Back to The Party of Lincoln?

By Richard Lacayo

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.

With reporting by Michael Duffy/Washington