Seeks to Avoid Hurting Party : Dukakis Ponders What Role He Can Offer Jackson

“What does Jesse want?” was the question Democrats were asking last spring when the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign caught fire.

But now that Michael S. Dukakis is assured of getting the nomination, Democrats are asking a different question: What can Dukakis give Jackson that won’t hurt his candidacy and his party?

And the answer to this dilemma, shaped by the harsh mathematical realities of racial politics, seems to boil down to this: anything that will not turn white voters off.

A political professional says this rule of thumb offers Dukakis a variety of relatively non-controversial concessions on party rules and platform planks, such as Dukakis’ agreement to meet Jackson’s demand to brand South Africa a “terrorist state.”

But independent analysts and Democrats outside the Jackson camp warn that Dukakis cannot afford to be seen as changing his own beliefs to suit Jackson. And specifically excluded from Dukakis’ options, they say, is the one gift that has seized the attention of Jackson’s most ardent backers--the vice presidential nomination.

“That would be an absolute disaster,” asserts Adolph Reed, Yale University black politics scholar and author of “The Jesse Jackson Phenomenon,” an analysis of Jackson’s 1984 run for the presidency. “It would give the Republicans the White House.”

It is not that Democrats do not expect to need black voters this November in key states North and South. Rather it is just that the electoral calculus of past presidential campaigns argues strongly that the Democrats need white votes more.

Indeed, the Democrats’ difficulty in getting white votes, particularly in the last two presidential elections, has given blacks a disproportionate share of their overall votes. Thus blacks, who make up only about 10% of the electorate, accounted for 20% of the Democratic vote in 1984 and 24% in 1980, according to national election studies conducted by the University of Michigan.

“So far in American history the Democrats have never won when blacks made up more than 15% of their supporters,” points out Linda Williams, senior political analyst for the Joint Center for Political Studies, which concentrates on black politics. “So although I am a great proponent of appealing to the black vote, at the same time it’s true that they (the Democrats) have got to get substantial support from whites. They don’t need a majority of whites. But they’ve got to come in the 40% range.”

Carter’s White Votes

The last Democrat to win the presidency, Jimmy Carter, got 46% of the white vote, along with the roughly 90% of the black vote which every Democratic presidential candidate has received since 1968, in gaining a narrow victory over Republican Gerald R. Ford in 1976.

In 1984, by contrast, Walter F. Mondale received only 36% of the white vote and slightly more than 40% of the overall vote in losing to President Reagan, who got more than 59% of the total vote, a margin of nearly 19 points.

To close the 19-point gap with the Republicans, Dukakis must increase his share of the overall vote by nearly 10%. Because blacks make up only a small fraction of the total electorate and reliably vote Democratic anyway, analysts agree that it would take a Herculean effort by Jackson among blacks to add even 1 or 2 percentage points to the Democratic vote total.

White Swing Voters

That means Dukakis must look to white swing voters for nearly all of the increase he needs. But underlying Dukakis’ dilemma are poll results that show that Democrats’ chances of winning back this segment of the electorate would be gravely damaged were he to offer Jackson the vice presidency or presumably anything else of great prestige and prominence.

More than half of all the voters interviewed this month in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll said they would be less likely to vote for Dukakis if Jackson were his running mate. A survey taken by CNN/USA Today showed that giving the vice presidential slot to Jackson would cost Dukakis a net of 15 points in November against Vice President George Bush.

In a Darden Research Corp. survey of voters in nine Southern states, a region where Democrats desperately need to make inroads in November, 50% of those interviewed said they would be less likely to vote for Dukakis if Jackson were his running mate, compared to only 25% who said they would be more likely to back the Democratic candidate.

A Greater Disparity

Among white voters the disparity was even greater--61% of whites said they would be less likely to vote for Dukakis if he chose Jackson as his running mate, against only 15% who said they would be more likely to back Dukakis.

Nor are such racial divisions limited to the South. Ralph Whitehead, Democratic opinion analyst, warns of “deep racial polarization,” particularly in three big Northern cities--Chicago, Philadelphia and Detroit--where many white ethnics, particularly those middle-aged and older, resent the political dominance of the black mayors who govern those cities.

