TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/010289/01028900.025

Text File | 1990-09-22 | 5KB | 88 lines

NATION, Page 79

Back to the Party of Lincoln?

Bush makes a determined effort to reach out to blacks


    The most prominent black in the George Bush campaign was Willie
Horton, the Massachusetts killer who raped a woman after he escaped
from prison on a weekend furlough. The Bush camp relentlessly
invoked Horton to portray Michael Dukakis as soft on crime -- but
maybe also to make a not so subtle pitch to racial fears. In recent
weeks, however, Bush has adroitly been mending fences. He moved
quickly to meet with Jesse Jackson, Coretta Scott King and
N.A.A.C.P. leader Benjamin Hooks. Jim Pinkerton, the director of
policy development for the Bush transition team, promises, "The
President-elect has a personal commitment to a new day in civil
rights."

    Bush moved in that direction last week when he named
Congressman Jack Kemp to be Secretary of Housing and Urban
Development. Kemp has long sought to bring minorities into the
G.O.P. by promoting economic opportunity in inner cities. But an
unforeseen flap over abortion almost sabotaged Bush's most
important gesture to blacks: the appointment of Dr. Louis W.
Sullivan to be Secretary of Health and Human Services and the first
black member of the new Cabinet.

    The president of Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta,
Sullivan, 55, is a friend of George and Barbara Bush's. His
appointment seemed assured until he told the Sunday Atlanta Journal
and Constitution that he supported a woman's right to have an
abortion, though he opposed federal funding for the procedure.
Right-to-life activists were outraged. In a letter to the Atlanta
newspaper, Sullivan sought to clarify -- or reverse -- his
statements. "I am opposed to abortion," he wrote, "except in cases
of rape, incest, and where the life of the mother is threatened."
Yet in a second interview Sullivan compounded the problem by
indicating that he would support Bush's antiabortion position at
work but privately harbored a different view.

    On Tuesday a press conference that was expected to feature the
announcement of Sullivan's appointment was hastily canceled.
Sullivan was summoned to Washington to meet with pro-life activists
and congressional foes of abortion, including Utah Senator Orrin
Hatch and Congressman Vin Weber of Minnesota. During three hours
of cordial but intense questioning, Sullivan insisted that he was
solidly in their camp, at one point even calling abortion "murder."

    Though Hatch and Weber said they were satisfied, militant
pro-lifers remain opposed to the nomination. Nevertheless, it came
on Thursday, when Bush announced Sullivan's appointment, along with
that of New Mexico Congressman Manuel Lujan as Secretary of the
Interior; Samuel K. Skinner, a former U.S. Attorney from Illinois,
to be Secretary of Transportation; and former Congressman Ed
Derwinski of Illinois to head the new Department of Veterans
Affairs. Two days later, Bush added a woman to his Cabinet when he
named Elizabeth Dole, who was Secretary of Transportation under
Ronald Reagan and is the wife of Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole,
to be Secretary of Labor.

    Bush aides wanted nothing to stand in the way of Sullivan's
nomination. Just 12% of the nation's black voters pulled the lever
for George Bush last November. Wooing blacks "has been very tough
and, frankly, near impossible," admits Lee Atwater, the new
chairman of the Republican National Committee. But Atwater thinks
the G.O.P. has an opportunity to make inroads, especially among
younger or more affluent blacks. If the Republicans skim just 10%
to 20% of that vote from Democrats, it could be enough to make the
difference in close contests, particularly in the South, where
black voters gave Democrats the edge in four Senate races in 1986.

    One element of the Bush strategy has been to offer
Administration titles to black staffers on Capitol Hill, who
complain that they are being ignored by Democrats now making up job
lists. One example: Maine's George Mitchell, the new Senate
majority leader, has no blacks in policymaking positions on his
staff and has not appointed any to the Democratic Policy Committee.
Meanwhile, Connie Newman, co-director of the Bush effort to bring
minorities into the Administration, each day sifts through 75 to
100 resumes from black candidates. "It's time for blacks to
question their blind commitment to the Democratic Party," she says.

    But filling jobs with black candidates is one thing.
Formulating policies to meet the black agenda -- on civil rights
enforcement, low-income housing and combating drugs -- is something
else. "The gestures of kindness are a plus," said Jesse Jackson
last week. "But they are not a substitute for the remedies that
must take place to offset the neglect of the Reagan era." The face
of Willie Horton may be fading from public memory, but it remains
to be seen whether the next Administration can show a new face to
American blacks.