Jackson Gets Capitol Tribute, No Support

The Rev. Jesse Jackson returned Thursday to the halls of Congress, where he and his campaign message were greeted with tributes that were rhetorically powerful but politically empty.

He was fawned over by senators as he testified against drugs and loudly cheered as he delivered an anti-apartheid address on the Capitol steps, but he won no support for his immediate objective: to persuade “super delegates” to support him for reasons of “fairness.”

Backed by Hollings

Only Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S. C), who announced his support for Jackson last week, stood with the candidate as Jackson emerged from a meeting in which he had urged 33 senators to vote for him at the Democratic convention to ensure that his delegate count reflects his share of the popular vote. (Jackson received more than 29% of the vote in all primaries; he has 32% of the committed delegates, according to an Associated Press survey.)

“I appreciate the accolades,” Jackson said at a news conference, referring to the praise he had heard earlier, “but, if I have done all that, then I simply say, let’s be fair.”

A senator who attended the meeting said that Jackson had appealed to the senators’ “conscience” and that one senator, whom he would not name, had stood up to say he agreed with Jackson’s argument. But he said none had indicated that he would switch his support to the civil rights leader.

An apparently bitter Jackson, complaining that he been supported by no senator except Hollings and by no Democratic governor or state party chairman, contended that he could have won the nomination “if the leadership had joined the rank-and-file people.”

Unlike the bulk of delegates, who are elected, senators and other party leaders automatically qualify to attend the convention as super delegates.

“The basic party leadership, while accepting my involvement in the party to make it strong, has not been as reciprocal as it ought to be,” Jackson said.

Dukakis ‘Obvious Winner’

Hollings, a conservative Democrat who disagrees with Jackson on many issues, acknowledged that Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis was the “obvious winner” of the Democratic presidential race.

But he said, “For the good of the party, we also ought to be supporting Rev. Jackson. That’s why, coming from my home state, he won my home state, he certainly has earned my vote” at the Democratic convention.

Jackson has started a campaign to persuade other uncommitted delegates--including the super delegates--to follow a similar rationale and support him if he won their state or received a smaller share of delegates than of popular votes.

But he had so little luck Thursday that many senators, apparently unenthusiastic about being photographed with a dissident candidate, ducked out of the meeting before cameras were permitted inside.

The mood elsewhere remained back-slapping and celebratory, however, as Jackson was hailed as “a great leader in the war on drugs” during a Senate hearing and was welcomed by liberals at the anti-apartheid rally later as the candidate who persuaded the Democratic Party to designate South Africa a terrorist state.

‘We Move Mountains’

“One day, the committee said South Africa is a terrorist state,” Jackson said at the rally, speaking of the decision taken last weekend by a panel drafting the Democratic Party platform. “The next day, George Bush said South Africa is a racist state. When we assume moral leadership, we move mountains.”

To cheers, Jackson said also that he would seek to persuade the party to invite Winnie Mandela, the wife of imprisoned South African opposition leader Nelson Mandela, and Polish labor leader Lech Walesa to the Democratic convention as a show of support for oppressed peoples.