ustxtxb_obs_1987_06_12_50_00015-00000_000.pdf

Our outstanding lunches 1 have been an Austin must for eleven years. Our international grocery features food and wine from around the world. Cbme see us at our new home. c o mmon MFIRKET 1610 San Antonio Austin, Tex. 78701 472-1900 Hours: lam 7pm Mon. to Fri. and 8am 6pm on Sat Pho to by Bill Le is sn er Jackson in Austin in April fawning minions of his own party and politely received by most members of the opposing camp, happy to pass an hour staring into space in the presence of a potential source of power, drawn to power like all political moths. But when the Rev. Jackson appeared certainly the best-known Democratic candidate and easily the best orator of the lot he was met by a half-deserted House Chamber and an overflowing gallery. There were four state senators, black and brown and a few white representatives, House Speaker Gib Lewis, and only one statewide elected official, one Commissioner Hightower. It is the Jackson political dilemma in a nutshell. Why is Jackson not electable? After a few errors of judgment in 1984, East Dallas Printing Company Full Service Union Printing 211 S. Peak Dallas, Tx 75226 Jackson’s campaign program is nothing to scare most voters away. It offers a shift in emphasis but doesn’t differ significantly from positions taken by Gary Hart. \(Or, I should say, Hart’s positions did not differ from those adeven includes such concessions to Texas Democrats as support for an oil import tax. In his speech to the legislature, Jackson talked about international trade, about investing in America, about support for family farmers and ranchers, about education and drugs, about families and affordable housing, about goldplated defense and spiritual despair. A progressive program but not a radical program. A program underlined with strong rhetorical flourishes: “not just the loss of jobs, but the loss of pride; not just the closing of a factory or the auction of a farm, but the end of community; not just the loss of hope but the growth of fear.” Certainly the ability to articulate simple, moving ideas and images does not make one unelectable. But, in Jackson’s case, it may make him too potentially attractive to the electorate for the party’s fat cats to tolerate. To a certain extent, Jackson conjures a party identification with the poor, the outcast, the minimum wage worker and the unemployed, those on the fringes of the American mainstream and those mortgaged to the hilt, an identification the party’s fat cats can neither understand nor abide. But beyond that, it is clear that the Democatic party bosses and the media are not willing to concede to Jesse Jackson “the necessities” he needs in order to be elected President. For the necessities are theirs to concede. A black man cannot be elected President of the United States because for generations we have been told that he cannot. Were the media and the party to take the Jackson candidacy seriously, the campaign contributors and the electorate would follow suit. Were he portrayed as a candidate for all people, as most white candidates are, Jackson would become an electable candidate. Or the next black presidential candidate would. Or perhaps we’d start getting fields of male and female candidates including two or three who are black, were the nomination not considered so unattainable from the outset. There are, of course, political reasons the conservative establishment of the Democratic party and the media would not want to see the Jackson program installed in the White House. The media made sure George McGovern became unelectable as soon as he captured the Democratic nomination, while a corrupt Nixon was not only painted as electable but as unstoppable even as word of the Watergate break-in circulated unexamined through the inside pages of daily newspapers. There are political reasons, but, with the Jackson candidacy, we haven’t even evolved that far. If you’re black, step back for a host of non-candidates the press and party are all too ready to portray as being of presidential timber drab, hawkish Sam Nunn, for instance, or stoic Marine guard Charles Robb \(and we all know what Marine Clearly, in presidential politics, media-orchestrated invention is the mother of necessities. A Walk on the Beach, A Breath of Fresh Air, A Discovery of A Shell, And Yourself .. . P.O. Box 8 Port Aransas, TX 78373 El THE TEXAS OBSERVER 15