Dec. 13, 1993 The Big Three:Chrysler, Ford, and GM
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<source>Time Magazine</source>
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THE POLITICAL INTEREST, Page 40
Rumblings On The Left
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<p>By Michael Kramer
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<p> "He spent his campaign distancing himself from me. Now that
he's President he's trying to dismiss me. He's trying to prop
up other black leaders. It's not working. Look at the polls;
walk the streets. The other guys don't have the juice. It's
only me."
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<p> Jesse Jackson and Bill Clinton have never much liked each other,
and the divide is widening. Indeed, at the exact moment last
Friday when Clinton was cementing the support of centrist Democrats
in Washington, Jackson was in a New York City synagogue eulogizing
a labor leader whose life's work represented the best of the
disappearing black-Jewish civil rights coalition. Neither Jackson
nor Clinton swiped at the other directly during those appearances--Jackson's slurs came before and after his public comments--but the thrust of their presentations could hardly have been
more different. The President talked about mutual obligation
and individual responsibility (two themes one can as easily
hear from Jackson), but his claim that Democrats must "express
the basic values of mainstream Americans" clashed with Jackson's
insistence that the Administration's policies require "us to
organize" to protect minority interests.
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<p> His point, Jackson explained later, is that "blacks still live
in America's West Bank. We're still after respect in a white-dominated
society that paints us as the face of welfare. Clinton hasn't
corrected that false impression. What we have now is the Bush
program we thought we'd defeated. Our quarterback has joined
the other team. We were promised relief from things like bank
redlining and the unequal funding of school districts. In fact,
we've gotten nothing."
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<p> In fact, though, poor Americans (who are disproportionately
black) have already gotten a great deal from Clinton. The Administration's
fivefold expansion in the earned-income tax credit, for example,
guarantees that no family headed by a full-time worker will
any longer live in poverty. But Jackson sees none of it. He
hears Clinton's rhetoric and complains that "we get the caring
words and the other side, the rich businessmen, get the cash."
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<p> Clinton conceded last week that "Jesse is right in the sense
that we're kidding ourselves if we believe we can rebuild the
fabric of life...if there is no work." But Jackson snickered
at the President's understanding of the problem: "More nice
talk," he said.
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<p> Clinton's tenure shouldn't be measured by its first 10 months,
but the easily slighted Jackson is already threatening the President's
re-election. "He thinks we'll have nowhere to go except with
him in '96," says Jackson. "Well, that's what other Democrats
thought when they talked the talk but then didn't deliver. Those
guys, like [New Jersey Governor Jim] Florio, fooled us the
first time around. We weren't foolish the second time. Florio
didn't lose because the black vote was suppressed. He lost because
blacks were depressed and didn't vote."
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<p> In another attempted wake-up call, Jackson is talking about
an independent candidacy that could have the same electoral
effect--Clinton's defeat. "It's like where I was 20 years
ago," says Jackson, referring to his almost candidacy in 1972.
Back then Jackson said, "I don't trust white Republicans or
white Democrats; I want a black party." He's too clever to echo
those inflammatory words today, but his meaning is the same.
"To get respect, we've got to be free agents," he says. "We
won't be taken for granted"--which means that Jackson himself
wants to be taken seriously. Clinton has the power, the smarts
and more than enough time to stroke Jackson, and he surely will
