curiously featured hardly any Spanish surnames in the 20 percent Hispanic state (because the Cubans traditionally vote Republican, of course), those assaults on the black vote have been fended off by the concerted efforts of activists and lawyers.

Even though the white Republican district attorney for Waller County, Texas, one Oliver Kitzman, threatened students at historically black Prairie View A&M University with prosecution if they registered to vote, the youngsters not only were not intimidated, they asserted their rights under the federal Voting Rights Act and forced Kitzman to resign.

All indications are that the pollsters’ “likely voter” models don’t apply this year. All indications are that there will be an unusually large turnout in November’s election, and that African-Americans in particular will show up at the polls en masse.

So, although I can’t say that I agree with very much that Mr. Pappageorge stands for, I do concur with his controversial statement. John Kerry and the Democrats are going to win or lose this election on the strength of black voter turnout.

Also in this section:
Bush, Speech to the UN
Kerry, Speech at New York University
Jackson, How the US election is likely to turn
Soca De Vote, Getting Caribbean-Americans to the polls
Liut, Goss's qualifications as seen through his stands on Haiti
Gutman, Of cretins, killers and kleptocrats
Carpio, G3 in the Greater Caribbean
Gutman, The sweet smell of revenge
Bernal, General History of Panama
Leis, Floods and building standards

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