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Has Barack Obama Become Jesse Jackson?

After the South Carolina primary Jack Tapper of ABC News headlined one of his blog posts: ?Bubba: Obama Is Just Like Jesse Jackson,? referring to the following comment of Bill Clinton that was widely regarded as a race-injecting put-down:

Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in ?84 and ?88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here.

As we all know, Clinton Inc. was subjected to a firestorm of criticism for this remark for attempting to turn Obama into a black candidate.

I must admit that I never understood why comparing Obama to Jesse Jackson was regarded as such an insult by so many people who had never been seen in the ranks of Jackson critics, but let?s let that pass. The point is that all Democrats agreed that Obama?s strength and appeal was based in large part on the fact that he had studiously avoided running as a black candidate.

Now, as a result of the Wright affair, Obama has become the black candidate, or at least much more of one than he had been before. Race, with the help of The Speech, has been moved from the balcony up to the front row of the campaign. As a result, in an irony that has been too little-appreciated, in an important, perhaps an all-important, respect, Barack Obama has in fact become Jesse Jackson.

For a number of years, if not decades, Jesse Jackson has used the threat of discrimination complaints and protest demonstrations to persuade or shame or extort (choose your own verb) corporations to hand over various kinds of benefits to blacks. Now listen to Robert Novak this morning, giving voice to a widespread concern and fear among the managers of a possible new corporate target, the Democratic Party:

Super-delegates, though they were inclined to Clinton no longer than three months ago, now flinch at rejecting Obama. They fear antagonizing African-Americans, who have become the hard-core Democratic base.

Novak?s observation is neither novel nor unique. Even before the Wright uproar, former Virginia governor and current Richmond mayor Doug Wilder said that if the superdelegates awarded Clinton the nomination despite Obama?s lead in votes and delegates,

There will be chaos at the convention. If you think 1968 was bad, you watch: In 2008, it will be worse.

Full post as published by Discriminations on March 24, 2008 (boomark / email).

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