“Calvin plays an extremely important role in the community,” says Dennis Walcott, head of the New York Urban League. “He’s galvanized a younger urban and suburban base of parishioners who identify with his message and the idea of giving back to the community. He’s shown that economic development improves the life of a neighborhood and the life of the people that neighborhood serves.”

And this is, according to political consultant Hank Sheinkopf, what now matters most in politics. “The era of symbolism is over. What everyone wants from government -- whites, blacks, and Hispanics -- is performance. Look at the election numbers. The people who deliver,” says Sheinkopf, “are the ones who get re-elected.”

Nevertheless, Sharpton still contends that Butts’s work as a builder in Harlem would mean little in a campaign to someone in Brooklyn or Queens. “I’m telling you that he doesn’t have the support in the black community that white people downtown might think he does. When I run, I get Calvin’s group and Floyd Flake’s. If he runs, he won’t get mine and he might not even get Flake’s. I think I could beat Calvin in his own church,” Sharpton says, never shy about pushing the hyperbole.

“If you look over the last decade at the movements that have stirred black New York,” says Sharpton, who’s undoubtedly still angry that Butts supported Messinger against him in the primary, “from Bensonhurst to Abner Louima, Butts has not been involved. He’s chosen the inside path, and that’s fine -- it’s worked for his church. But that’s not the same thing as running for office. If he went on black radio WLIB and said, ‘Well, I had to have access to power to take care of my church,’ people will say, ‘Fine. Then that’s where you need to stay.’

“If Calvin Butts, whom I’ve preached for, whom I talk to, came to my house right now and said, ‘Al, I want to run for mayor in 2001,’ he could not assume I would support him. Based on what? He’s black? Which is why I would argue that he has never actually run. In his heart of hearts, Calvin knows he doesn’t have the support. I think he knows if he put it to the test he’d have a problem.”

On the other hand, there are those who would say that it is Sharpton, with his rigid adherence to the old social-activist model -- not to mention his connection to tragedies like the Tawana Brawley episode -- who has the problem. “Al is reflecting what I’d call traditional, lame thinking,” says Time Warner president Richard Parsons. “That’s why so much of the political force coming out of the black community has gone exactly nowhere. Because at the end of the day, blacks are no different from whites. People want results. They make judgments by asking, ‘Is my life better? Do I have a better opportunity for a secure and meaningful job? Are they picking up the garbage in front of my house? Can I go to the store at ten in the evening without being accosted?

“Now,” says Parsons, who’s known Butts and worked with him on a variety of projects for over a decade, “it’s because many of those things aren’t working and aren’t the way they should be that there’s a kind of residual, low-grade anger. This results in an immediate attraction to and identification with anyone who seems to have the temerity to stand up and face the Man. But it’s very transient, and it’s never going to get Al where he wants to go. It’s the politics of failure and we’ve got decades to show that.”

Though Butts sounds disappointed when told of Sharpton’s assessment, he responds with equanimity. He has nothing to gain by getting into what he calls a rock-throwing contest with Sharpton (if he weren’t a minister, he would, of course, have called it a pissing contest). “I would expect Al to say that I have good credentials on these issues and I deserve to be listened to. Is it true that I have not been marching and demonstrating? Yeah. But the real issue is what have I been doing?” Butts says.

“I think marching and demonstrating is very, very important, but I have also recognized that the change that we need is going to come by amassing real political power. I will march. I will demonstrate. I will raise hell. And I will kick in some doors if I have to,” Butts says, his voice rising gradually as his passion builds. “But you have to build alliances. You have to build coalitions. You have to raise substantial amounts of money in order to really bring about the kind of change that is needed. Being ‘out there’ can be defined in many ways,” he says, not in defense of his actions but to point out what the years have taught him.