First the division. We are now experiencing the second generation of Black elected officials at the municipal level and since the first generation of strong Black mayors has passed from the scene. And where once Blacks were unified in their support of one person, now members of city councils are challenging incumbent Black mayors. In short, the mood is the equivalent of "everyone into the water."

An obvious example of this was the re-election bid of Houston�s mayor, Lee Brown, who was not only challenged by a Republican Hispanic candidate, Orlando Sanchez, but other Black members of the city council as well. The result was that he failed to obtain 50 percent of the vote and faces a run-off with Sanchez.

The next example was the narrow victory of Shirley Franklin in Atlanta, the first Black female mayor-elect of that city. Franklin, former chief aide to former Mayor Maynard Jackson, was a seasoned city official. Yet a substantial field of candidates, including several city council members, challenged her. She barely won 50 percent of the vote, avoiding a run-off.

The mayor�s race in Detroit featured a generational divide when 31-year-old Black state legislator Kwame Kilpatrick, head of the Black Legislative Caucus, ran against 70-year-old Gill Hill, the three-term head of the Detroit City Council. Kilpatrick, son of Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), completed the generational change of the political system in the city that has been underway since the passing of scion Coleman Young by this solid consensus victory.

Finally, Jane Campbell, a white moderate Democrat, won election to be the mayor of Cleveland, having defeated 37-year-old Raymond Pierce, who is a Black former assistant secretary of education in the Clinton administration. Campbell, who had a long record of service as a county politician, was able to draw 27 percent of the Black vote which, coupled with her strong support in the mixed and predominantly white wards, gave her the victory.

Next, strategic voting. In the New York mayoral race, while a post-election survey found that loser Mark Green, a Democrat, won 72 percent of the Black vote, Republican Michael Bloomberg won the race with 15 percent of the Black vote. This was important because 41 percent of those who voted for Green in the primary crossed over to support Bloomberg in the General election�and many of them were Black. Part of the reason was that it became public that Green�s operatives had a meeting to discuss whether to stimulate more support from Jewish voters by linking Green�s opponent in the Democratic primary election, Hispanic candidate Fernando Ferrer to the Rev. Al Sharpton.

So Black Enterprise publisher Earl Graves took out a full-page ad in the New York Amsterdam News, featuring other prominent Black figures in New York, urging Blacks to support Bloomberg. It worked. Not the so-called "Giuliani factor." Now Bloomberg, a former liberal Democrat as late as last year, owes something to Blacks. Nevertheless, the concern some have in New York is that the open racial polarization in this election could spill over into the Democratic primary for governor, in which Andrew Cuomo, Clinton�s former HUD secretary, will be pitted against Carl McCall, the Black current state comptroller.

Then, there was unity. One example of this was the racially polarized mayoral race in Cincinnati, which was won by incumbent Republican Charlie Lukens. Curtis Fuller, a Black city council member, challenged him. Luken, who won the contest 55 percent to 45 percent, was expected to have a tougher battle, since he had supported the white policeman who killed an unarmed Black man, prompting several days of rebellion. Luken looked upon this victory as a "vindication of his actions." But in a city that is 60 percent white, only the western, heavily white part of the city turned out strongly to vote for him. Black turnout was also higher than usual, as Fuller won all six of the predominantly Black wards in the city, while Lukens won all of the predominantly white wards.

The outcome of the November elections showed that most of the reaction of the Black vote was to local issues and candidates, with no national theme. However, given the strong showing of Democrats, even in the case of the victory of Republican Michael Bloomberg, the Black vote was obviously crucial. George Bush tellingly stayed away from the election, even where Republican Mark Early in Virginia faced an eventual losing battle to "moderate" Democrat Mark Warner. And although he did so, not wanting to spend his precious capital on losing causes, the national crisis greatly overshadowed the elections. In so doing, it robbed them of additional national themes that would have boosted turnout and made the results more interesting than they were.