Despite Massachusetts Senator Kerry’s near 100 percent approval rating from the NAACP and his long history of promoting policies benefiting minorities, many African Americans have been slow in warming to Kerry. “I can imagine him going to a black church,” said Carol Jones Ali, a Washington D.C. native attending the 2004 Democratic National Convention, “and I can imagine him picking up a hymnbook, but it’s hard to imagine him getting into it and singing along.”

Though I agree with Ms. Ali—it is hard to imagine Kerry singing along at a black church—should this matter? Apparently it matters to the Kerry campaign, for the same reasons the GOP loves showing the video feed of Bush cutting back brush on his ranch in Crawford: it’s an image that galvanizes the loyal base.

The loyal base for the Democrats has long been the African-American electorate. When blacks vote, they vote overwhelmingly Democrat, with percentages hovering around 90 percent for registered black voters. In a close election, where voter turnout is key, it’s no surprise that the Kerry campaign has been sending the senator to every major black organizational event it can schedule before the November 2 election.

So far Kerry has attended Brown vs. Board of Education’s fiftieth anniversary, the Rainbow/Push Coalition Convention in Chicago, the National Urban League’s convention in Detroit, the Unity Conference of minority journalists in D.C., and several graduations at HBCUs—historically black colleges and universities. The do-not-miss event, however, was the NAACP convention in Philadelphia, which Bush famously snubbed on the grounds that its leadership had been too critical of him, though he’d at first said that he was too busy to attend due to “scheduling conflicts.” In the organization’s keynote speech, Kerry derided Bush for his no-show, quipping, “The president may be too busy to talk to you, but I have news for you: he’s going to have plenty of time after Election Day on November 2.”

What, then, accounts for this feeling that blacks still don’t really know Kerry—even as he’s made it a point to convene with members of nearly every major national black organization along the campaign trail? Why do so many blacks continue to say they are more “against Bush” than “pro-Kerry?”

Some said it was because the Kerry campaign had few blacks on its staff early on and was slow to address issues that were of particular concern to African-American voters. Others chalked it up to Kerry’s patrician demeanor—a perception which, if true, is hardly limited to the black electorate.

I interviewed Kerry in a concrete bunker–like hallway of the Philadelphia Convention Center, shortly after Kerry’s speech to the NAACP. Interviewing Kerry was a little like a ping-pong match,...