Subject: Jackson Now to Transform A Campaign Into a Political Movement
Date: Published: 6/20/88 166 lines
Source:  WALL STREET JOURNAL. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

   Campaign '88:  
   For Jackson, the Challenge Now Is to Transform
   A Campaign Into a Lasting Political Movement
    ---
   By Joe Davidson
   Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

   It is the Nickerson Gardens housing project in Watts.  At a
crowded outdoor news conference, a young mother brings her
six-year-old to see Jesse Jackson.  The boy wears a handmade
badge on which is scrawled his name, Mark, and the words, "I
can read."  His mother pushes him to an opening in the crowd
and says:  "There he is.  Look, that's what you can be."  The
little boy spends the next 15 minutes eagerly listening to
the candidate.
    ---
   It is Murdock, Neb., where Mr. Jackson is in a farmhouse
having breakfast with a couple who've seen the size of their
farm shrink drastically because of the economy.  Outside, Rita
Ginger-Miller waits for him to emerge.  "Since Reagan's been
in, we've all been a minority, and he {Mr. Jackson} knows
what it's like to be a minority," says Ms. Ginger-Miller, who
is white.  "The common person is the minority."
    ---
   It is a United Auto Workers hall in Kenosha, Wis.  Angry
workers, most of them white and many of them facing layoffs
from the former American Motors factory, gather to hear Mr. 
Jackson denounce "corporate barracudas."  Middle-aged white
women are wearing campaign buttons done in red, black and
green -- the colors of America's black nationalist movement.
"His hope was to generate a change within the party and bring
the working class back into the national politics," says
Edward Steagall, president of Local 72.
    ---
    Today, with the primaries over and the nomination of
Michael Dukakis a foregone conclusion, Jesse Jackson's
campaign is winding down.  Yet to a large degree, Mr. Jackson
has accomplished what he set out to do when he first
announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential
nomination.  He has succeeded in creating a movement across
racial lines -- a movement of society's have-nots -- and
giving that movement a driving focus for its political
aspirations.
   Mr. Jackson sees his challenge now as keeping an energized
movement enthusiastic and unified after the candidacy is
over.  The issue isn't whether he gets the vice presidential
nomination or a cabinet position, but his ability to solidify
and institutionalize the profound impact he has had on
American politics.
   He has plans to create a political-action committee to
help finance local campaigns, develop a think tank to
research political and social issues and organize a massive
voter-registration campaign to strengthen his constituency's
influence.  All of this is designed to build a lasting,
multiracial, national political movement that will carry the
Jackson message well beyond the current campaign.  Whether
Michael Dukakis or George Bush becomes president this year,
Mr. Jackson is likely to remain a formidable force.
The difference between Mr. Jackson and other presidential
candidates has always been more than black and white.  They
came from positions of governmental authority; he has always
challenged it.  They have big money and legions of staff; his
war chest is puny compared with theirs, his staff a platoon
to their armies.
   Even a critic like Ben Wattenberg, a political analyst and
neo-conservative Democrat, acknowledges that Mr. Jackson is
"quite clearly a remarkable political man."  But Mr. 
Wattenberg says that's less important than the danger of his
message.  "He stands in opposition to 40 years of bipartisan
foreign policy," Mr. Wattenberg says.  His policies "would be
bad for the country and a disaster for the party."
   But Mr. Jackson's defenders say these criticisms miss the
larger point -- that he has fundamentally changed the
perception of how far a black can go in America.  "Jackson's
legacy is that he has made it possible to conceptualize a
black in the presidency and therefore in any other major
executive position in the country," says Roger Wilkins of the
Institute for Policy Studies and an adviser to the Jackson
campaign.  "Jackson has made the unthinkable thinkable."
   But Mr. Jackson has also managed to begin the process of
growing beyond being a race-based candidate, some observers
say.  While he won only about 12% of the white vote in the
Democratic primaries, according to New York Times-CBS News
polls, he still did far better than in 1984, and clearly
struck a chord with many whites.
   Once thought of only as a "black leader," Mr. Jackson now
is "speaking for an age," says Barbara Reynolds, the author
of a sometimes critical biography of the candidate.  "He's
evolved past being a symbol of black America, by being a
symbol of progressive change in domestic policy and our
foreign policy."
   In that way, Mr. Jackson's campaign has been a "metaphor
for modern race relations," says Ronald Walters, a Jackson
policy strategist and author of "Black Presidential Politics
in America:  A Strategic Approach."  Mr. Jackson follows Martin
Luther King Jr.'s agenda, Mr. Walters says, but with
considerably greater white support and a broader portfolio
than the civil-rights leader had during his lifetime.
 Mr. Jackson has seen issues he stressed moved upward on
the nation's political agenda.  His tough anti-drug message,
for instance, touched on a deep concern in the country,
forcing other candidates to scramble to come up with programs
of their own.  His outspoken attacks on South Africa's
government and his emphasis on Third World problems focused
attention on those important but often neglected issues.  And
his charismatic style and oratorical skills gave the campaign
some of its few exciting and moving moments.
   There was, for instance, Mr. Jackson's visit to the Coming
Home hospice in San Francisco's Castro Street area, where he
grasped the hands of patients waiting to die from AIDS.  "I
think he's a wonder man, if there is such a thing," said
Roger Haynes, suffering from AIDS. Outside the hospice,
hundreds of people waited in a cold drizzle to see Mr. 
Jackson.  "We love you, Jesse," called a voice from the rear
of the crowd.
   It was a call Mr. Jackson heard frequently on the trail,
reflecting a campaign message that at times has been more
emotional than political.  At the hospice, he spoke of the
need for "human compassion without any limitation," and some
of the most electric moments of his campaign have come during
intense sessions with high-school students.  He asks them to
stand if they have used drugs, if they know someone who died
from drugs, if they know someone who contemplated suicide.
Eventually, nearly all are standing.
   In overwhelmingly white Redmond, Ore., a crowd equaling
half the town's 7,000 population cheered his cry against dope
in Redmond High School.  "When he spoke to this crowd, I
believe he spoke as no other candidate since the Kennedys and
certainly no other person since Martin Luther King to the
hope and aspirations of young people," said Ken Noah, the
principal.  "I think our kids are hungry for a candidacy that
creates that dream and that sense of hope in them."
   Throughout his campaign, Mr. Jackson made a point of
spending time with groups that haven't much political clout.
He visited little McFarland, Calif., where residents have
been dying of cancer at an alarming and mysterious rate.  A
few weeks ago, he took a long motorcade ride from a small
western Montana airport to the Flathead Reservation in Arlee.
At powwow grounds surrounded by pine-covered mountains, he
was greeted by hundreds of Salish and Kootenai Indians, some
performing traditional song and dance.
   For Winona Tanner, 26, a legal secretary in the tribal
legal department, Mr. Jackson's visit was "magical."  "Nothing
like this has ever happened to our group of people," she
said.  "It sparked a lot of interest in voting.  It brought out
to our people that, yes, our vote does count."
   Among all Mr. Jackson's constituencies, though, it is
still the black community, particularly the elderly, who feel
the most deeply about his run.  "Now Jackson is taking over
where King left off.  I hope he'll finish it," said
98-year-old Hazel O'Hara, a Richmond, Calif., resident who
hobbled on her cane to see her "man for the country."
   "We didn't have no respect," she continued.  "Just to think
where we came from and where we are, it's remarkable.  To have
one of ours step out and choose the highest position in the
land -- it's wonderful."

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