Analysis : Rhetoric Soaringly Optimistic : Apathetic Generation Finds Hope in Jackson

The Rev. Jesse Jackson does many things in his campaign speech to confront racism. The most effective is the “Sesame Street” bit at the end.

“All children 12 and under come to the front,” he says. “Children 12 and under. Come on up.”

It sounds strange at a political rally, but the children begin filing toward the front until they fill the stage.

“Now repeat after me,” Jackson says, standing in a circle of tiny faces: “I am.”

“ I am ,” chimes the diminutive chorus in a motley soprano.

“Somebody!”

“ Somebody! “

“Save jobs.”

“ Save jobs .”

“Secure farms.”

“ Secure farms .”

The grown-ups in the audience invariably laugh and coo.

There is a silent syllogism about race here, subliminal and emotional: The children, unconcerned with his color, accept Jackson so easily, even if the concepts mean little to them.

If the children embrace him, why not the adults?

In the words of the candidate himself, it is pure “Jackson action.”

Against the odds, Jesse Jackson has won more popular votes than any other Democrat in the presidential race, thanks in part to a split vote among white candidates and a nearly total control by Jackson of the black electorate. But in selected states he also has won more than 20% of the white vote, and lately that number appears to be growing. Local polls suggest that he is an even bet to win Wisconsin on Tuesday, a state in which just 3% of the voting-age population is black.

What is the essence of Jackson’s appeal?

Part of it is that Jackson, say analysts, is embracing the progressive platform that others in the party had seemed determined to abandon.

“Even now, when Democrats hear that old-time Democratic fundamentalism, they laugh and cry and speak in tongues,” said Times political consultant William Schneider, a political scientist at the American Enterprise Institute.

Part of it, too, is that no other Democrat is offering a compelling message at a moment when the party is weak and in a period of transition. “No one has expressed an alternative vision,” Schneider said.

Yet others this year, such as Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, have tried populism. Illinois Sen. Paul Simon has tried unapologetic liberalism.

To these, Jackson adds not only charisma, but also promises so improbably wonderful, rhetoric so soaringly optimistic, and an approach so emotional rather than intellectual that believing him becomes a renewing act of faith for blacks and whites alike.

“When it came down to it, he is the only one who is offering hope for my kids,” said Roger Rapaport, a 37-year-old white attorney from Lansing, Mich., and a father of two small children.

“I’m 24 and mine is the generation of apathy,” said Kathleen Krause, a college student from Lansing. “Half the kids I know from high school aren’t even registered to vote.”

After seeing Jackson wow teen-agers at a Lansing high school, Krause said she thought, “Maybe, just maybe he can get us out of this apathy.”

Often the most poignant moment in Jackson’s stump speech is when he mockingly poses the question of many political strategists: “What does Jesse want?”

‘Let the Sun Shine’

His answer is breathtaking: “I want to stop drugs. What do I want? I want to wipe out malnutrition . . . end ghettos . . . save jobs . . . secure farms . . . invest in people . . . raise minimum wage . . . comparable worth for women . . . build affordable housing . . . make America better . . . then let the sun shine on everybody!”

It is a list so seemingly impossible one cannot help wonder sometimes whether Jackson is naive or just caught up in his own hyperbole. Yet it is a list so full of hope and wonder that it brings crowds to their feet.

Jackson talks a lot about faith: “Faith has been renewed. Hope has been revived.”

And faith, as a minister must know, involves letting go of rationalism in favor of spiritualism.

Guard Lowered

“Everything starts here, in the gut,” Jackson said one night recently on his campaign bus in a rare moment when his guard was lowered. “Not here,” pointing to his head.

“People go from feeling to action, and they use their heads to rationalize their actions.”

“People begin to see, touch, feel and they begin to believe.”

Jackson does not talk about explaining his position. He talks about “the affection level” between himself and his audiences.

“I love you,” he will tell audiences, white and black.

From a Distance

In some ways, Jackson is at his most intimate from a distance of 30 feet or more--on the podium, before a group. From there he reveals more of himself, and gives more of himself. Up closer, he can be patronizing, dictatorial, uncomfortable--though at times, such as when he is talking about the civil rights movement, or music, he can relax.

Jackson’s delivery differs depending on his crowds. Working-class blacks in churches hear the revival-meeting style. Upper-class blacks hear a far more tempered discussion of “the predicament.”

Working-class whites hear another tone. College students another. And legislators still another. And Jackson talks candidly about “reading the cultural nuances” of a crowd before or while he speaks.

“Some people are listening, looking to reject, some are listening looking to rejoice. Some are there to convert. Some are just curious.”

Most Compelling Issue

Sometimes Jackson avoids the question of color, relying instead on his use of children. Sometimes Jackson uses his race as not only an issue but as the most compelling issue.

To many black audiences, for instance, Jackson says his election means “there are no more impossible dreams. . . . If I can make it you can make it.”

To better educated, more liberal white audiences, a group among which Jackson has had strong appeal, he also addresses race:

“You may have missed the march on Selma, Ala., 23 years ago to win for blacks the right to vote. But don’t you miss March 26,” he told a largely white audience in Grand Rapids, Mich.

“Vote for Medgar Evers. Vote for Dr. Martin Luther King,” he tells a half-white audience of students at Western Michigan University. “Vote for your self-respect. Don’t let their dying be in vain. Vote with a passion.”

‘Guilt Trip’

Norman J. Ornstein, a political scientist at the American Enterprise Institute, calls it “laying a heavy civil rights guilt trip on white liberals.”

