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Jesse Jackson told his followers that he would send a "signal" about the "degree of support" they should give to Walter Mondale's campaign this year.
It depended, he said, on the degree of "fairness" he received at the convention. Jackson made clear that he wanted to be recognized as a premiere member of the Democratic Party.
When Minister Louis Farrakhan became anathema to the Democratic Party's Jewish interests, Jackson dumped Farrakhan, calling his remarks "unconscionable and reprehensible." By doing so, Jackson guaranteed himself a prime time television appearance at the convention.
But before the convention's Jesse Jackson night festivities, White women had successfully intimidated Mondale and a White woman won the affirmative action circus-search as his running mate. White southerners had been paid off with the rubber-match appointments of politically tainted Bert Lance. Blacks, the Democratic Party's most dependable voting machine, were ignored.
When the Democratic Party defeated three of four of his platform planks -- called "litmus tests" by Jackson -- he called on his delegates to stay in the party, and not, as he had hinted at previously,...