For Left-Out Voters, a New Face Is a Lift : Ross Perot steamed many with his “you people” remarks, but he at least wanted blacks on his dance card.

When Ross Perot petulantly picked up his marbles and walked away from the presidential candidacy that he never officially declared, great numbers of people were devastated. A significant percentage of them was African-American. For several decades now, African-American voters have stood in front of the ballot box in dismay, feeling that there is little significant choice between one party that largely ignores our interests and concerns and another that takes us very much for granted. We’ve felt like a wallflower at a prom, concurrently being approached by a geek and a slime ball: We’d love to dance, but is this the only choice? Eeeeeyyeeeww!

Faced with that kind of decision, an increasing number of responsible people are doing the unthinkable: They’re contemplating sitting this one out. I can’t say that I blame them. I’m going to vote, of course, but unless things change, I’ll be dragging myself to the polling booth.

About a month ago, Eddie Murphy received a lot of flak when he appeared as a guest on Arsenio Hall’s TV show and casually told the audience that he’d never voted. There were gasps from the crowd, and Hall chided him publicly, but Murphy was firm. He didn’t feel voting would change anything significantly. “What difference does it make what size shoe is on my neck?” he asked rhetorically.

It’s an astonishing admission, considering that, as a 31-year-old multimillionaire, Murphy might want to vote his financial interests, if nothing else. And if money isn’t worth protecting, his children’s futures are, and voting can--and does--affect that.

While I don’t agree with Murphy’s perspective, I can understand why he feels the way he does. Louis Farrakhan was 45 before he made his way to the polls. He cast his first vote, in 1984, for Jesse Jackson. “You’re 45 and you’ve never voted in your life?” white reporters would ask, incredulously. “Until now, I’ve never felt there was anything or anyone to vote for,” Farrakhan replied calmly.

That’s why the idea of Ross Perot was attractive to so many African-Americans. He was a mass of contradictions certainly. His now-infamous “you people” remarks at the NAACP convention steamed folks plenty--but he was also the only presidential candidate to open an office in the black community in Los Angeles (in Leimert Park). Many people felt that Perot may not have been the most agile hoofer, but at least he was asking to be placed on our dance cards.

The idea of a third party has been floating in the black community for more than 20 years. Ron Walters, a professor of political science at Howard University, says that he tried to advance the notion in the early 1980s, but no one was interested. Jackson’s 1984 candidacy was run under the aegis of the Democratic Party (at least nominally), but most people who voted cast their ballots for him, not for the party in whose primaries he ran. It was an important difference that the Democrats never did seem to figure out.

Against the advice of some family members and close friends, Jackson has decided to work within the Democratic apparatus this year. Perhaps he feels that it’s the only way to secure a future for himself as the party continues to evolve. Perhaps he feels that its evolution will be ensured only if he and others like him push the outside of the envelope from within. Whatever the motivation, the Democrats seem to be breathing a sigh of relief.

But perhaps they shouldn’t be so sanguine. For years, black Republicans have argued that the only way for African-Americans to be heard and taken seriously is to have a significant presence in both parties. Before Reagan, black Republicans tended to be elderly folks still loyal to the party of Lincoln--even though the vestiges of the party that endorsed emancipation are virtually nonexistent. Post-Reagan, they tend to be socially conservative, economically ambitious persons of both sexes and all ages, who feel that the planks in the Democratic Party platform have gotten so warped and are spaced so far apart that many in the black community are simply falling through them.

The Republican Party made Clarence Thomas its poster boy, but if it wants to recruit black members in larger numbers, it needs to rethink its ad campaign.

Now, as the musicians tune up and the white gloves are pulled on, black America has some thinking to do. Perhaps, instead of reluctantly floating into Bill Clinton’s arms, or watching George Bush twirl past us clutched in some other group’s embrace, we should look down the road at 1996, and consider different options. Maybe we should search for an orchestra that plays a tune to our liking, and someone who has the sense to ask if we’d do them the honor of having this dance.