As welcome as that news is to President Bush, 69 percent of blacks support John Kerry, according to a poll conducted by Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank that focuses on issues regarding blacks and other minorities, Newsday reported yesterday.

Emphasizing the disparity, David Bositis, a senior analyst at the center, told Newsday: "If they turn out, I don't think Bush is going to get 18 percent," adding that Bush would then get 12 percent to 13 percent of the black vote, putting him in line with what other Republican presidents have captured.

"He has to get higher than last time. He was in the dumpster last time," Bositis said.

A New York Times poll released Tuesday showed that among likely voters, 47 percent support Bush, 45 percent are for Sen. John Kerry and 2 percent for Ralph Nader.

But among blacks, the Bush-Cheney ticket is supported by an amazing 17 percent of African-Americans. Kerry gets 76 percent of the black voters, and Nader only 1 percent.

Bositis told Newsday that much of the increased support for Bush probably comes from black Christian conservatives and black Republicans who support the president's faith-based initiatives and his opposition to same-sex marriage.

Bush also may have gained support among high-income blacks who benefited from his tax cuts, Bositis said.

Ron Walters, a political scientist at the University of Maryland, doubts the level of support for Bush shown by the polls, insisting that the poll was conducted before the final presidential debate and didn't specifically target registered voters.

"He'll be lucky" to get 6 or 7 percent, Walters said. "This war is an elephant on everybody's back."

Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page essentially agrees with Bositis. "This year, Karl Rove, Bush's senior political adviser, urged the president to reach out to evangelicals and other social conservatives and that gesture appears to have paid off among blacks, too," Page wrote.

"This outreach to black social conservatives may work particularly well with a candidate like Kerry, whose New England reserve varies widely in manner from President Bill Clinton, whose electric ability to connect with black crowds is legendary."

Moreover, Page says, he suspects that "Bush's high-level black Cabinet appointments - like Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice - make him more palatable among African-Americans, even among those who disagree with him on many social and economic issues. A little symbolism can go a long, long way.

"All of which poses a big challenge for Kerry. Younger voters of all races may give him the most support, but they also have the lowest voter turnout rates."

The poll numbers, he wrote, "should be a loud wake-up call for those Democratic leaders inclined to take black voters for granted. No constituency is guaranteed to any party, not even in a year of extremely polarized politics."

Editor's note: