Bush tries to woo black voters

DETROIT — President Bush directly confronted his problems with black voters on Friday, challenging them to rethink their long allegiance with the Democratic Party and urging African-Americans to take another look at his record on the economy, education, social welfare programs and foreign policy.

Acknowledging that his party "has got a lot of work to do" before it can win over a group that has voted overwhelmingly for Democrats in the past and that polls show intends to do so again this year, Bush suggested that there is nonetheless discontent among African-Americans with Democrats. Republicans, he said, represent a viable and attractive alternative.

"Does the Democratic Party take African-American voters for granted?" Bush asked in a speech here to the National Urban League, facing an audience that included prominent black Democrats like the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton.

"I know plenty of politicians assume they have your vote," Bush said. "But do they earn it and do they deserve it? Is it a good thing for the African-American community to be represented mainly by one political party? That's a legitimate question. How is it possible to gain political leverage if the party is never forced to compete?"

Bush's appearance here before the National Urban League was hastily scheduled by the White House last week after the president turned down an invitation to speak to the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Bush has said he refused to appear before the NAACP because of hostility expressed toward him by the organization's leaders.

Bush's address came a day after Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, came here to speak to the same group, a predominantly black civil rights organization. Bush got a courteous welcome from the group, and he tried to defuse what was obviously a tense atmosphere for him and the audience with humor.

But the applause was tepid through much of his address.

Bush prodded the audience to consider whether conservative ideas, including tax cuts, school vouchers and giving religious institutions greater freedom to use federal funds for social welfare programs, could produce better results for black Americans than have the liberal approaches that largely dominated social policy debates for decades. "Does blocking the faith-based initiative help neighborhoods where the only social service provider could be a church?" he asked. "Does the status quo in education really, really help the children of this country? Does class warfare, has class warfare or higher taxes ever created decent jobs in the inner city?"