What Makes Jackson Run

Alone among Ohio political editors, the Youngstown Vindicator's lisping, kewpie-faced Clingan Jackson, 50, has already picked his favorite in the seven-way race to win the Democratic nomination for governor in May. Jackson's choice: Clingan Jackson. His selection was no surprise to readers of the Vindicator (circ. 99,930), who have watched Jackson juggle a dizzying succession of hats since 1936, when he became the paper's political writer while serving as a state legislator.

During his long coverage of politics, Jackson has been a candidate for office in seven primary and four general elections (and lost only three primaries), served six years each as a state senator and a Democratic central committeeman. He has bagged appointive plums ranging from chairmanship of Ohio's Highway Construction Council (at $50 a day) to membership on the Strip Mine Commission. While drawing $8,000 a year from his Vindicator job, nimble Newsman Jackson since last May has helped make ends meet by working four days a week as an $8,400-a-year member of Ohio's Pardon and Parole Commission.

"Never," brags Jackson, "have I violated confidences or tried to scoop fellow reporters by virtue of knowing something as a legislator that they might not know as newsmen." But it is fellow newsmen who have now brought Jackson's hat tricks under fire. John S. Knight's Akron Beacon Journal (circ. 161,624) lectured him on ethics in an editorial headed

CLINGAN JACKSON SHOULD QUIT. Last week

Jackson roused the angry voice of Editor Louis B. Seltzer of Scripps-Howard's Cleveland Press (circ. 313,749). Under the headline THESE THINGS DON'T MIX, the Press urged that Jackson either drop out of the governor's race or 1) quit as political editor and 2) resign from the parole board, on which "the chance to make some extra friends by being extra lenient is just too appealing to pass up." Added the Press: "Trying to make himself look good (as a candidate) when he knows (as a reporter) he can't win, [Jackson] makes himself and the newspaper business look pretty silly."

Striking back at politically powerful Editor Seltzer in a speech that was dutifully covered by another Vindicator staffer, Candidate Jackson puffed: "The public need not beware of newspapermen who are out in the open as candidates. Citizens can deal with them directly. How much worse it is for a press overlord to attempt to govern by pulling strings but taking none of the responsibility or the blame!" Added 74-year-old Frederick Maag Jr., publisher of the Democratic Vindicator: "Mr. Jackson is so well-equipped for public service that it would be a shame to deprive him of the right to take part in politics. Of course, I'm not sure what our position might be if Jackson were nominated and became the Democratic candidate for governor." That prospect, less interested political editors agreed, is even more remote than the chance that Clingan Jackson will quit writing about politics.

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