Democrats face the perils of giving Jackson an easy ride

Press, 13 April 1988, Page 16

Democrats face the perils of giving Jackson an easy ride

Andrew Sullivan writes, in the "Daily Telegraph” on the dilemma of the candidate’s popularity

WHAT EXACTLY do the Democrats want? Since January'; they have had twp. clear front-runners. Senator; Richard Gephardt and Governor Miphael Dukakis; and three real challengers, Senator Paul Simon before lowa, Senator Albert Gore after; Super Tuesday and now, the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Between thdrri, they represent an alarmingly diverse picture of Democratic thinking — from Mr; Jackson’s radical populism tb Mr Dukakis’s neoliberal pragmatism. No-one has yet clearly emerged, and the; favourite, Mr Diikakis, in spite of the endorsement of the party establishment and by far the; largest funding, lodt two primaries in a row before winning jin his neighbouring state Connecticut a couple of week ago. jj But Mr Jackson’s emergence hat provided the most fascinating conundrum; so far. His delegate count is now not far behind Mr Dukakis’s, whom he trounced byj 2-1 in Michigan. Alone among the candidates, he has rhetorical skill and the smack of conviction. With party activists — who, like their counterparts in the Labour party, are both well to the Left of Democratic voters [arid crucial in selecting the nominee — Mr Jackson’s is the only campaign to be catching fire. [Yet Democratic leaders are privately convinced that a black candidate cannot win a presidential election. ‘‘The party is up against an extraordinary endgprhe,” is how! the pollster Paul Maslin put it to the “New York Times.” “If this guy has more convention votes than 'anyone e se, how can; we not nominate hjm? But how; can we nominate him?” ; The dilemma for the | Democrats is whether they can claim to be a non-racist party and yet still hold that Mr Jackson cannot win because he is black. Their defence is that they are simply facing reality.' American politics, they claim, | is increasingly pjolarised on racial lines, and a Jackson candidacy could polarise it still further.

j The last 20 [years suggest they have a point. The old progressive Democratic coalition which spanned the races across the south, and reached out to bluec'ollar workers, Jews and the irish in the north, began jto unravel with, the south’s revolt against desegregation in . the 119605. 'ln 1964 the Republicans appealed to white southern Democrats by nominating Senator Barry Goldwater, who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He won five deep south states. In 1972, after the Democrats turned their backs on the white segregationist vote, Mr Nixon inherited Mr Goldwater’s southern voters. Mr Carter’s Georgia roots won some back in 1976, but ip 1980 and 1984 the same electorate made up the core of Kir Reagan's majority. I i I i Meanwhile, as southern' whites turned Republican, the black vote hardened behind the'Demo-

crats nationwide. This lin turn created a new white backlash botli' in the south and in exactly those industrial states in the north, like Michigan, where Mr Jackson scores well with white liberal activists.

As the liberal writer John Judis has pointed out, Mr Jackson’S black registration drive in 1984 provoked a white reaction not;only against Mr Mondale, but against Democratic Senate nominees as well. In Mississippi, for example, j once a Democratic stronghold, Mr Jackson inspired the largest white turnout in history. They voted Republican. In 1984 many whites identified Mr' Mondale and Democratic liberalism simply with Mr Jackson and what they took to be a black agenda. After the election, polls among Michigan Democrats who voted for Mr Reagan found they interpreted Mr .Mondale’s plea for “fairness” as a demand for favouritism toward blacks.

Chicago is the clearest example of what a Jackson candidacy could do for racial harmony in America. Its politics are mirrored'in other cities such as Philadelphia, Charlotte, Birmingham and New York. The issues are no longer civil rights, but affirmative action, crime and

drugs. In all these areas, racial tensions are sharpening. ! ; In Chicago’s 1983 mayoral race, while Mr Harold Washington, a black Chicagoan,' focused on black votes, his Republican opponent ran a slogan, '!Vote for Bernard Epton — before it’s too late.” In spite of being a littleknown Jewish Republican, Mr Epton swept Chicago’s traditionally Democratic Irish and Polish wards. Mr Reagan had won three such wards in 1980; he won 14 in 1984, with more than 60 per cent of the white ethnic vote.

The rarer examples of racial coalition have come, in states such as Virginia, where white Democrats have appealed to blacks as well as middle' class whites, and have had latently racist Republican opponents. What this suggests is that, for good or ill, a conciliatory Democratic white stands the best chance of rallying whites and blacks round a single 1 banner in 1988. Mr Jackson, for all his attempt to reach out to the white blue-collar vote, could put the cause back a decade.

How is it, then, that Mr Jackson has done so well? Part of the reason is his increasing, support among blacks, who exercise undue influence in the narrowly-

based primary system. Part, op, is his unquestioned oratory arid ' conviction. Then there is the ; feeling among white, university- i educated liberals that their finite as pro-black activists has finally come. ! But part! of the reason also is ; the subtlest racism of the campaign: the; patronising kid-glove treatment ! Mr Jackson Jhas [ received from his rivals. Norite i has directly attacked him orjhis [ policies, for fear of being ' accused of racism. None how dare attack him for fear! 'of jeopardising his support in a brokered convention. The result is a phoney preeminence. Mr Jackson’s polipites — more fiscally unrealistic than Mr Simon’s, more protectidnist than Senator Gephardt’s, more doveish than Governor Dukakis's — remain beyond political! atj tack. Yet his gaffes alone suggest a level of naivete which no otljer candidate could have survived; In the past he has pubjicly i backed the P.L.O. and the A.N.C., ' embraced President Fidel Castro, and described New York as “hymie-town.” In this campaign — where hte i has shown exemplary discretion — he still claims in his st imp speech that there is slave labour

in South Korea, a net flight of capital from the United States and a decline in American jobs since 1980. He is wrong bn all counts. Only one journalist, Fred Barnes, has paid Mr Jackson the compliment of pointing it out.,! Mr Jackson has, then, been thb victim and the beneficiary of two brands of racism. The subtle brand — the patronising antiracism with which i his rivals refuse to engage him — has brought him this far. The cruder variety — the racial polarisation in the country at large — will make sure he gets no further., Meanwhile the Democrats are wriggling upon a crisis of their own making. Mr Jackson will almost certainly not make it to the nomination, but his delegates will largely decide ‘who does. And that could well be enough for white America. : f I As the Democratic party lunges towards another potential defeat in November, Mr Jackson captures perfectly the paradox of its fate. Nominating a black at this point could actually; reverse the gains made for racial tolerance in America. | I And the only candidate who has managed to inspire arid regenerate the party is the orie who cannot and should not win. ANDREW SULLIVAN [is an 'associate editor of \ the liberal American magazine the “New Republic.” ■ | , :j I