Dukakis, in a Bid for Black Votes, Says Jackson Can Take Major Convention Role

Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, seeking to fill a notable void in his political base, met privately here Monday with black supporters and later made clear that he expected the Rev. Jesse Jackson to play a major role at the Democratic convention and in the general election campaign.

The statement about Jackson reinforced the message of inclusiveness that Dukakis and his campaign sought to project at the meeting, which inaugurated a stepped-up effort to inspire black voters to join a mass conversion to the Dukakis cause.

The task, regarded as vital for a Dukakis victory in November, has become an increasing preoccupation in the Dukakis campaign, which virtually ceded the black community to Jackson and watched him win all but a fraction of the black vote throughout the primary season.

Confident of Winning Black Support

Participants in the Monday meeting emerged confident that--with Jackson’s assistance--the Massachusetts governor, as his nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate becomes assured, will be able to woo black voters successfully.

But the vastness of that task was apparent in the modest scale of the meeting, which was preceded by a dinner Sunday night. Of the 70 black Dukakis supporters who attended, 26 were from Massachusetts, and only one, former New Orleans Mayor Ernest N. Morial, had a national reputation.

The session, moreover, though publicized as a gesture of outreach to the black community, was abruptly closed to the press, and reporters waiting outside the room were shooed into a nearby press room.

Dukakis aides attributed the move to a decision to make the meeting a “family gathering,” but another reason, according to some participants, was that uneasy Dukakis supporters wanted private assurances that their loyalty would not be forgotten amid the effort to rally more prestigious black figures behind Dukakis.

“The general tone (Sunday night) was like, are we going to get rolled over by the ghost of Jesse Jackson?” said Donna Brazile, the campaign’s deputy field director, of the mood among supporters at the dinner session. “This morning that all changed . . . . He made us all lieutenants.”

In his private appeal, Dukakis encouraged his supporters to reach out directly to Jackson backers and let them know that they would be welcome in the Dukakis campaign, participants said.

“We’re going to be reaching out to all Americans, all over this country,” Dukakis told reporters at a briefing after the meeting.

“We’re going to be reaching out to black Americans, brown Americans, white Americans . . . . We’re gonna open up that door to everybody,” Dukakis said. In his comments about Jackson, Dukakis refused to be specific about what role his rival might play. Jackson, whose more ideological advisers have been urging him to seek the vice presidential nomination, said while campaigning in New Jersey that his role had “not yet been determined” but suggested that voters in the final presidential primaries on June 7 “will have a lot to say about what role I will be playing.”

Jack Corrigan, Dukakis’ deputy campaign manager, said after the Monday meeting that the campaign had agreed to fund a substantial voter registration drive as one of a number of steps aimed at strengthening its ability to attract support from black voters.

Package Aimed at Black Voters

Campaign leaders decided also to produce a package of issues-related material to be used by supporters seeking to persuade black leaders to back Dukakis, issues director Christopher F. Edley Jr. said.

Dukakis’ delegate coordinator, Tad Devine, said it had also been resolved to invite to the Democratic National Convention many of the blacks who ran but lost elections as Dukakis delegates. Devine said that they would work on the convention floor as a liaison between Dukakis and Jackson forces. That strategy would greatly bolster the black presence among Dukakis’ floor forces, as blacks comprise only about 100 of the 1,700 delegates the campaign currently claims.

Dukakis aides have long explained the scant attention the campaign had given to black voters by pointing to Jackson’s overwhelming popularity. “It’s disrespect to Jesse if you go after the black vote, but then it’s disrespect if you don’t,” one campaign aide said in an interview last week. “So, it gets you both ways. But now’s the time to begin.”

Staff writer Karen Tumulty contributed to this story.