Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 21, 1991 TAG: 9104210102
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROB EURE and DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
Already, the prospect is sparking a debate among Democratic figures that could come to dominate much of the party's 1992 campaign: Who speaks for black Americans? And can there be only one voice at a time?
Politically, Wilder and Jackson are as different as two politicians in the same party can be. Wilder aims to be a missionary of the middle-class and a born-again apostle of fiscal conservatism; Jackson, the populist crusader for outcasts and the downtrodden.
But they're in direct competition because each depends on a base support from the same people: black voters.
"The Democratic Party is divided into a relatively small number of key constituencies," says Bill Galston, a former adviser to Walter Mondale and Albert Gore, who now teaches at the University of Maryland. "If you can establish a premier position in one of those constituencies, you can sustain a candidacy for the duration. That's what Jackson has proven."
Galston says the dynamic changes with two black candidates, and he predicts an early fight for control of the constituency. Super Tuesday - the March 10 primary that will feature at least seven Southern states, all with large blocs of black voters - could make or break Wilder, he says.
Jackson, who has not commented on Wilder's potential candidacy, says he won't make up his mind on running until the fall. He's been making campaign-like appearances around the country, but some associates say he may forgo the race to concentrate on winning statehood for the District of Columbia.
If Jackson decides not to run, all bets against Wilder are off. Blacks account for as much as 20 percent to 40 percent of the vote in some Southern primaries. That was enough for Jackson to carry some states against a splintered field in '88. With Jackson out, Wilder could inherit the black vote and start in the lead on Super Tuesday - plus be in a position to do what Jackson never could, add substantial numbers of white votes.
Galston doesn't believe that will come to pass. "This is not political analysis, it's psychoanalysis, but Jesse may well be goaded into this race by a Wilder candidacy. The thought of losing his position as the senior black leader may be more than he can bear."
The prospect of a Wilder-Jackson scramble for black voters alarms some black politicians who fear the contest will dilute their voting strength and become a distracting "sideshow," while it delights others who say the competition is healthy and will increase black turnout.
Calvin Smyre, a Georgia state legislator, sees a front-page duel between Wilder and Jackson placing "black leadership in a very untenable position, one I'm fretting to have to face. To me, it would be just devastating in terms of driving a wedge in the black leadership."
Some white liberals echo the fear.
Ann Lewis, a Massachussetts-based consultant who worked for Jackson in '88, adheres to the one-candidate-per-ethnic-group rule, at least for blacks. "I'd be delighted to think African-Americans could have the same range of choices that white voters take for granted, that is, competition. The reality tells me, however, that the novelty of a black candidate running for president is still so great" that neither Wilder nor Jackson would be taken seriously unless black voters united behind one or the other.
Wilder's top strategist, Virginia party Chairman Paul Goldman, criticizes anyone who suggests that Wilder and Jackson will split black voters.
He says Lewis and other Democrats make a mistake by viewing voters as part of ethnic or interest groups instead of as individuals. "That has to be challenged directly and will be in the 1992 campaign," Goldman vows. Wilder, he says, simply won't mention race at all.
Not all blacks believe a Wilder-Jackson showdown is a bad thing, either.
"We have a right to determine who our leaders are," says Michael Thurmond, who heads the black caucus in the Georgia legislature. "It's not a self-anointed type position."
Benjamin Hooks, executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, initially voiced concerns about Wilder and Jackson splitting the black vote, but he now welcomes the competition. "From a minority standpoint, we seem to do better when there's a vigorous contest," he says. "There would be great turnout."
Either way, a campaign that features Wilder and Jackson promises to expose social cleavages among blacks that don't often get noticed outside the black community, challenging the notion that, regardless of class, blacks share a monolithic political agenda.
Jackson's themes of social justice appeal "to the top of the black community and the bottom," Galston says. "Wilder offers an appealing message to those in the middle."
Wilder's success among black voters, he says, would depend on his ability to mobilize the black middle class, "which is more attuned to a message of fiscal responsibility and individual responsibility."
