Seeing this , I couldn ’ t help but wonder how many people at the convention or watching it on TV really know or fully understand what Jackson accomplished with his groundbreaking run for the presidency . Few who know would disagree with the view that without Jesse Jackson in 1984 there would have been no Barack Obama in 2008 . But it is much more concrete than that .
In 1984 , when his unprecedented voter registration drive called “ the Southern Crusade ” morphed into a full-blown , national political campaign following widespread chants of “ Run , Jesse , run ” everywhere he went , the conventional wisdom was that he could not win . Despite plenty of press coverage he attracted as a colorful and gifted orator who drew massive crowds , Jackson ’ s campaign was widely viewed in mainstream media as an election “ side show .”
Time and history have proved that wrong .
In his latest book , “ The Promised Land ,” Obama acknowledged that without Jackson ’ s work in 1984 getting the Democratic Party primary rules changed from winner take all to proportionality , Hillary Clinton would have been the 2008 Democratic nominee instead of Obama . Clinton won more states , but Obama still amassed enough delegates to clinch the nomination . Jackson ’ s work made that possible .
Jackson ’ s Rainbow Coalition – a surprisingly large mix of Blacks , Latinos , Muslims , Arabs , LGBTQ + and progressive whites – transformed the Democratic Party base into the winning coalition that not only elected Obama in 2008 and 2012 , but also elected Joe Biden in 2020 and saved Democratic control of the Senate in 2022 .
Much of his 1984 platform is now current Democratic Party policy that ’ s directly reflected in laws like Obama ’ s Affordable Care Act and Joe Biden ’ s job creating infrastructure bill , which was passed in November 2021 .
In one of Jackson ’ s most memorable 1984 campaign speeches , he described unregistered voters as “ rocks just laying around .” A slingshot and unregistered rocks , he said ,
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( Photo courtesy of Sylvester Monroe )
Newsweek Correspondent Sylvester Monroe chats with Democratic primary candidate Rev . Jesse Jackson aboard his campaign plane in 1984 .
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