DERRICK Z. JACKSON
What Kerry can learn from CabralTHINK GLOBALLY, act locally. If John Kerry is to become the most powerful man on earth, he should be thinking about Andrea Cabral.
Cabral is the Suffolk County sheriff. She became Massachusetts's first African-American female sheriff in 2002 when she was appointed by Acting Governor Jane Swift. She won the office outright this week, earning 60 percent of the vote to defeat her challenger, Boston City Councilor Stephen Murphy. Local politicians and activists hailed the election as the continued dawning of a new day in Boston, where a person of color can successfully run for office citywide or countywide. Cabral said in her victory speech, "It was the turnout of people in communities of color that did it for me." State Representative Marie St. Fleur of Dorchester was quoted on election night as saying: "This shows that the new Boston we talk about is for real. No matter what race or gender or ethnicity, the voters will vote for someone who is qualified. The entire African-American community came together and came out strong for her, and the entire white community came together and came out for her." That wasn't quite true -- Murphy did get 40 percent of the vote. But enough white voters supported Cabral that Murphy had to struggle to win even in his home base of Hyde Park and other majority-white neighborhoods such as West Roxbury. Murphy conceded that Cabral's victory demonstrated "the vibrancy of our city and county." That is a vibrancy Kerry should be paying attention to. Ironically, Cabral is a bit like what Kerry is accused of being by the Republicans who are trying to keep President Bush in office. She is a flip-flopper. She became a Republican to get the job from a Republican acting governor. She switched back to the Democratic Party for the election. Like Kerry, she was accused of stumbling early in the campaign, not fully reaching out to potential grass-roots supporters and making some financial mistakes. Cabral transformed herself into a straight talker, finishing with a strong neighborhood effort and getting major support from many of the state's top politicians. In the end the race was so spirited that voter turnout was over 14 percent, significantly higher than the expected 9 or 10 percent for the state. That is why Kerry should think locally. He has spent an inordinate amount of time on the campaign blasting Bush on Iraq to virtually no effect. In a Washington Post/ABC News poll last week, Americans say they trust Bush over Kerry by 53 percent to 37 percent to handle the situation in Iraq and Bush over Kerry by 57 to 35 percent to handle the war on terrorism. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll last week found that Americans still trust Bush over Kerry on Iraq 54-41 and on the war on terrorism 61-34. These are virtually the same percentages as in the spring. Cabral's election is a reminder that if you give people someone whom one can vote for instead of focusing all energies on convincing people to vote against the opponent, you can excite your base and compete in opposition strongholds. One of the lessons that Kerry should not forget from the 2000 election, even though Al Gore did not become president, is that where the Democrats worked hardest to get out the vote, they got results. According to US Census data kept by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the nation's largest African-American think tank, black turnout surpassed white turnout in 2000 in Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. Pennsylvania is considered a key battleground state in 2004. In Florida -- another battleground state -- African-Americans were so energized that they became 15 percent of the state's voters, up from 10 percent in the 1996 presidential election. Anger about Iraq understandably fuels a certain core of Democratic voters. It is also clear that a lot of Americans simply are not terribly angry or haven't yet been convinced they should be. For them, Kerry's stump message that "We can do better" is likely to come off as a stump in search of a tree. Cabral ran a campaign that in the end had her opponent praising its vibrancy. There was a serious voter registration effort, and the newly registered came out for a candidate who, despite her early missteps, was able to project a glowing optimism. Given the failure of Kerry to dent Bush's credibility on Iraq and the war on terror, it might be time for him to get off his surfboard in Nantucket and stop by Cabral's office to catch some rays of her sunshine. The new day in Boston might give him clues about a new day in the White House.
Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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