The 20% Solution

By Michael Duffy/Washington

George Bush's main reason for inviting Nelson Mandela to the White House this week is to dramatize Washington's opposition to apartheid and its support for oppressed blacks in South Africa. But the President may have seen another benefit in being hospitable: he wants to demonstrate his longtime regard for issues of concern to American blacks, many of whom know him, like him and may even be willing to vote Republican in this year's congressional elections, to say nothing of 1992.

Though he won only 9% of the black vote in 1988, Bush believes Democrats are foolishly taking their black supporters for granted. He is making every effort to gain some votes back. The idea is not to win over all blacks, or even most of them, but to slice off just enough, say 20%, to make the difference in Southern states where monolithic black support helped Democrats upset Republican incumbents in 1986 and 1988 Senate and House races. Call it the 20% solution.

To implement the plan, Bush set out immediately after his racially charged election campaign to court blacks, ignored for eight years by Ronald Reagan. He invited black leaders, businessmen and preachers, including Jesse Jackson, to the White House. He visited black neighborhoods, churches and colleges, which he has supported for decades. And if Bush has not named a lot of blacks to Government posts, those blacks he has selected have been appointed to prominent jobs. The best example: General Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The strategy is working: 56% of blacks say they approve of Bush's performance as President.

But if the wooing continues to accentuate words rather than deeds, it could fizzle. In recent months blacks have been pressing Bush to deliver on two items: maintaining economic sanctions against South Africa and signing the 1990 Civil Rights Act, now moving toward the Senate floor. Bush gets a bye on the first test: though he is opposed to sanctions, Congress in 1986 prohibited lifting the bans on trade until South Africa takes specific steps to dismantle apartheid. Bush reminded everyone of that three times at a press conference in Alabama last week.

The civil rights bill has Bush playing for time. Business lobbyists and activists on Bush's right flank widely oppose the measure. Pressure from the right is so intense that White House officials have been careful not to commit bargaining positions to paper, lest their boss be accused of backing down in the end. After counseling Bush to cut what deals he can, Lee Atwater, the convalescent Republican National Committee chairman who masterminded the 20% solution, advised him to "sign this bill."

Even if he doesn't, Bush might yet succeed by indirection. Just by wooing blacks, Bush has thrown Democrats off-balance and defused some of the anti- Republican fury that fueled record Democratic turnouts by blacks in 1986 and 1988. Moreover, by reversing the G.O.P.'s long-standing whites-only image, Bush's black offensive has also strengthened his appeal to young, affluent voters. Says a White House aide: "If nothing else, you cut off other lines of attack."