Although opinion surveys now show such voters leaning toward Dukakis, Whitehead says that based on results of the “focus group” interviews he has conducted in those cities, “the closer that Michael Dukakis gets to Jesse Jackson, the harder it will be to hold those voters.”

Race Isn’t Only Factor

But race is not the only factor that makes close ties to Jackson a potential negative for Dukakis. Republicans contend that if Dukakis were to appear to be embracing Jackson’s positions on major domestic or foreign policy issues, he would make himself vulnerable to attack on ideological grounds.

Noting that some Jackson supporters have suggested that Dukakis make Jackson national party chairman, GOP consultant David Keene says: “I think that would be a very good target for Republicans. It would help us show that the Democratic Party is really representative of radical groups, not the average citizen.”

In broader terms, dealing with Jackson’s demands threatens one of the underpinnings of Dukakis’ success so far in the polls among middle-class and blue-collar white Democrats who defected to Reagan in the past: In contrast to Mondale, who was depicted as a wimpish captive of the many special-interest groups, Dukakis has worked hard to give the appearance of independence from such special pleaders.

Pleasing Jackson

But anything substantial Dukakis does to please Jackson might be construed as pandering and would threaten to shatter this favorable image.

“Jackson is the latest vehicle for proponents of (special) interest group liberalism,” contends Al From, executive director of the Democratic Leadership Council, a group of moderate to conservative Democratic officeholders who have been trying to chart a new centrist course for the party. “There is no question that he could hurt Dukakis’ ability to exploit one of his strengths so far, his willingness to resist (special) interest group pressures.”

At the same time, Dukakis’ strategists do not underestimate the importance of the black vote in big Northern industrial states and in such Deep South states as Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Jackson’s own home turf of South Carolina.

Base of Black Support

“In some states right now blacks are the margin of our victory,” said Donna Brazile, a veteran of the 1984 Jackson campaign who was recruited by Dukakis to help build his own base of black support. But if turnout slumps in November, she adds: “They could be the margin of our despair.”

Jackson, after all, did attract roughly 90% of the black vote in the Democratic primaries. Still, many Democratic leaders argue that black support for Dukakis will depend more on Dukakis than on Jackson. And many point to long-term black loyalty to the Democrats and the deep-seated antipathy toward Republicans and privately agree with outspoken Iowa Rep. Dave R. Nagle who says: “Dukakis can afford to say ‘no’ to Jackson. Blacks have nowhere else to go.”

Not surprisingly, Jackson looks at things differently, and describes his potential role in the campaign as critical in building a Democratic victory coalition in November.

Boosting ‘Both of Us’

“Some people who support Dukakis do not support me,” he told reporters earlier this month. “Some people who support me will not support Dukakis unless I can get them to. But together we can convince all of them to support the both of us.”

As evidence of his potency, Jackson likes to brag about his role in the 1986 congressional campaign, when he claims to have registered 2 million new voters, and helped the Democrats win five Senate seats in the South and take control of that body.

“What have we done?” he asks rhetorically. “We registered more Democrats than any Democrat alive. We turned back the U.S. Senate to Democrats.”

But others believe his personal impact on the vote in November will be marginal. “I think we can expect the vast majority of blacks to turn out, with or without Jackson,” says Linda Williams of the Joint Center.

Influence on Blacks

Williams says Jackson would be expected to have the greatest influence on black voters below the age of 30, who traditionally do not vote in great numbers but are clearly energized by Jackson, although many analysts believe that Jackson would have a hard time influencing them unless he was on the ticket himself.

As for Jackson’s role in 1986, “nobody knows how many people he registered, including him,” says Richard Moe, veteran Democratic strategist and Dukakis adviser.

“Crazy” is the adjective used to describe Jackson’s assertions about 1986 by Yale’s Reed, who cites the broad variety of organizations involved in the registration effort on the local level, such as the National Coalition on Black Voter Participation, an umbrella organization for more than 80 civil rights groups.

Registration of Blacks

John R. Petrocik, a UCLA specialist in political parties, says the rise in black registration and turnout in 1986, particularly in the South, was an extension of a long-range trend. “Jesse Jackson may have helped this along,” he says. “But you can’t show he added substantially to what was already happening.”

In asserting his ability to transfer his own support to another politician, Jackson is making a claim that would set him apart from other American politicians, points out Claibourne H. Darden Jr., a Southern pollster.

