As Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders battle over which candidate has the strongest record on civil rights, the Sanders campaign touted his endorsement of Rev. Jesse Jackson for president in 1988, when the self-proclaimed socialist was mayor of Burlington, Vermont.
The campaign blasted out video of a speech Sanders made then, in which he praised Jackson for bringing “together the disenfranchised, the hungry, the poor, the workers who are being thrown out of their decent-paying jobs and the farmers who are being thrown off of their land.”
The campaign release also included a flyer Sanders wrote at the time explaining his support of Jackson.
The focus on civil rights and the candidates’ relationship with minority communities has sharpened as the Democratic primary heads to Nevada and South Carolina, where the electorate is more diverse than in Iowa and New Hampshire. Earlier this week, Clinton received the endorsement of the Congressional Black Caucus’ political action committee (which is separate from the legislative caucus) and civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) said of Sanders’ civil rights record, “I never saw him. I never met him.”
Lewis has since walked back those criticisms.
The Nevada Democratic caucus is February 20 and the South Carolina Democratic primary is February 27.
Poor Jesse, I hope the campaign got his permission first. I can’t imagine he wants to be the kibble in a kitty fight…
Wow, hit that link and read the whole thing. It’s the pretty much the same 25-second speech Sanders is still giving, except I guess the free college thing came later: against income inequality, for free health care, reduce military spending.
I definitely plan to vote for Bernie but Jessie Jackson caries no weight with anyone these days. I doubt anyone under 30 knows who he is and if they do it as the father of the guy who went to jail for blowing federal money on buying Prince’s guitar.
Endorsing a no-chance candidate when you’re a small city mayor is a way to make a principled point, but it’s not exactly what I’d call showing leadership.
I was thrilled back then that Jackson was running, and could get some press coverage and so try to get some serious issues out there for public discussion. But then, as in every other election, I gave my actual backing (entirely personal; I was not then anybody anybody else listened to) to candidates I actually believed had a chance of winning AND then doing good things in office.
Standing on the right side of this or that issue matters, of course. But accomplishing anything good requires working with other people to get elected.
In other words, Senator Sanders, I’m not impressed.
And once again not really about race relations. You can have good income equality and health care and still be racist (not saying in any way Sanders is racist, just that income equality and racism are different things).