COMMENTARY / EXCERPTS : In ‘88, Victory Will Be Thrill Enough

Jesse Jackson is 46 years old. His age is one of the two most important things to know about this American phenomenon. More than any other factor, it is his youth that offers Jackson hope.

Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen may have won the nominations. The young man who lost proved once again his unrelenting claim to history. By the power of his performance and the grace of his concession, the third man of 1988 Democratic politics suggested that he may someday move even closer to the prize.

There are precedents, after all. A quarter of a century ago a young French socialist ran his first campaign for his country’s presidency. He lost. He tried again and lost, and tried again.

Then something happened. People became comfortable with him. By the very fact of having contested all those elections, he established himself as a credible alternative. In 1981 he won. This year, at age 71, Francois Mitterrand ran for reelection, not as an outsider but as a figure of the French Establishment advocating stability.

The same could be said of Ronald Reagan. Twenty-five years ago this man was an actor-turned-pitchman. His political ideas were treated as so far right as to be ridiculous. But Reagan persisted. He ran and lost and ran again. Finally, on his third try, the country became used to him. Desperate for an option, they made him President.

What allowed these men to succeed was the time for people to get used to them, to see their strengths as well as their weaknesses.

They had something else, of course: something to say.