"Win, Jesse, Win!"

By WALTER SHAPIRO

At last the Democrats have a heavyweight contender, a candidate who can win a . major Northern industrial state away from his native turf. After weeks of uncertainty and split verdicts, one Democrat can rightfully claim that he has the Big Mo. With his stunning upset victory in last Saturday's Michigan caucuses, Jesse Jackson has staked his claim to be taken seriously as the party's front runner.

After roaring through Michigan, Jackson was indeed at the head of the Democratic pack. He has received more votes in primaries and caucuses than any other contender. When the final Michigan results are tallied, Jackson, with roughly 600 convention delegates, may have pulled virtually even with Michael Dukakis. The odds against a Jackson nomination remain prohibitive. But after his Michigan miracle, this most unexpected front runner could proclaim that the results reflect the "message, the authenticity and the soul of Jesse Jackson, versus the mechanics and the money of my opposition."

The portents of a Jackson victory should have been clear. Campaigning across the state by bus, he attracted large and enthusiastic crowds who chanted "Win, Jesse, win!" He dominated the newscasts by popping up in unusual situations, such as his visit with inmates in the Wayne County jail. "I know people who four years ago wouldn't be caught in the same county with Jesse Jackson," said Political Analyst Jack Casey. "Now they're going to his events. They're charmed by him. They know they are going to get only one chance to vote for Jesse."

Most political experts had expected a Dukakis victory, since Michigan's generally low-turnout caucuses placed a heavy premium on organization and endorsements. Dukakis had both in excess: rival camps estimated that he spent up to $1.5 million in the state -- three times as much as any other contender -- and he boasted the backing of Detroit Mayor Coleman Young and most of Governor James Blanchard's political lieutenants.

But Dukakis was no match for the electric enthusiasm generated by Jackson's candidacy. Jackson not only ran up landslide margins in Detroit but also attracted a startling measure of white support, carrying cities like Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo and Saginaw. Nearly complete returns gave Jackson an awesome 54% of the total caucus vote, compared with Dukakis' 29%, while Richard Gephardt (13%), Paul Simon (2%) and Albert Gore (2%) trailed badly. Although the precise delegate breakdown remained murky at week's end, Jackson may have won half the 138 convention seats at stake. These figures were a further blow to Dukakis, whose run-everywhere strategy was in jeopardy after successive setbacks in Illinois and Michigan.

Party leaders had hoped to create a bandwagon, but now their mood was closer to circle the wagons. After 32 state primaries and caucuses, the Democrats seemed no closer to selecting a nominee than when the process began. In fact, the Democratic disarray is so complete that it is becoming difficult to imagine how the party will coalesce around any current contender.

By conventional reckoning, Jackson remains far too polarizing a political figure to emerge as a plausible nominee. Even Dukakis' probable victory in this week's Connecticut primary will not soon erase his stigma as a weak candidate who cannot win the big ones. Gore has yet to win anything north of the Mason-Dixon Line, and Simon seems a slightly forlorn figure as he braces for the April 5 Wisconsin primary. Gephardt was widely expected to withdraw and file for re-election to his House seat this week.

Of late, Jackson has been growing visibly anxious that his influence at the convention could be circumscribed by a cabal of party leaders. That is why he is beginning to complain publicly about the unfairness of party rules, as he often did in 1984. The sticking point for Jackson is the party's creation of 645 unpledged super-delegates -- mostly members of Congress and party officials -- who stand prepared to rally around any conventional contender who puts together a string of primary victories. Even though Jackson's lieutenants approved the creation of these super-delegates in 1984, the candidate now argues that they should be allocated in accord with each candidate's primary votes. "If the ((super-delegates)) move in some concerted way," Jackson said last week, "that will be stifling the process."

Had Dukakis won Michigan, his candidacy would have started to take on an aura of inevitability. Things seemed to be moving in that direction earlier in the week, when Dukakis won the key endorsement of New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley. Instead, the Democrats have now begun to brace for a raucous convention at which Jackson may play kingmaker. The next pivotal event is the April 19 New York primary, in which Dukakis, Gore and perhaps even Simon will battle for the right to be viewed as Jackson's principal rival. But in 1984, despite having slurred New York City as "Hymietown," Jackson still managed to win an impressive 26% of the vote. After Michigan, it may take just one more major Jackson victory for the Democrats to seriously revise their calculations about whether a black preacher-politicia n who has never held public office can actually win the presidential nomination.

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett and B. Russell Leavitt/Detroit