A Candidate's Catalysis

Jesse Jackson's bid for a presidential candidacy reflects the maturation of Afro-American politics. No claimant group in American politics--whether interest groups like labor and farmers in early 20th century, women today, or ethnic groups today like Blacks and Hispanics--can consider itself at the maturation stage in political status until it can make waves in the sea of candidates for the election to the presidency of the United States. Among several ways of doing this is to launch a candidate from the ranks of a claimant group, hoping to gain the nomination of a major party, influence the nomination, or generate political spinoffs of future significance to electoral politics. Jesse Jackson, an incredibly intelligent person, would have to be rather daft to contemplate gaining the Democratic nomination or influencing it significantly, so it can be presumed his purposes center on the political spinoffs from his candidacy.

Fundamental to the new maturation of Afro-American politics is the emergent diversity of attitudes toward major public policy issues (abortion, middle wage, tuition tax credit, crime, etc.) and the diversity of political leadership. Until the middle 1970s Afro-American politics displayed much uniformity in public policy attitudes and the character of political leadership. Since then growing diversification has evolved in these areas of Black politics, requiring a wider range of political ties.

Though Afro-American politics is presently only at the formative stage of this kind of political maturation--compared, say, to Jewish-American politics--the importance of Jesse Jackson's bid for a presidential candidacy is its potential for generating political benefits infinitely superior to those produced by Black leadership heretofore. And no one is more aware of this than Jesse Jackson himself: "My running," Jackson remarks, "will stimulate thousands to run [for elected office]: it would make millions register. If you can get your share of legislators, mayors, sheriffs, school-board members, tax assessors and dog-catchers, you can live with whoever is in the White House... We need 10,000 Blacks running for office from Virginia around to Texas--county clerks, supervisors, judges, legislators, governors--Just run! Run! Run!" (Today there are about 5200 elected Black officials, whereas the potential is probably two or three times that figure, if we recognize the growing ability of Black candidates to run for offices in white majority constituencies).

Equally and more immediately consequential is the impact of a Jackson candidacy upon the voting behavior of Blacks--especially working-class and lower-class Blacks who make up a disproportionate share of the "party of non-voters," to use Walter Dean Burnham's apt phrase. Nationally, some 41 percent of 17.6 million voting-age Afro-Americans are not registered (compared to 34 percent of voting-age whites) and in the South (whose electoral votes will be crucial in 1984) the situation is worse still. Voter apathy among Blacks is tantamount to political suicide in today's neo-conservative era, as seen in Alabama in 1980 where Reagan won by a mere 17,462 votes while some 272,390 Black folks could not vote because they were unregistered.

Owing to Jesse Jackson's unique charismatic capacity for populist around among lower-starts Afro-Americans, a Jackson presidential candidacy is capable of smashing Black voter apathy and, thereby, affecting the outcome of Reagan's bid for a second term even if Reagan gained his 1980 percentage of white votes.

And crucial change in Black voter apathy is no pipe dream. In 1982 voter apathy commenced its death march, as Black voter turnout hit 43 percent compared to 37 percent in 1978 off-year elections. This percentage increase was twice that of white voter turnout, producing a massive closure of the Black/white voting gap to 7 percent--an historic low. What is more, for the first time in this century Black voter turnout is now greater than white turnout in nine states.

Thus a spur to more Black candidacies for elected office and an assist to the death knell of Black voter apathy constitute important spinoffs from a Jesse Jackson presidential candidacy, thoroughly justifying it. These benefits over-shadow the concern of Jackson's detractors among Afro-American leaders like Benjamin Hooks of the NAACP and the National Urban League's John Jacob, among others, that, in Jacob's words--"the Black [presidential] candidate could very well turn out to be a spoiler--allowing... less desirable candidates to win primaries and perhaps even the nomination."

Surely Jackson knows he can't win many if any primaries, and at best he will end up at the Democratic Convention with less than 300 out of a total of 3933 delegates. But so what! Victory for a Jackson candidacy is not measured in this conventional manner. Jackson, a master visionary like his great mentor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., seeks with his candidacy to nurture new notions of the politically possible among Afro-Americans. Old-guard Democrats--assured in the past of Black votes due to Republican neglect of the Black community--can no longer be allowed to pander to the anti-Black features of some neo-conservative white voters without paying a price. New-guard right-wing Republicans can no longer be allowed to reverse federal responsibility for basic needs of Blacks in areas like voting rights, food stamps, affirmative action, job training, and unemployment, without paying a price. In giving Afro-Americans a leg up in regard to these matters, Jesse Jackson's presidential candidacy will surely be worth it.

Martin Kilson, professor of Government is the author of a forthcoming book. Neither Insiders Nor Outsiders: Blacks in American Society.