Posted on 02/16/2003 6:36:08 AM PST by schaketo
As the lone African American running, the preacher carries a lot of clout in the Democratic Party.
By Steven Thomma Inquirer Washington Bureau
The Rev. Al Sharpton, a Democratic presidential candidate, speaks at the Iglesia De Dios Pentecostal Church in Corpus Christi, Texas. He has never won an election.
DES MOINES, Iowa - He isn't the only man running for the Democratic presidential nomination who seems destined to lose, but no one stands to gain quite as much in defeat as the Rev. Al Sharpton of New York.
The 48-year-old preacher, who has never won an election, is already being treated as a peer of candidates who have spent decades in national politics and elective office. And if he fares well, he could emerge as a leader of black Democrats and a national power broker, much as Jesse Jackson did two decades ago.
Yet Sharpton also could aggravate tensions within the party and force its eventual nominee to navigate a racial fault line, paying heed to Sharpton while also coming to terms with his controversial past.
"Sharpton is not in position to go very far," said Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University in Des Moines. "But Sharpton is in position to hold the party hostage."
On a recent campaign trip to Iowa, Sharpton all but conceded he would not win the 2004 nomination. He has lost before, twice when seeking the Democratic nomination for Senate from New York and once when he ran for New York City mayor.
The last person to win a major party nomination for president without ever holding elective office was Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, but he had been the supreme commander of the Allied military forces that defeated Germany in World War II. Sharpton's most publicized achievement, in contrast, is to have demagogued a phony rape charge into a hot racial controversy, which eventually cost him a $65,000 court-ordered penalty for defamation.
Sharpton noted that Jackson, too, hadn't held office when he ran for president in 1984 and 1988. And while Jackson did not win the nomination or the White House, Sharpton said, his strong showing helped pave the way for Ron Brown, the first African American to chair the Democratic National Committee, and Doug Wilder, the Virginian who became the first African American to be elected a U.S. governor.
"The issue is not whether we can win or how we sound," Sharpton said. "The issue is what it is that we are saying."
What Sharpton is saying is that the Democratic Party has become a weak version of the Republican Party, echoing it on issues such as war, taxes and crime.
"You have a party of elephants with donkey overcoats," he said. "There needs to be a progressive wing of the party."
He opposes war with Iraq. President Bush's warnings about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction are "a mass political distraction" from a weak economy, he said.
Sharpton also opposes cutting taxes, whether on a grand scale like Bush or the smaller scale favored by some of his Democratic rivals.
"It didn't work for Ronald Reagan," Sharpton said. "It won't work now."
He opposes the death penalty. He wants prisons to emphasize correcting behavior rather than punishing it. "I'm the only one in the race who is anti-death penalty," he said.
Sharpton isn't the first candidate to urge Democrats to tilt left; rival Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, has campaigned as an outspoken liberal for months.
But Sharpton is the first African American in the race, and that gives him extra standing, because African Americans are one of the party's most influential groups. They could make up as much as 40 percent of the Democratic primary vote in South Carolina, one of the early, pivotal states in next year's nominating season.
Former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D., Ill.), who is black, is expected to jump into the presidential race as well, but it's unclear whether she would dilute Sharpton's support.
It is clear, however, that Sharpton resonates with many African Americans.
Preaching recently at the predominantly black Union Baptist Church in Des Moines, Sharpton repeatedly brought people to their feet, blending criticism of Bush with blunt talk about black culture and self-reliance.
"We're all blaming someone else for being down," he said. "Even if you're not responsible for being down, you're responsible for getting up."
"He's a great orator," said Iowa state Rep. Wayne Ford. "He's dealing with issues none of the other candidates will deal with. People are very excited."
But if Sharpton's rhetoric excites his followers, it could trouble his party, given his record of inflaming racial issues.
In 1987 he loudly took the side of a 15-year-old black girl, Tawana Brawley, who accused several white men of rape. The charge was later found to be a hoax, and a court ordered Sharpton to pay $65,000 in a defamation lawsuit filed by one of those falsely accused.
Today Sharpton wears the Brawley affair as a badge of honor. He says he stood up for a frightened young woman, and brushes off any suggestion that he did something wrong or ought to apologize.
His supporters agree.
"I'd rather have someone stand up with me when no one else will stand with me," said Paulette Wiley, director of an African American organization in Des Moines. "I like a man who will take a stand."
Eventually, however, Sharpton's rivals will be asked whether they applaud that stand or repudiate it. It will be a test, Goldford said, of how they can appeal both to Sharpton's supporters and to independent white voters who might not like his brand of racial politics.
Sharpton doesn't care if he makes other Democrats uncomfortable. Recalling a comment from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he said he was more a thermostat than a thermometer.
"I didn't come to measure the temperature of the room," he said. "I came to change the temperature of the room."
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
So true. Reagan only won 49 States when he ran for a second term. What was he thinking when he cut those taxes and unleashed an unparalled economic boom?
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