THE SOUL STIRRER:

Al Vs. the Dems: Presidential Candidate Sharpton Goes After His Party (Thulani Davis, February 26 - March 4, 2003, Village Voice)

It was a sure sign that Reverend Al Sharpton's run for the presidency will bring out the worst in some folks when, last Thursday, Jay Leno, standing with the candidate and Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover girl Petra Nemcova, said he was hosting "Beauty and the Beast." Sharpton threw back his head and laughed gamely, but he is braced for a fight.

Sharpton views his campaign as a battle royal between the progressive "children of the rainbow" and the Democratic Leadership Council that brought Bill Clinton to power and turned the Democratic Party, as he says, "to the right, not the center." Presumably some rainbow children voted for Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988, and facing the permanent problem that no one deals with our issues, will appreciate someone just "speaking truth to power." And a battle for the soul of the party seems even more needed now than in 1988.

It has not escaped people of color that the old arrangement of voting Democratic because the alternative is worse brings home little bacon. The past decade has only exacerbated entrenched problems of unemployment, racial profiling, police brutality, and poor access to education, medical care, and housing.

We have now been through years of the Dems' rightward drift. Though African Americans still like Bill Clinton, we suffered most heavily his compromises, like the 1994 crime bill and welfare reform in 1996. With the aftershocks so visible in our communities, it's hard to imagine black voters in particular taking hope from senators Joe Lieberman or John Kerry or Representative Dick Gephardt. [...]

AL SHARPTON: Many people who are running, in my judgment, are to the right of Republicans. And that won't even come out unless there's a real debate. I'm the only candidate who is unequivocally against the war. I'm the only one who is anti-death penalty. I'm the only one pro-gun control. I'm raising issues that none of them would have to deal with because there would be no debate. That's important, not just in terms of an Al Sharpton candidacy but in terms of, What is the Democratic Party? I think 2004 is about defining what the party is.

Despite whatever tensions we've had in the last couple of years, Jesse [Jackson] mentored me. I watched Jesse take this party to where it should go. This is a battle in 2004 of the children of the rainbow versus the DLC. I think this is what it's going to come down to, if I'm successful in what I want to do. And let's define what that is. When I was growing up in Brooklyn, I knew what a Democrat was. I don't know what a Democrat is now. Is a Democrat a pro-death-penalty, a pro-war, a pro-business deregulator?

I am asking these questions now because so often all the candidates looking for black votes show up at the last minute at our churches. One of the offensive things is what you just said, and I've been saying this to ministers all over the country. As you know, I've run for office here. I have to go in the white community and explain my positions, from the beginning. Whites run, they come by our church in the middle of the choir singing "Amazing Grace," wave at us, photo op, gone. Nobody challenges them on their positions. I don't blame the candidates; I blame that on us. We need to stop allowing our communities to be photo ops for Democrats who won't address our issues. For a party that gets 92 percent of our vote, I mean, this is ridiculous. They should be dealing with these issues across the board.

Fights for the soul of a party are often worthwhile--as in Truman vs. Thurmond & Wallace and the Goldwater showdown with Nelson Rockefeller and Reagan vs. Ford--but they seldom lead to victory (Truman and George W. Bush being the very rare exceptions). Posted by Orrin Judd at February 27, 2003 9:48 AM