Oh, the Irony – An Obama Win Will Help Solidify Jesse Jackson's Legacy in Presidential Politics

Date: Monday, July 21, 2008
By: Jackie Jones, BlackAmericaWeb.com
 

On July 19, 1988 -- 20 years ago Saturday -- the Rev. Jesse Jackson fired up the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta's Omni Coliseum with a keynote address that challenged America to live up to its promise.

"We meet tonight at the crossroads, a point of decision. Shall we expand, be inclusive, find unity and power; or suffer division and impotence?" Jackson asked.

"We've come to Atlanta, the cradle of the Old South, the crucible of the New South. Tonight, there is a sense of celebration, because we are moved, fundamentally moved from racial battlegrounds by law, to economic common ground. Tomorrow we'll challenge to move to higher ground."

With his message of hope, unity, inclusiveness and an eye toward the country's standing on the international stage, Sen. Barack Obama, who is the presumptive 2008 Democratic nominee for president, got to that point with a message closely parallel to Jackson's in 1988.

Both men addressed issues of health care, affordable housing, U.S. jobs being sent overseas and America's standing in the international community. Jackson's message was deemed as more populist and connected to a moral thread because of his background as a minister, while Obama's stance is looked upon as more politically pragmatic.

Yet both men attempted to make their campaigns transcend race; both sought to define common ground across race, class and gender, and both men tactically focused on primaries and caucuses in states that their powerful primary opponents chose to ignore.
 
"If you look at it, some of the things that Jackson was talking about, just about team building, his campaign was much more diverse (than his initial run in 1984) and extended beyond blacks to farmers and factory workers," said Kevin Merida, an associate editor at The Washington Post, who covered eventual Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis in 1988.

"You have to remember that Jesse finished second, and he was the last man standing with Dukakis," Merida told BlackAmericaWeb.com. "For a brief moment, when he won Michigan, he had the delegate lead, and that was kind of a shock to party leaders."

In fact, Merida said, when Jackson announced his run for the '88 campaign, he was the leading Democrat because of his name recognition and history in the civil rights movement.

While not drawing more than 70,000 people as Obama did in Portland, Oregon during this year's primary season, Jackson did draw big crowds in a number of states and was a real threat to win the nomination in '88. At a Eugene, Oregon campaign stop, Jackson had to hold two rallies during his campaign -- one inside and one outside -- to handle the numbers that had turned out to hear him.

The mainstream media took note of Jackson's popularity, but pooh-poohed the idea that he might really become president, and former Democratic Party Chairman Bob Strauss "even said Jesse a front-runner for the presidency? No way. He said the country wasn't ready for a woman or an African-American," Merida recalled.

And while there is some tension currently between Jackson and Obama because of recent remarks Jackson made about the Democratic candidate -- and has publicly apologized for -- during a break in an interview on the Fox network, observers say the link from Jackson to Obama is clear and an Obama victory would solidify Jackson's place in presidential politics.

Obama is based in Chicago, which is Jackson's home base. Michelle Obama grew up with Jackson's daughter Santita (who served as one of Michelle's bridesmaids at the Obamas' wedding), and Illinois Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. is national co-chair of the Obama campaign.

Obama may bring the historical connection full circle at the Democratic convention next month when he delivers his acceptance speech on Aug. 28, the 45th anniversary of the "I Have a Dream Speech," by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was Jackson's mentor.

Jackson, a number of observers have said, made it possible for Americans to accept the idea that a black man would one day be president, even if that man wasn't Jackson.
 
Roger Wilkins, a retired history professor at George Mason University in Virginia who was an adviser in Jackson's runs for the White House, told BlackAmericaWeb.com in an earlier interview that much of Obama's success to date is directly tied to the campaigns of black candidates before him, including Jackson's.

"What people saw in him was a narrow candidate, as a preacher and civil rights leader, but it inspired thought beyond the black community imagining a black person in the Oval Office," said Wilkins. "It made the idea a less outlandish thing than it would have been in 1960."

In 1988, Jackson was a formidable candidate, winning 13 primaries and caucuses and winning 1,218.5 delegates, 29 percent of the total.

 

But there is a significant difference between the Jackson and Obama campaigns, even if the issues seem much the same today as 20 years ago, veteran journalist and motivational speaker George E. Curry, told BlackAmericaWeb.com Friday.

"Although Jesse Jackson spoke about being 'on this journey from slave-ship to championship' in 1984, it is Barack Obama who has the first real opportunity to make it all the way to the championship, defined as winning the White House," said Curry, who covered Jackson's campaigns in 1984 and '88. "Jesse made it to the playoff, but Obama is on the verge of appearing in the Super Bowl of American politics."

"Fundamentally, except for the war in Iraq, the issues today are no different than they were in 1984," said Curry. "Jesse put it this way: Our mission [is] to feed the hungry; to clothe the naked; to house the homeless; to teach the illiterate; to provide jobs for the jobless and to choose the human race over the nuclear race.' I don't know that either John McCain or Barack Obama could disagree with that broad mission. How they approach those issues is another matter."