Rainbow Coalition Meeting Yields Talk of 3rd Party

While opposition to the Republican congressional agenda dominated the National Rainbow Coalition meeting here over the weekend, growing disappointment with the Democratic Party produced intensified talk of a third party for the 1996 election.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, complaining of a lack of recognition from Democrats, told the organization: “We delivered. Then they ignored us. We do not intend to be ignored, taken for granted, pushed off and exploited any longer.”

Without committing himself to a third-party presidential bid, Jackson said Saturday that the coalition “must develop independent ballot access” in states and localities.

A nine-person panel on multi-party politics included only one defender of the Democratic Party, Don Sweitzer, former political director of the Democratic National Committee.

Gwen Patton, who ran for the Senate in Alabama, argued that “the natural extension of the National Rainbow Coalition is to have the National Rainbow Party.”