NEWS ANALYSIS : Barry Drew on Political Value of Racial Anger : Elections: The former mayor played on black vs. white resentments. The strategy can pull in votes on all economic levels, analysts say.

As demonstrated in Tuesday’s primary election victory here by former Mayor Marion Barry, candidates with large black constituencies are increasingly finding support from blacks of all socioeconomic levels by focusing racial anger at powerful white institutions.

While this political strategy is an obvious attempt to activate dispirited black voters, it also, quietly and less visibly, is a conduit for protest by middle-class black voters reluctant to express their sense of racial disenfranchisement, according to analysts familiar with issues that sway black voters.

“Black people are aggrieved in this country, and the lower down the socioeconomic-power levels you go, the more they feel put upon,” said Roger Wilkins, a history professor at George Mason University. “But by tapping into that sense of injustice, someone can hit a deep political well that extends from the bottom up to the top of the black community.”

In effect, that’s exactly what Barry did as he collected 47% of the ballots cast in the Democratic primary for mayor of this city, handily defeating John Ray, a popular city councilman who received 37% of the vote, and one-term incumbent Sharon Pratt Kelly, selected by just 13% of voters.

Such high numbers for Barry could not have come only from new registrants or the poor people who were most visible among Barry’s supporters. Clearly, many middle-class black voters pulled the lever for him.

It was an “across-the-board, in-your-face” response by black voters in Washington to the federal powers on Capitol Hill who hold the city government’s purse strings, said Mark Plotkin, a political analyst for WAMU, a Washington public radio station.

“In the privacy of the voting booth, in a mixture of mischief, defiance and, yes, even affection and admiration, they voted for someone that deep down they knew,” Plotkin said of middle-class black voters. “I was surprised by the middle-class turnout for Barry. I never believed they would support him again. But they did.”

Barry’s political career appeared a shambles in 1990 when the FBI videotaped him puffing crack cocaine and urging a woman to have sex with him. But after serving time in jail and completing drug and alcohol rehabilitation, Barry won a City Council seat in one of Washington’s poorest districts.

Some observers said he demonstrated that politicians can overcome transgressions if they find a way to portray their situation as a struggle against systematic persecution by powerful outsiders.

“People voted (for Barry) against the white power Establishment’s attempting to dictate their lives,” said Ronald Walters, who tracks black political trends as chairman of the political science department at Howard University.

After his victory, Barry, who is expected to win the general election handily in this overwhelmingly Democratic city, attempted to allay white fears.

“Those white people, whatever hang-ups they have: Get over them,” Barry said at a news conference Wednesday. “I’m the best person for Washington. I know best how to protect their investments, their businesses. I know best how to balance this budget. I know best how to save our city from financial collapse. I know best how to get us moving.”

David Bositis, a senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington-based think tank, said resistance to white authority fueled part of the Barry vote. But, he added, there was more to it than that.

“Blacks want what so many whites want: for government to represent them and the interests that motivate them to vote,” Bositis said. “I think it’s a safe thing to say that black voters--whether poor, working-class or middle-class--will turn out in cities to vote for the person they think best represents them. There is a lesson in that for all politicians.”

Jack Beatty, a senior editor at the Atlantic Monthly and author of “The Rascal King,” a 1992 book on former Boston Mayor James Michael Curley, notes that white politicians have used similar strategies to create political machines and retain popularity even when they run afoul of the law.

Beatty said that Curley--like Barry--had a long history of opposing entrenched “Yankee Protestants” and delivering patronage to his Irish constituency.

“In 1949, the last year Curley was mayor of Boston, the city had the highest property tax of any big city in America and the highest number of municipal employees,” Beatty said. “Just like Barry, Curley taxed people who had property so he could put people who didn’t have property to work. In the process, both men created political juggernauts and both men delivered on their promises to their favored constituencies.

” . . . Politicians use whatever methods they have at their disposal to motivate the largest number of people who are likely to vote for them. That would, of course, include racial and economic appeals.”