During the campaign, he accused his opponent of making racial appeals to rally support in the district, which is predominantly black.
By making a racial appeal, he's more likely to repel voters than to attract them.
He breezed to a fourth term in 1986 without making the expected bridge-building racial appeals.
But the fact that racial appeals have played a role in the success of the modern Republican Party is not under debate.
"His outside chance of winning is some kind of direct racial appeal."
Chuck the sly racial appeals and tricky code words that divide people.
In this respect, they are crossover artists in terms of both racial appeal and gender politics.
Most intriguing is what this means for the coarser form of racial appeal.
Many Democrats said a lesson of the loss was that racial appeals still have force, particularly in the South.
That gave rise to racial appeals from some candidates and to other candidacies showing little knowledge of or interest in citywide issues.