Democrats Listen for Tick of Jesse Jackson Time Bomb : Politics: If he explodes into race, backers hope it’s after primaries. He could help the party but hurt Clinton.

The approach of the election season has renewed a familiar Democratic tradition: The Rev. Jesse Jackson is considering a presidential bid, and party faithful are trembling at the damage this could inflict on their leading candidate for the job.

At least, some Democrats are trembling.

In their sanctuaries on Capitol Hill, many congressional Democrats this year are quietly rooting for Jackson to make a third run for the White House. But rather than battle for the party’s nomination in the primaries, as Jackson did in 1984 and ‘88, these Democrats would prefer him to launch an independent candidacy that puts his name on the ballot throughout the nation in November, 1996.

That approach, they think, could help Democrats in several tight House and Senate races even if it threatens to unravel President Clinton’s reelection hopes. According to this theory, Jackson would bring otherwise uninterested black and liberal voters to the polls and tip many of these close races to the Democrats, even while he takes crucial votes from Clinton.

“While it may hurt the President, it is true the Jackson candidacy certainly energizes congressional districts around the country, creates a higher turnout and probably shifts the balance of power in the Congress,” Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.) predicted on Cable News Network earlier this month.

Says Rep. Julian C. Dixon (D-Los Angeles): “From a party point of view, it could hurt our President. But from a parochial point of view, it could help recapture some congressional seats.”

Jackson himself, while stopping short of any firm commitments, is helping keep such talk alive. Pointing to the 1984 and ’88 primaries, when his candidacy was credited with increasing turnout among minority and liberal Democrats, he said: “It’s fairly common knowledge how this would play out.”

Nor has Jackson been shy in describing his differences with Clinton. The President’s review of the federal government’s affirmative action programs, for instance, “has been a review of the polls,” Jackson observes caustically.

The affirmative action issue should gain Jackson his own burst of national publicity later this week. He plans to attend Thursday’s meeting in San Francisco of the University of California Board of Regents and speak against a proposal, pushed by Gov. Pete Wilson, to eliminate the college system’s minority preference programs.

While many still doubt that Jackson will seek the presidency again, the chatter about the possibility points to a deeper truth about the political season. To an extent rare in recent history, congressional Democrats are coming to see their interests as opposite of those of their President next year.

Clinton’s zigzag to the center, which he views as a necessary response to the country’s rightward tilt, is seen by many congressional Democrats as an affront to the party’s tradition and a risk to their political careers. At a time when advisers are telling Clinton to keep daylight between himself and congressional Democrats, some of them, in turn, have decided that such distance may suit them just fine.

The most dramatic example of this divergence came in May, when Clinton offered a second budget plan with bigger cuts in projected Medicare and Medicaid spending, drawing howls of “betrayal” from top congressional Democrats. But it extends to other issues as well.

“A lot of Democrats just don’t feel they’re getting much out of this relationship,” lamented one party leader, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Few congressional Democrats believe a Jackson presidential candidacy would directly generate the gains the party needs to retake control of the House and Senate. But some analysts who have looked at key swing races believe a significant handful could be won.

One Democratic analyst, who requested anonymity, said his study of upcoming races suggests Jackson’s presence on the November ballot could mean the difference in five to eight tight House races and about five Senate races.

The Senate races include those for open seats in Illinois and Alabama; Sen. Carl Levin’s seat in Michigan; Sen. Bill Bradley’s seat in New Jersey, and a Georgia Senate seat, if Sen. Sam Nunn decides to retire, as some suspect he will.

In California, only the House seat of Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Colton) might be affected, according to this analysis. Brown, a longtime incumbent who was reelected in November with just 51% of the vote, has a significant share of black residents in his district.

The most outspoken support for Jackson’s independent candidacy has come from members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), who was Clinton’s California co-chair in 1992, declared at a recent gathering that if Clinton disappoints her as he grapples with affirmative action and other issues, she will be at the head of the line to back a Jackson candidacy.

Despite such fiery words, most black members of Congress are in such predominantly Democratic districts that they probably aren’t at risk in the 1996 elections. Rather, it is white liberal Democrats in districts where their victory margins have been on the decline who stand to be aided by a Jackson candidacy. And those who are hoping the Jackson scenario plays out are doing so quietly.

“This isn’t the kind of thing people can talk about too much around other Democrats,” said one liberal member, with an abashed laugh, before asking for anonymity.

Some Democrats, to be sure, dispute the assumption that Jackson, running as an independent, could rally support for endangered congressional Democrats. White House aides, for instance, contend that such party rupture would hurt Democratic congressional candidates as well as the President.

Others argue that Jackson’s presence would increase pressure on moderate Democrats to address his issues, pushing them to the left and driving away moderate voters they badly need.

Few, however, dispute the harm a Jackson candidacy could do to Clinton.

Black voters gave him slightly more than a fifth of his total vote in 1992. Losing even a few thousand of those voters could cost Clinton dearly in such states as Illinois, Michigan, California and perhaps New Jersey, says Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan political analyst in Washington. And each of these states is viewed as potentially crucial to Clinton’s reelection.

White House aides say Clinton and Jackson have met periodically to discuss issues, but insist no special effort is being made to pacify their frequent critic or dissuade him from a presidential bid.

Regardless, any such effort would be hamstrung by a dilemma: If Clinton moves publicly to embrace Jackson’s agenda, he could neutralize his appeal to the moderates he has so assiduously courted.

Outsiders say White House efforts to make peace with Jackson have recently intensified but have been carefully carried on out of sight. Jackson said he was scheduled to meet with Clinton at the White House Friday, but couldn’t make it because he was in New Orleans for a convention.

In a move that fanned discussion of his intentions, Jackson has been consulting experts on ballot access rules. What he has found, people close to him say, is that he would not have to commit himself to an independent run for months.

Based on his past track record, he could probably raise the $10 million to $15 million he would need to run a no-frills campaign involving minimal staff and little national advertising. The bigger question is whether he could win a large enough slice of the vote to make the grind of a third national campaign worthwhile.

Some Democrats believe his best move is to apply pressure now, when Clinton is desperate to lock up the Democratic base, then forgo a race that might just embarrass him and help put a Republican in the White House.

Jackson clearly is inclined to keep the pressure on. He notes, for instance, that he will be paying close attention to the speech Clinton has scheduled for Wednesday on affirmative action. And if he is disappointed with what he hears, Jackson says, then an independent candidacy “is a very live option--a very live option.”