If Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana fails to win re-election in her December 7 runoff, one of the contributing factors could be a falloff in African-American turnout that speaks to problems deep within the Democratic Party. For some time now, it has been apparent that the conservative and liberal wings of the party are on a collision course and that it was just a matter of time before the party's coherence was challenged by this fact. That reality--combined with party signals that continue to devalue the black base--means that the relationship between blacks and the party may be in serious danger of a showdown.

Black voter turnout this year was slightly down from 1998 levels, but Republican victories were actually fueled by the higher turnout of white Republican base voters in those targeted districts where George Bush campaigned for Republican candidates. Nevertheless, the fact that black turnout was lower affected races in states like North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Louisiana and New York, in all of which the black voting-age population was large.

The debate over the reasons for this slight but critical decline has focused on inadequate party leadership as well as black disaffection over the lack of attention by party leaders to black concerns. There is much truth in the conventional wisdom that there was no clear and distinctive party message regarding current problems such as the potential war against Iraq, homeland security, the slide in the economy and prescription drug benefits for seniors. Moreover, Bush successfully co-opted some Democratic issues, as revealed in polls showing that for the first time Republicans were trusted more than Democrats on one of their bread-and-butter issues--education. And Bush was able to turn his role as protector of American security into a powerful motivator for his constituency to vote.

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