WASHINGTON — Since the days of Warren G. Harding, presidents have met at the White House with leaders of the NAACP. Not President Bush — at least not yet.

NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, shown speaking at the organization's convention, says President Bush has been "aloof." (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

More than halfway through his presidency, Bush has yet to receive the nation's oldest civil-rights group or the Leadership Conference of Civil Rights, an umbrella organization.

The president met with the Congressional Black Caucus for an hour or so during his first month in office but has not responded to a half-dozen subsequent requests to meet again.

While Bush, who got only 9 percent of the black vote in 2000, has shunned sit-downs with established black groups, he has reached out to carefully chosen minority audiences and to civil-rights advocates less critical of his policies. One example is the National Urban League, whose annual conference in Pittsburgh Bush is to address today.

NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said he requested meetings with Bush in 2001 and 2002 and "was told politely, in writing, that he'd love to meet, but his schedule just didn't allow it."

"That may be the difference between Bush and his father," Mfume said. "While we certainly did not agree on many issues, you can never accuse George H.W. Bush of not taking time to reach out and to listen. He wasn't aloof like this president."

The White House disagrees.

"The president ... talks to a variety of groups from across the political spectrum and reaches out to people from all walks of life," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said last week when pressed on why Bush decided to speak to the Urban League but skipped the recent NAACP convention in Florida.

It was Florida's contested recount that put Bush over the top in the 2000 race. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights later found that the ballots of black voters in the state were disproportionately tossed out and the election was plagued by faulty machinery.

Political analysts say the president's re-election effort is not targeting liberal blacks but wealthy, conservative churchgoing blacks. Recent Gallup polls find that fewer than three in 10 blacks approve of Bush's performance as president.

© Copyright 2003 The Associated Press

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