Jesse Jackson 2004

Deleted member 109445

I was wondering if he ran in 2004 after him being Shadow Senator of DC. Would he win or lose in the primaries and the election? What would his running mate be?
 
He would lose and lose badly in the political environment that followed 9/11. Remember that this was an election where a winner of the Silver Star in Vietnam was smeared as being insufficiently patriotic and weak on national security. The result of Jesse Jackson being the Democratic nominee in 2004, which is itself highly unlikely, would have been a Nixon or Johnson sized landslide as voters decide that they do not want Jesse Jackson as Commander-in-Chief during a time of war (and in 2004 the wars were still popular). The fact of the matter is that Jackson possessed virtually none of the traditional qualifications for the Presidency. While that apparently no longer matters today, it still mattered in 2004.
 
I think the more interesting question here is: How does this impact 2008? Does Barack Obama still become the Democratic nominee that year, or does the legacy of Jackson's (presumed) massive loss scare voters away from him?

EDIT: IMHO, he might be a good choice for VP, but I personally wonder if the similarities are..."too much" (so to speak) for white America. Jesse Jackson was fairly "radical" by many folks' standards, and Obama doesn't even really come close to the "Jackson-wing" of the party. But in 2008, he was portrayed as a literal Communist/Islamic Extremist/Antichrist by the right, and a lot of people bought into it. So with a fresh wound from 2008, unfortunately, another African-American man who was at all "progressive" (I think) would be eaten alive. And, being a first-term Senator, may not seem "establishment" enough by their standards. It might (or might not) work out well for Hillary, though. But I might be too cynical about white America, so I wonder what others think.
 
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SsgtC

Banned
I think the more interesting question here is: How does this impact 2008? Does Barack Obama still become the Democratic nominee that year, or does the legacy of Jackson's (presumed) massive loss scare voters away from him?
I think he gets a lot of pressure not to run as he would be seen as too much of an outsider, politically. Not as badly as Jackson, but still. I think the Democrats are going to want a very strong establishment canidate to avoid any comparison to Jackson.
 

Deleted member 109445

Jackson was Shadow Senator and Obama could make himself like a establishment and vps
 
One problem: "In 2001, it was revealed Jackson had an affair with a staffer, Karin Stanford, that resulted in the birth of a daughter Ashley in May 1999. According to CNN, in August 1999, the Rainbow Push Coalition had paid Stanford $15,000 in moving expenses and $21,000 in payment for contracting work. A promised advance of an additional $40,000 against future contracting work was rescinded once the affair became public.[87] This incident prompted Jackson to withdraw from activism for a short time.[88] Jackson was paying $4,000 a month in child support as of 2001.[89]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Jackson#Personal_life See also
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=122032&page=1

If he were otherwise in a strong political position, that might not harm him too much, but he wasn't. He was still popular among African Americans, but as his races in the 1980's had shown, that was not enough to get the Democratic presidential nomination, and he lacked Obama's 2008 appeal among young white voters. Moreover, the sort of young white progressives who might otherwise have supported Jackson in 2004 were attracted by Howard Dean's antiwar appeal.
 

SsgtC

Banned
Jackson was Shadow Senator and Obama could make himself like a establishment and vps
Not really. Obama was a first term senator in 08. He had been an IL state senator for 7 (almost 8) years, but had only been in the US Senate for 2 years when he announced his campaign for President. Any hint of "outsider" or "inexperienced" after a failed Jesse Jackson campaign would be seen as a death knell for a nominee. He would still be seen as a rising Star in the party, but realistically we're probably looking at 2012 or 2016 (depending on how the 08 election goes) before he makes his run
 
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