Jackson Plays by the Rules

By KURT ANDERSEN

A good soldier--but drafting his own battle plan

He has not lost his touch. Preaching before mostly black audiences in Pine Bluff, Ark., Lexington, Ky., and Savannah, Ga., last week, he had them cheering and chanting after just a few minutes. But Jesse Jackson, no longer pursuing his own candidacy, is now stumping on behalf of Walter Mondale, his erstwhile opponent. If Jackson spent last spring and summer grandstanding, hectoring his party, demanding that it pay him respect, this fall he is out to show the Democratic establishment that he is a politician who can play by the rules too.

What happened to the political crusader who, it was thought, would spend the fall on some renegade course of his own, perhaps pulling blacks from the mainstream of the Democratic Party? Jackson did not change so much as adapt, strategically, to new circumstances: if he was to accumulate significant power within his party, he knew, he had no choice but to campaign actively for the ticket. Furthermore, since an overwhelmingly Democratic vote by blacks was inevitable, Jackson realized that it suited his own purposes if the turnout seemed partly Jackson-inspired. "Jesse has a future," says one Democratic National Committee official. "He has been anxious to demonstrate his loyalty to the party, and he has been doing just that."

He has indeed. Since Labor Day, Jackson has made almost 50 appearances in 16 states encouraging blacks to register and vote Democratic. The D.N.C. has picked up his $230,000 in expenses, including salaries for four aides, and a week ago lent him a Learjet so that Jackson and company could make an intense get-out-the-vote tour of the South and big Northern cities for the remainder of the campaign. "The record will show that I've spoken more times to more people and convinced more people to vote for Mondale and Ferraro than anybody else in the field," he boasts, "perhaps including the ticket itself."

When he showed up at the Pleasant Green Baptist Church in Lexington on Wednesday, he delivered his standard autumn rap with passion. "There are thousands of reasons for us to vote in this election and no reason not to," Jackson told the crowd of 600. "Mondale ever, Reagan never! Give peace a chance, give Reagan the ranch!" As ever, the rhyme was punctuated by cries of affirmation from the crowd. Jackson reminds his audiences that Mondale is an ally from the epochal civil rights fights of the 1960s, when it counted.

Jackson's role in the campaign was arranged during a meeting at Mondale's Minnesota home in August. Yet Mondale, he complains, has failed to fulfill his part of the bargain, including a pledge to deliver a major speech on southern Africa and U.S. relations with developing countries. Jackson is also upset that the few blacks appointed to nominally high positions in the Mondale campaign are virtual tokens, seldom consulted. Many lower-level Jackson workers have been absorbed fully into the Mondale campaign operation, but Jackson feels that the party establishment has not sufficiently addressed black concerns.

Even so, he has not proved to be a politically divisive figure in the presidential campaign, as many Democrats feared and Republicans hoped last summer. Jackson, however, has been careful to avoid provocative gestures. In June he disavowed Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan's various venomous remarks, and Jackson has not appeared with his former ardent supporter since last spring. Farrakhan still delivers his disturbing messages at meetings and on the radio, but most now sink into well-deserved obscurity. In addition, Jackson offered a moving apology in his Democratic Convention speech to those, including Jews, whom he had offended. Thus while Jackson is still deeply mistrusted by Jewish voters, he seems not to have provoked anything like a serious anti-Mondale backlash.

In large part, moreover, the emotional temperature has gone down because Jackson is no longer running for President; reporters and the public now have more important demands on their attention. Jackson's appearances on behalf of voter registration have received little national notice, and he has made only a few appearances alongside Mondale. "If Jesse just does his thing, it's better for Mondale," says a Democratic Party official who deals with the black leader. "Mondale doesn't need to be too closely identified with Jesse Jackson. And you know something? Jesse knows that would be disastrous for Mondale. He's smart."

Of course, Jackson still heads straight for the spotlight when it is available. Against the opinion of some advisers, he was host of NBC's Saturday Night Live. He brought along his own censor, Harvard Psychiatry Professor Alvin Poussaint, to vet the scripts; Jackson excised at least one joke from a funny monologue about people who are unwelcome to join his Rainbow Coalition. (The rejected line: that "really, really, really poor people" were not included.)

Jackson's good soldier phase may be temporary. Part of his motivation is a sincere desire to help discredit Ronald Reagan. Yet since a G.O.P. defeat seems unlikely, Jackson's more real hope is that a large black turnout will result in more clout for blacks--and for Jesse Jackson--within the party. "We intend on Nov. 6 to break a record and prove a point," he says. "Black voters are more loyal and disciplined than any other interest group in the Democratic Party. A new relationship is going to have to take into account new people."

For Jackson, the new relationship would entail an end to runoff elections. He also wants the few white Democrats who represent predominantly black congressional districts to give up their seats in favor of black candidates. With Mondale trailing so badly, there has been little point in blacks' asserting their demands aggressively. But after next Tuesday, Jackson's own agenda, as well as the hopes and resentments he has aroused within the party, could bubble forth again. "There's some lack of trust and some anxiety" between him and party leaders, he admits. "I'll have something to say about that on Nov. 7."

--By Kurt Andersen.

Reported by Hays Corey/Washington and Jack E. White with Jackson

With reporting by Hays Corey, Jack E. White