Can Jesse Jackson Teach Barack Obama Anything About Presidential Campaigning?

While Barack Obama is the first black person to ever head a major party’s presidential nomination ticket, he is definitely not the first black person to run for a major party’s nomination. Because of the earlier efforts of Shirley Chisholm (1972), Jesse Jackson (1984, 1988), Doug Wilder (1992), Al Sharpton (2004) and Carol Moseley-Braun (2004), Barack Obama can stand where he stands today.

Of the previous black presidential candidates mentioned above, Jesse Jackson was clearly the most successful. Today, Jackson is maligned as a race-baiting gadfly who threatened to cut off Obama’s scrotum, but it would be helpful for us to look back at his campaigns to draw contrasts and similarities between him and Barack Obama.

As early as 1972, blacks started running for president not necessarily to win but to draw attention to issues that were being ignored in public debate. Shirley Chisholm knew that she was a long shot candidate, but she hoped that her candidacy would bring greater attention to civil rights issues on behalf of women and blacks.

Similarly, Jesse Jackson hoped to use his candidacy to wrest concessions from the Democratic Party for blacks. Because blacks are a reliable Democratic voting bloc, they often feel overlooked in internal party politics and in campaign outreach. If Jesse Jackson could win an overwhelming majority of black votes in the Democratic primary, he would have influence to make demands of the Democratic Party on behalf of blacks.

Jackson’s performance in 1984 and 1988 demonstrate the effectiveness of such a strategy. In 1984, Jackson won a majority of black primary voters, but significant factions in the black community resisted his campaign. Older, less educated blacks were less likely to support him, and black elites such as Coretta Scott King and Andrew Young refused to endorse his candidacy. Moreover, Jackson had very little crossover appeal in 1984. Jackson ended up winning a little more than a tenth of the overall primary vote and even fewer pledged delegates. As such, he had very little leverage to make any credible demands on behalf of blacks.

Jackson retooled in 1988. Having learned from his mistakes, Jackson in his 1988 campaign became a much more mainstream candidate by appealing not only to African Americans but labor groups and poor whites. His strategy worked. In 1988, he won nearly 30% of the overall vote and 27% of the pledged delegates. With a larger share of the vote and the delegate pool, Jackson was able to be influential in party proceedings at the 1988 Democratic National Convention. The party adopted a strong anti-apartheid plank to the platform, and many attribute Jackson’s strong showing to the elevation of Ron Brown as the DNC’s first black chair.

The question for us is how this relates to Barack Obama. There is no indication that Obama ever adopted a leverage strategy. From the start of Obama’s campaign, he has made attempts to appear as a universal candidate and has positioned himself as a candidate serious about winning the nomination and presidency. Obama tries not to target specific voter bases; instead he uses general language to keep a majority of the American public intrigued. Even when Jackson attempted to use general language there was still a targeted aspect behind it; a clear example of which can be seen in his 1988 announcement speech. Describing problems with drugs, education, and most specifically the outsourcing of “our” jobs and economic violence, Jackson targeted issues that most suit the concerns of African Americans. Obama, understanding that this eliminates a major constituent base, has made efforts to appeal to the American public as a whole by making clear generalizations about what we as a nation can do to make changes.

Still, it appears that both Obama and Jackson have been impaired a little by racialized generalities about leadership. Work by Charlton McIlwain of NYU shows that part of the reason that white voters did not support Jackson in 1988 was that they did not perceive him to be a serious leader. Obama clearly has more support in Jackson, but there are some factions that clearly have trouble seeing Obama as a leader, particularly in the South. In an August poll by Winthrop University/ETV, John McCain enjoyed a more than 20 point advantage over Barack Obama when southern voters were asked to assess whether the candidates were strong leaders. While Obama’s lead in the polls has grown in the last week because of the economic crisis, he will still have to shore up his leadership credentials if he hopes to win.

For Further Reading:

Charlton McIlwain. 2007. “Perceptions of Leadership and the Problem of Obama’s Blackness.” Journal of Black Studies. 38(1): 64-74.

Katherine Tate. 1995. From Protest to Politics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press/Russell Sage Foundation.

Ronald Walters. 2005. Freedom Is Not Enough. New York: Rowman and Littlefield.