Jackson to Whites: Focus on ‘Common Ground’

The Rev. Jesse Jackson brought his campaign for “economic justice” to Minnesota Friday, appealing to mostly white audiences to recognize the “common ground” they share with aggrieved Americans and those of other races.

It is a populist theme Jackson drives home at every campaign stop, melding the electric passion of an accomplished orator with a gentle sense of humor.

“When the lights go out, and the plant is closed, we all of us look amazingly similar in the dark,” he told a cheering crowd of about 200 union members Friday at an International Assn. of Machinists hall here.

“It’s not black or white or brown against each other, it’s the barracudas against the small fish,” Jackson says time and again--rich against the working poor, big business against the little man.

Shuns Bureaucratese

Then comes Jackson’s program, never in much detail, but free of bureaucratese about entitlements and social priorities. For this is old-fashioned stump rhetoric of the New Deal, although with an ‘80s twist:

“Keep drugs out, keep the jobs in, clean the environment, save our farms, create jobs that pay. End war, stop drugs.”

This is Jackson’s fourth campaign swing through the Northern Plains states since November, and it is potentially the most important.

The Minnesota caucuses on Tuesday, along with a primary the same day in South Dakota where Jackson plans a brief appearance today, are a prelude to Super Tuesday’s 20-state contest on March 8.

For Jackson, Minnesota and South Dakota offer a critical opportunity to show that his appeal to white voters extends beyond a relatively thin fringe of disenchanted liberals.

He is expected to command 90% of the black vote in the mostly Southern states voting on March 8. If he can capture just 10% of the white vote, a number of political observers believe, he could dominate Super Tuesday.

Shoestring campaigns won Jackson 11% of the vote in Iowa and 8% in New Hampshire. Both states are overwhelmingly white.

Campaign advisers in Minnesota and South Dakota hope that the turnout in these states next Tuesday will again demonstrate Jackson’s ability to appeal to white voters, and have a ripple effect on the South on March 8.

Precinct Caucuses

Like Iowa, Minnesota chooses its delegates to the Democratic convention--87 of them--in precinct caucuses.

In 1984, only 40,000 people turned out when Walter Mondale won as a favorite son. Jackson Minnesota campaign coordinator Kris Blake notes that 1988 is the first time in 20 years that Minnesota’s traditionally strong Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has failed to put forward a favorite son.

With Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis and Illinois Sen. Paul Simon in control of the traditional party machinery, Jackson’s mostly volunteer campaign, with a total budget of $55,000, is trying to build a patchwork coalition along the lines of the European Greens Movement--anti-nuclear groups, environmentalists, gay activists and an assortment of alienated Democratic irregulars.

Jackson himself spent a nonstop day Friday in pursuit of the youth vote and more centrist support from organized labor.

Drumming home his anti-drug theme to a cheering high school throng, Jackson passed out voter registration forms reminding students that anyone who turns 18 by next November can vote for him in the caucuses.