Jackson’s Successes in Primaries Turn Into a Headache for Bradley

In black sections of Los Angeles, the chugging presidential campaign of Jesse Jackson is exciting the political nerves like nothing in a long while. But for Mayor Tom Bradley, who himself came out of a black neighborhood in South Los Angeles, Jackson’s success is turning into a political headache.

Black leaders want Bradley to join them in what some call a “historic” Jackson campaign for the Democratic nomination. But five months after the November election, Bradley has to go before voters in search of a fifth term, and he will need his usual strong backing from white, suburban voters to win.

So for the first time since he was elected in 1973, Bradley is refusing to endorse anyone in the Democratic primaries, and some distressed black leaders have gone public with criticism of Bradley.

“I like the mayor, I like him a lot--but I’m very troubled by his decision,” said Bondie Gambrell, a businessman and longtime Bradley campaign adviser who held a major fund-raiser for Jackson last weekend. “I think the upside of endorsing Jesse would far outweigh the downside (for Bradley).”

To Gambrell and others, the Jackson campaign is a major political advance for blacks in America. By sitting it out, they said, Bradley could hurt his standing with some blacks. “It’s the right side of history to be on,” said Mark Ridley-Thomas, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Los Angeles.

Needs Widespread Support

However, Bradley has often ignored the wishes of black leaders in Los Angeles and nationally, and in 15 years as chief executive in a city where white voters far outnumber blacks Bradley has never allowed himself to be easily classified by racial politics.

But the controversy over Jackson--who has so far failed to attract much support from whites in Democratic primaries--reveals the fragile nature of the unusual political alliance that first elected Bradley and has kept him comfortably in office. Bradley has needed loyal support from white liberals, especially Jewish voters on the Westside, along with solid backing from blacks to win in Los Angeles.

The Westside is where most of the mayor’s financial support comes from--and Bradley has appointed more city commissioners from the ranks of Westside liberals than from any other area of the city. Although Bradley’s appointments have included many blacks and other minorities, only a handful of his 191 appointees actually live in the predominantly black areas of the city.

In recent years, however, the coalition has split over several key issues. Black voters have demanded more jobs and better police protection, while more affluent, more liberal white voters have complained increasingly about traffic and smog.

Some black leaders, and other political watchers, said Bradley’s decision to take no position on Jackson and the other Democratic contenders was an effort to avoid any more loss of support among white voters. Bradley has already begun to lose support among Jews, according to polls and an analysis of the 1986 vote for governor, and his chief rival in the 1989 race for mayor is expected to be City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who is Jewish.

In one scenario of the 1989 race, a view that is gaining in acceptance, Bradley would command most black votes and Yaroslavsky would take most of the liberal, Jewish votes. The decisive bloc would then be other white voters, mostly more conservative voters in the San Fernando Valley, a group where Jackson attracts his least support.

Some black leaders said Wednesday they assume Bradley chose to stay on the good side of this group--by not endorsing Jackson--while at the same time taking a calculated risk that few black voters would object.

“He was definitely in a hard place,” said a source with close ties to politics in South-Central Los Angeles. “He was going to alienate somebody, and he was looking for the safest course.”

Bradley, for his part, has done little to clarify his reasons for sitting out the race. In recent months, the mayor’s staff has been instructed to say only that Bradley is not taking sides. This week, the mayor released a terse statement confirming his position and refused to elaborate:

“I have been asked by every presidential campaign to endorse their candidate. I have told each campaign the same thing: I am not going to be involved in the 1988 primaries.”

One trusted Bradley supporter, former City Atty. Burt Pines, said Wednesday that he had not talked with the mayor about the Jackson decision, but he said Bradley would not decide who to back for President based on his own political considerations.

“I think it was made on the merits,” Pines said. “I’m sure that Bradley made the decision in what he felt was the best interests of the city and the country. I don’t think he made the decision based on a future mayoral race.”

Bradley is not the only high-profile black official to withhold his backing from Jackson. Detroit Mayor Coleman Young and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young also are not supporting Jackson. Nor is it the first time Bradley has shunned Jackson’s candidacy. In 1984, when Jackson was seeking the nomination, Bradley was an active and early supporter of former Vice President Walter F. Mondale.

This time, however, the pressure on Bradley is greater because Jackson has done better in the primaries and lined up much more support among mainstream black elected officials. For example, Willie Brown, the Speaker of the California Assembly, is the national chairman of Jackson’s campaign this year.

By some accounts, the Jackson candidacy is also raising more interest among Los Angeles blacks than in 1984. Kermin Maddox, a former Bradley aide, has been walking streets in South-Central Los Angeles to rally support for a recall move against black City Councilman Robert Farrell, and Maddox reports great emotion for Jackson.

“Jesse Jackson is exciting this community like it has never been excited before. Senior citizens talk about it, little kids talk about, even gang members talk about it. It’s very much like when I was a kid and Tom Bradley ran for mayor the first time.”

However, even a close ally of Brown’s and Jackson’s, state Assemblywoman Maxine Waters, said she can understand Bradley’s position.

“I do not in any way condemn Tom Bradley,” Waters said Wednesday. “It’s a political dilemma for Tom Bradley and for most black elected officials . . . how to hold onto his base and not alienate others who happen not to be black.”