The fur flew again between Jesse Jackson and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama after Jackson's alleged quip at a conference in France that an Obama White House will no longer put Israel's interests first. The alleged quip set off furious denials from Obama, loud protests from Jackson that he was misquoted, and screams of horror from legions of Obama backers that Jesse was again trying to sabotage Obama's campaign. The word "again," because Jesse was roundly condemned some weeks ago when he was caught making a disparaging racial crack about Obama on an open mic duriing a taping of a Fox Network news show.
But Jesse's Israel quip was time worn Jackson. He has repeatedly and unabashedly blasted the U.S.'s one sided tilt toward Israel over the years and has demanded a fair, balanced, and even handed policy toward the Palestinians. This position can hardly be called an extremist position, since former Democratic Presidents Carter, Clinton, and a parade of top domestic and foreign policy makers have said pretty much the same thing. Even Bush on past occasions has mildly rebuked Israel for its pulverizing attacks and assassinations of Palestinian leaders. But it's only news when Jackson ties anything he says into Obama, because, well, it's Jackson, and the inference is that anything Jackson says can hurt Obama.
Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, hard as it is to see, he might actually help Obama.
Jackson is simply not the Jackson of a decade ago or even four years ago. That Jackson could instantly heat up a crowd with a timely slogan, catchy rhyme, or well-timed phrase and he had the instant ear of presidents and heads of state. However, the taint of sexual scandal and his fade from the headlines has wiped much of the luster off of his racial star.
Jackson belongs to the older civil rights generation, and he's found it tough-sledding trying to sell his civil rights pitch to upwardly mobile, younger blacks that have little inkling of past civil rights struggles. Jackson hinted at that in a brief speech endorsing Obama last year when he said that it was time to pass the torch to a new generation of black politicians. This was self-serving and disingenuous.
Jackson never had any intention of passing that torch on to anyone, least of all Obama. Since Obama's rocket launch he has continued to do everything he could to micromanage a role for himself on the national political scene. But even if Jackson was a rock solid Obama man, and still had the sheen on his leadership badge, he wouldn't be much help to him.
Obama is a moderate centrist Democrat who has gotten to the threshold of snatching the White House by being everything that Jackson isn't. Despite his fall from leadership grace, Jesse is still widely and indelibly typed as a polarizing, race baiter.
However, that doesn't mean that Jesse is irrelevant, or even that he isn't an asset to Obama. Obama still needs a massive turnout of black voters in the three absolute must win states of Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania to seal a White House win. The overwhelming majority of black voters there will vote for him. But they will also have to turn out in record numbers. A Jackson could help make that happen. And though Obama would never dare publicly seek his help to insure a record turnout, Obama operatives will tacity and quietly encourage Jackson to rev up the (black) crowds and boost the voter numbers.
But Jackson in another way is manna from heaven for Obama. By criticizing Obama, his Fox TV racial remark, his invisible presence in any capacity in the Obama campaign, his anti-Israel tag on Obama and his vehement denunciation of it, in a back hand way burnishes Obama's credentials as a race neutral, all purpose moderate Democrat, who is unbeholden to and will not be a captive of the old guard race-is-everything civil rights leaders.
Obama's candidacy would never have gotten off the lauch pad if there were even the slightest hint of any allegiance to Jackson and the thinking of Jackson. In the closing days of the campaign the obsessive question that will be on everyone's lips is will enough centrist and undecided white voters do what most of thhem have profusely professed publicly, and that's to punch the ticket for a qualified African-American presidential candidate?
A too out front Jackson in tow with Obama would insure that most wouldn't do that. But a carping at Obama Jackson, whether real or simply perceived, is just the added insurance that Obama needs to ensure that many just might punch his ticket.
Jesse's Obama hit may have been a blessing in disguise.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).