"A Wilder-Jackson race would at long last create the preconditions for a much subtler and refined analysis of the black community," Galston says. "People would have to pay attention to the cleavages there." Black leaders would no longer "be able to keep them in the family."
Some black political scientists doubt Wilder can take many black votes from Jackson.
"The black middle class - you could probably get all of us in one phone booth," says Leslie McLemore of Jackson State University in Mississippi. "The numbers are not there."
Furthermore, Wilder's conservative rhetoric might turn off many black voters, says Robert Smith of San Francisco State University. "On substantive issues, Jackson is more in tune with mainstream black America. If Wilder got 25 to 30 percent of the black vote in a primary against Jackson, he'd be doing very, very well."
Even that estimate may be high, he says.
Smith says Wilder would appeal to many in what he calls "the black establishment" who have viewed Jackson with some unease. "Clearly, it would be a fascinating race, if Wilder and Jackson were in it, and it would take on a dynamic of its own. There'd be splits, the mayors and the congressmen could go both ways."
The main trouble that Smith and others have in analyzing the impact Wilder would have on Jackson is that two black candidates puts the presidential race into uncharted territory.
"I can see circumstances where Wilder getting 15 percent of the black vote puts him out of the race, and I can see circumstances where Wilder getting 15 percent of the black vote is `he did better than expected.' That's the part that's hard to calculate," Smith says. "It depends on what the pollsters and the press set the expectations for Wilder at."
However, the focus on how Wilder and Jackson divide the black vote could overshadow the equally critical question of how Wilder's message of fiscal restraint will fare among white liberals.
Starting with Iowa in mid-February, 10 states in the rural Midwest, New England and the Rockies will choose delegates before there is a primary in a state with a sizable black population.
If Wilder gets hot early, the traditional strategy of long-shot candidates, he'll have to do it with white support. If he can't, Wilder could be out of the race before he even gets a chance to go head-to-head against Jackson among black voters on Super Tuesday.
In that early stage, some analysts contend Wilder's conservative image - his fiscal restraint and recent call for drug testing of college students, for instance - could cost him the crucial votes of liberal whites.
Smith, the San Francisco analyst, says Wilder's strategy appears to be to attract moderates with his fiscal policy and to hope liberals support him simply because he's black.
Chris Edley Jr., an adviser to Michael Dukakis in 1988, says that won't work. "The liberal wing of the party is unlikely to support Wilder just because of his color," Edley says. "My strong suspicion is that the left third of the party will be increasingly militant in resisting the strategists who want to make the party look like the Republican Party. The left half of the party is unhappy with the fiscal starvation of our domestic policy and rejects the notion that deficit reduction is more important than, say, education."
At the same time, some analysts say, Wilder's fiscal message won't help him lure moderate and conservative Democrats. "Wilder's base will not be conservative white Democrats," Edley says. "He may be able to avoid their antipathy, but that is a far cry from winning their hearts. Gore or someone else will have first claim to that wing."
Smith agrees. "Among Reagan Democrats, Southern Democrats, he probably would not be seen as authentic. It's difficult for me to see where the white vote is."
Galston isn't so quick to dismiss Wilder's chances of attracting support from liberal and moderate whites.
He cites a recent trip he made to Mississippi, where he spoke to supporters of Rep. Mike Espy, a black congressman who has made headlines around the countryfor the backing he's won from rural, white voters.
"There are a lot of whites in Mississippi who think having moderate black leaders in a position of national or local prominence is a good thing," Galston says.
Nevertheless, the Democrats' center of gravity remains in their left wing. Edley believes Wilder has the best chance if no strong liberal candidate emerges and Jackson stays out. However, he says, "it seems unlikely that both those contingencies will work to his favor."
That's the problem most analysts have in evaluating Wilder's 3-week-old exploratory candidacy. They don't know who else will run.
"His candidacy can't be evaluated in isolation," Galston says. "There are two major contextual questions that bear on his candidacy. One is, will he have a clear shot at his base? The second question is whether he's going to have a clear shot at the moderate-to-conservative wing of the party.
"If the answer to both of those is favorable, then he has at least the opportunity to construct a coalition the likes of which has not recently been seen in American politics."
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB