By Lewis Diuguid, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist

The pundits have it wrong about black voters. African-American electorate got it right in casting ballots for Sen. Barack Obama for president.

Commentators and political analysts have said that black voters sided with Obama simply because he is black. Wrong!

African-Americans have consistently voted for "their economic interests," William E. Spriggs, professor and chair of the department of economics at Howard University, told the Trotter Group of black columnists at its conference this week in Washington, D.C.

The meeting traditionally follows the presidential elections to examine what happened and what might be expected in the next four years.

"We don't give black voters the credit they deserve for voting their economic interests," Spriggs told about 40 black columnists and students from throughout the country.

African-American voters were not fooled by the Republican-fueled failures in the policies of the Bush administration, the two disastrous wars, the worldwide economic collapse and the increasing job losses -particularly in the urban core.

Mark Alexander, Obama campaign policy director, said people are angry because they've felt "systematically disenfranchised and disempowered." But that sentiment has been felt the last eight years by people of all races and ethnicities.

David Bositis, with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, said it was more than a black-thing because black voters like white voters traditionally have voted for white candidates.

Black voters cast ballots for the candidate who had their best interest in mind. Black voters turned out in record numbers. But white voters did their part for Obama, too.

"What happened with white voters in this election was more important," Bositis said. "Obama's share of the white voters increased substantially."

"Virginia and North Carolina seceded," he said from what Republicans had counted on from the Solid South.

People can blame it on the economy tanking, President Bush's historically low approval ratings and folks being discontented with the direction in which the country is going.

"Things are so bad right now," Bositis said.

But for a lot of people of all races and ethnicities, Obama has raised expectations, and they are going to want to see results, said Wade J. Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. "It goes without saying that this is a watershed election, a transformative election," Henderson said.

"It didn't hurt Sen. Obama's campaign that the current president is leaving the country like a toddler leaves a diaper," Henderson said.

But Henderson said that Obama is walking into an "expectation gap" between what people hope Obama can do and what he is able to do given the tragic economic state of the nation and the world. The abyss could "engulf his presidency," Henderson said.

But Obama is a gifted politician. His ability to forge coalitions may be his salvation and the nation's. Only time will tell.