Not surprisingly, Jackson delegate coordinator Steve Cobble sees it more optimistically: “Casting your vote for Jackson really does embody an embrace of the civil rights movement,” and a time, he says, when people were proud of what they were doing politically, and more optimistic about the nation’s future.

Jackson’s rhetoric embodies even more ancient calls of American nobility, too. Speeches are laced with references to “We the People,” and the epigram from the Statue of Liberty, “Bring me your tired, your poor. . . .”

In a sense, his message is as simplistic as the Little Engine That Could. He said he could win, and--on the force of his own personality and a split opposition--he has.

Vote of Significance

And by draping his own election in the larger cause of civil rights and liberal optimism, a vote for Jackson becomes a vote of significance.

Maybe in America, anyone can grow up to be President. It is not difficult, in the moment of passion during a Jackson speech, to wonder: Maybe we really can end malnutrition and stop drugs.

“He doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would let (these issues) go,” said Kathe Cassidy, a white marketing director of a regional shopping mall in Lansing.

Nor, apparently, is it difficult to shed rational concerns about electability and budget deficits, and give oneself over to hope.

“Across the years,” Jackson tells an integrated group at the Union Baptist Church in Hartford, Conn., “I have never seen hope fail as a force of change.”

Ring of the Fantastic

Supporters seem unconcerned that Jackson’s platform has the ring of the fantastic:

“No presidential candidate is able to accomplish everything he says in a campaign,” said Cassidy.

And congressional checks and balances, Cassidy said, will sand the rough edges off Jackson’s policies.

“At least he ha s a wish list,” says campaign Press Secretary Del Marie Cobb.

Jackson’s essentially emotional, non-intellectual approach on the stump is one of the ways he deals with the issue of race. He picks up white children and they respond to him. He embraces farmers. He makes people feel powerful and positive.

Seems Irrelevant

And once one feels such personal affection for the individual, his race seems irrelevant.

“He’s just another human being who’s trying to get the Republicans out of office,” said Bob Paczesny, a gravedigger from Milwaukee.

Said Peter Tholo, a Milwaukee Chrysler worker who at age 30 has never before voted for President: “The others are all politicians. He’s a humanitarian.”

The parallels to Ronald Reagan are inescapable. Supporters trust him, like him personally, admire his charisma and dismiss arithmetic that won’t add up or policies they consider too far from the center.

And the message, though based in grievance, is dressed in hope.

‘Great Transition’

“We are on the threshold of greatness,” he tells an all-white audience at St. Frederick’s Catholic Church in Cudahy. “We are in a great transition from racial battleground to economic common ground to moral higher ground.”

Even the absence of any record of elective office or criticism that Jackson is poor on follow-through is seen by some Jackson supporters as a positive, not a negative.

“He hasn’t been a politician so long that he’s dishonest,” said Sharon Kochel, a white woman who runs a day-care center in Milwaukee.

“As far as I’m concerned, he’s the only qualified candidate,” said Ellen Smith, a white high school teacher at the Silver Spring community center in Milwaukee. “He admits there are problems, and then he fills them with hope.”

“I wouldn’t even vote if he weren’t running,” said Smith. “I didn’t vote in past elections. I’m coming out this time because of Jesse.”

Lack of Credibility

As for electability, some Jackson supporters say the Democratic Party lacks credibility in charging that Jackson cannot win. Lately, the Establishment Democrats have failed to prove they are electable, either.

“When people ask can Jackson win, I think the question is can a black man have done worse than Walter Mondale or Jimmy Carter,” said Rapaport, a white, 37-year-old attorney from Lansing.

Jackson, in private, sounds far more comfortable with poor working-class whites who might oppose him because of his race than with wealthy Northern liberals who might endorse civil rights.

“The publishers who control the minds of America, they are willing to print editorials on civil rights and social justice, but for the most part, their children didn’t go to public schools. They were for busing theoretically, but their children went to country day schools. And so the people who had to make the adjustment over the last 25 years are . . . the working people, the Archie Bunkers of the world.”

‘Looking for a Fighter’

“You feel that the working-class people are looking for a fighter that they can trust, not just somebody who knows the digits, numbers and budgets. That’s important, but not as important as their having a fighter they can believe in.”

Jackson is persuading some working people.

“Dukakis or Gore, to me it’s the same thing. They can promise anything they want, but he’s sticking up for the working man,” said Tholo, the Chrysler worker.

But Tholo is still a rarity. The irony of Jackson’s appeal so far is that he is least successful among these whites with whom he seems more comfortable. Polls indicate that the bulk of his white support has come from affluent liberals--the “Peugeot proletariat.”

Others’ Shortcomings

The question now is to what extent Jackson’s support is a function of other candidates’ shortcomings, an implicit protest by some Democrats who find the other candidates bland and visionless. Is this an unstated stop-Dukakis movement? If Jackson’s white support is largely a protest, might it evaporate as people are faced with his actually winning?

And how many whites can Jackson persuade to abandon rational skepticism and give themselves over to hope? Jackson says voters are less concerned with these tactical concerns than the press or party Establishment are, and that continuing to win will inevitably put the question to rest.

Finally, can Jackson begin to win over working people in significant numbers?

“From where I sit, all these questions are part of the growth process,” Jackson said in a private moment aboard his campaign plane. “What I call America getting better. Even if they don’t vote for me, it gets better. They’re more accepting. I hope they vote for me. But as I often say, there are bigger things than that.”