The Presidential Transition: Bush Has His Work Cut Out in Mending Ties With Black Race

George W. Bush was struggling last July to win a modicum of black support when he told delegates to the NAACP conventions that, while his Republican Party was the Party of Abraham Lincoln, "it has not always carried the mantle of Lincoln."... Philip Klinkner, an associate professor of government whose research and teaching at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., focuses on race relations and U.S. politics, argued that "it's not realistically possible [for Bush] to get more black votes."... Bush must "avoid the perception among moderate whites that the Republicans are intolerant, or a racist party," Klinkner said.