Christopher C. Stacy wrote:

Bush increased his black vote (by about 3 points) relative to=20
the 2000 numbers, while Kerry's huge effort to get more black
voters to the polls totally failed and he lost those points.
Most blacks didn't vote for Bush -- Bush gained black votes
and Kerry lost black votes.

Let's see, Kerry beats Bush by almost 9 to 1 in the African-American
community but Bush claims a mandate with 51% to 48% in the general
population. The other amazing statistic btw is that Kerry got more
votes for president than other candidate for president but one. I
finally note that Bush at his best still got less support than Richard
Nixon or Bob Dole in the African-American community. Hmmm, you can't
spin this one, African-Americans in general don't approve of Bush, and
that would still be true if instead of 3% more he had doubled his
percentage in the African-American voting populace.

Bush can claim the support he pays for in the African-American
community, one way or another and that's about it.