Dick Gregory, the black comedian, used to have a delicious politically incorrect joke back in the 1960s. “They always ask me if a negro could be elected president. I reply, hell, yeah, if he were running against a Puerto Rican.”

Don Rose, a Chicago political consultant and columnist, says black America has often shown a similar variety of pragmatism. “In 2004 I sure didn’t vote for Al Sharpton or Carol Moseley Braun, and neither did more than 90 per cent of other African- Americans. There’s a lot of rationality going on out there.”