Blacks for Bush

Maybe blacks judge Kerry's record on issues of highest concern to their population – jobs and the economy, followed by education, according to the BET/CBS News survey – to be better than that of George W. Bush.

But surely not 80 percent better – the gap between the Democrats' black support and the Republicans'.

Bush's support for small business enterprise, his promotion of what he calls "the ownership society," has been particularly beneficial to black entrepreneurs. In fact, Small Business Administration loans to blacks are up 75 percent from last year.

On the education front, Bush has increased K-12 funding by a whopping 49 percent since he took office. And on his watch, funding for historically black colleges is at an all-time high.

The Republican also signed into law legislation creating a taxpayer-funded voucher program for disadvantaged students in predominantly black Washington, D.C., who are mired in the city's underperforming public schools.

If Bush were a Democrat, many if not most blacks would find his record commendable. But because he is a Republican, he gets no credit for the positive initiatives he has undertaken that have benefited black Americans.

That dichotomy is attributable, in part, to the black leadership, which has sold itself to the Democratic Party, which slanders blacks who vote Republican as traitors.

After a half-century of unconditional fealty to the Democratic Party, it is time that the black population get a little more sophisticated in its voting habits.

In a nation where Republicans control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, most of the governorships, and a number of state legislatures, it makes no sense to be so uncivil toward the majority party.