“What did (South Carolina Republican Sen.) Strom Thurmond do for (Kansas Sen. Bob) Dole, what did (New York Mayor Edward I.) Koch do for (Tennessee Sen. Albert) Gore?” Darden asked pointedly, citing two notable failed attempts by prominent politicians to help presidential candidates in the 1988 nominating campaign.

Helping Dukakis

Some operatives in both political parties believe Jackson may have already helped Dukakis by giving Dukakis the opportunity to show his opposition to such Jackson proposals as increasing taxes, freezing defense spending and pledging not to be the first nation to use nuclear weapons.

In this way Jackson has allowed Dukakis to define himself as a relative moderate, and to avoid some of the liberal stigma attached to his home state of Massachusetts.

Still even Jackson’s foes in the Democratic Party believe the time has come for Dukakis to make peace with his sole remaining adversary, and to do so without humiliating him. “I think he should treat Jackson with respect,” says From of the Democratic Leadership Council.

Meanwhile, Jackson faces his own dilemma: calculating how to be militant enough to maintain credibility with his own supporters without seeming to threaten Democratic unity.

Some Backers Sulking

Some Jackson backers, convinced that white party leaders ganged up on him to prevent his getting the presidential nomination and convinced that Dukakis will not put him on the ticket, are already sulking.

Sometimes “there are more important things than winning elections,” Jackson campaign director Richard G. Hatcher recently remarked.

But most professionals believe it is in Jackson’s own interest to discourage such talk, which if it became widespread might reduce black turnout and hurt Dukakis in November. “I think Jackson has to figure that if the ticket wins and he doesn’t help, he doesn’t have much claim on the party,” says Iowa Rep. Nagle.

Just as bad for Jackson, reasons Nagle, would be a Democratic defeat for which Jackson could be blamed.

Another Try in 1992

Assuming that Jackson wants to make another try for the presidency in 1992, Republican consultant Eddie Mahe Jr. contends: “What Jackson really wants is a headline the day after the election that says: ‘Dukakis Loses Despite Jackson’s Best Efforts.’ ”

Given the nature of the conundrum he faces, it is no wonder Jackson seems inconsistent in talking publicly about his role in the fall campaign.

Earlier this month he demanded that he be given serious consideration for the vice presidency. And last week he said he had decided whether he would accept an offer to be Dukakis’ running mate, although was not ready to make that decision public.

But last weekend in addressing the liberal grass-roots organization Citizen Action here in Washington, Jackson seemed more in harmony with the feeling prevalent among Democrats that regaining the White House matters more than any individual politician’s ambitions.

The enthusiastic crowd gave Jackson perhaps his biggest ovation when he declared: “Unity in July, victory in November.”

Michael Dukakis could hardly have said it better himself.

Staff writers David Lauter and Douglas Jehl contributed to this story.

DEMOCRATS AND THE BLACK VOTE Year/Candidate (winners in bold with 2 asterisks) 1960 KENNEDY** Democratic share of: white vote: 48% Democratic share of: black vote: 71% Share of Democratic vote that came from blacks: 8% Year/Candidate (winners in bold)1964 JOHNSON** Democratic share of: white vote: 64% Democratic share of: black vote: 99% Share of Democratic vote that came from blacks:12% Year/Candidate (winners in bold)1968 Humphrey* Democratic share of: white vote: 36% Democratic share of: black vote: 97% Share of Democratic vote that came from blacks:18% Year/Candidate (winners in bold) 1972 McGovern Democratic share of: white vote: 30% Democratic share of: black vote: 87% Share of Democratic vote that came from blacks:21% Year/Candidate (winners in bold) 1976 CARTER** Democratic share of: white vote: 46% Democratic share of: black vote: 94% Share of Democratic vote that came from blacks:15% Year/Candidate (winners in bold)1980 Carter* Democratic share of: white vote: 31% Democratic share of: black vote: 92% Share of Democratic vote that came from blacks:24% Year/Candidate (winners in bold) 1984 Mondale** Democratic share of: white vote: 36% Democratic share of: black vote: 90% Share of Democratic vote that came from blacks:20% *Third-party candidates received at least 10% of the vote. Sources: University of Michigan Center for Political Studies UCLA. Democrats need more than 40% of the white vote in order to win the presidency, elections in recent decades have demonstrated., Los Angeles Times