POLITICS 88 : His Ideas Struck a Chord, Jackson Says

A fired-up Rev. Jesse Jackson said Tuesday night that his message had struck a chord with voters and had overcome the well-moneyed campaigns of his rivals.

“Tonight we have won,” Jackson proclaimed before 2,000 exultant supporters. “America has won.”

Mounting returns showed Jackson trailing Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis by a small margin in delegate totals and in a see-saw contest for the lead in popular vote with Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr.

Far outspent by rivals in the South, the Jackson forces had sought to make a virtue of their poverty, billing the Super Tuesday race as a contest between their traditional grass-roots politics and what they disdained as the “high-tech” politics of Jackson’s rivals.

‘We the People Can Win’

“They got commercials,” Jackson said Tuesday. “We got the message. We the people can win.”

The campaign had hoped that the South, where Jackson’s natural base of support is strongest, would serve as a clear endorsement of Jackson’s populist approach, and campaign manager Gerald Austin said of the results: “This is just where we wanted to be.”

Austin said that Jackson achieved his minimal objective, ensuring that he would emerge from the South as one of three viable Democratic contenders, and predicted strong finishes in upcoming primaries in South Carolina and Illinois.

Jackson did best in the predominantly black states of the Deep South, where he had spent the most time, preaching a political sermon in Baptist churches almost every day and inspiring college audiences with speeches that focused as much on old achievements in civil rights as they did on his new campaign agenda of economic justice.

“Hands that once picked cotton on Tuesday will pick a President,” Jackson told cheering crowds across the region.

Front-Runner Status Elusive

But while Jackson finished second in many of the states he did not win, he was unable to patch together enough support from white laborers and farmers to win him the front-runner status his campaign had sought.

His inability to register a clear-cut triumph in the region in which he is strongest showed that Jackson still faces a formidable challenge in seeking his party’s nomination.

Even before the vote itself, campaign manager Austin conceded in an interview that Jackson’s prospects for winning the nomination were slim, because other Democrats are likely to unite against him if he proves successful.

“Would I bet on Jackson being the nominee?” Austin asked. “No, I would not.”

But Jackson showed no sign of dismay Tuesday, describing his decision not to criticize other Democrats as part of a strategy that seeks to unite the party behind him in November.

‘Running Against George Bush’

“Today was Super Tuesday,” Jackson said. “I’m not running against Gore or Dukakis or (Rep. Richard) Gephardt on Super Tuesday. I’m running against George Bush in the Super Bowl in November.”

As Jackson now shifts his focus to the large industrial states of the North and Midwest, his strategists said they expected the campaign’s efforts there to reach a more equal financial footing with its rivals. They predicted an influx of funds from a direct mail campaign that netted $600,000 in the last 10 days of February and will reach a million potential contributors in March.

“Down here we had almost nothing,” said top Jackson strategist Steve Cobble. “In Illinois, Pennsylvania and New York, we’ll be able to compete on level ground.”

But Jackson, who described himself this week as a “direct action leader who wants to stand by the people,” said in an interview aboard his campaign plane that he would not alter his approach.

“We’ll keep taking the campaign to the point of challenge,” said Jackson, whose first scheduled stop in Illinois today is at a General Electric factory in Cicero, where he will express solidarity with disgruntled workers.