Jesse Jackson is the 1988 Democratic Nominee

What if Jesse Jackson had been the 1988 Democratic Nominee?

I assume Bush still wins handily, but would there be prospective downballot and cultural butterflies?

Who is the running mate?
 
What if Jesse Jackson had been the 1988 Democratic Nominee?

I assume Bush still wins handily, but would there be prospective downballot and cultural butterflies?

Who is the running mate?

Bush wins and a lot of Democrats take a walk in 1988, waiting for sanity to return to the party. It would be an electoral disaster worse than McGovern, who actually was qualified for the office by virtue of a life dedicated to public service and holding elective office. It's so bad that pundits speculate about whether the oldest political party on the planet is headed for the scrap heap. Barack Obama, then in law school, never becomes President. It may be 2052 before a black candidate for the presidency is taken seriously. Jesse's problem was that he came along to soon with too few conventional credentials. He would set back the cause of black Americans winning mainstream political power by a generation or two. I worked for another candidate that year and remember the Jackson campaign people really fondly. They were terrific and earnest and sincere, but it was simply too soon for what they wanted to accomplish.
 
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. . . It would be an electoral disaster worse than McGovern, . . .
Or, Jesses realizes he's too far ahead of the people he intends to lead, and he advocates,

"BIG GOALS, MEDIUM STEPS"

And he talks about the slow and tragic erosion of middle-class jobs since the 1975 recession, and maybe from early '70s. In 1988, they'd still be plenty of people who'd remember the good economic days of the 1960s.

Especially if Jesse appeared on podiums with auto workers who lost jobs and maybe who really struggled to regain their share of the American dream, some successfully, and some perhaps not, and with persons who are of course black, white, Hispanic-American, Asian-American, Native American, etc. And he talks about,

"We Must Bend the Curve."

Jesse might do better than Dukakis.
 
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Bush wins in a landslide, as soon as word of Jackson's embezelment, bastard kids or anti-Semitism comes out.

The Democratic party takes a HUGE hit - maybe losing the house or the Senate.

Jesse Jackson gets put out tk pasture a decade or two sooner than OTL.

I don't think it will hurt black politicians too much - that says, smart money on the first black President being a Republican ITTL.
 
Bush wins in a landslide, as soon as word of Jackson's embezelment, bastard kids or anti-Semitism comes out.

The Democratic party takes a HUGE hit - maybe losing the house or the Senate.

Jesse Jackson gets put out tk pasture a decade or two sooner than OTL.

I don't think it will hurt black politicians too much - that says, smart money on the first black President being a Republican ITTL.

President JC Watts?
 
It probably wouldn't be so much his skin color than him being too far-left economically in a conservative era that'll doom his chances in an election.
 
Jackson would get crushed, but the running mate question is a good one. The Mayor of Burlington, VT, Bernie Sanders, endorsed him, but if you're a new Senator from a deep blue state, or a House member that's relatively unknown, the name ID that comes from being on the ticket could be worth being part of a massive electoral defeat.

I suppose by 1988 standards, this platform would be pretty far-left, and it obviously alienates Jewish voters, which has been a core political constituency for Democrats.
His youngest daughter, that was referred to earlier on this thread, wasn't born until 1999, so that's not an issue in 1988. Overall, I'm assuming he gets beat Goldwater, Mondale or McGovern-style, and the Democratic party has an even greater emphasis on electability than OTL 1992, however, when you look at Obama's coalition of the ascendant from his 08 and 12 victories, I don't know if Jackson would necessarily turn off much of that support. They're just such different candidates that I don't see the spillover.
 
If Jesse knows about poker and negotiations, and I suspect he does, this is where he might surprise people. He might announce that the Soviets are going to have to show him.

And he might pick a conventional V.P., maybe Sam Nunn of Georgia know for his defense expertise? And a conventional Sec. of Defense.

And the Soviets would generally have to do 60% on negotiations and we'd do 40%.
 
Or, Jesses realizes he's too far ahead of the people he intends to lead, and he advocates,

"BIG GOALS, MEDIUM STEPS"

And he talks about the slow and tragic erosion of middle-class jobs since the 1975 recession, and maybe from early '70s. In 1988, they'd still be plenty of people who'd remember the good economic days of the 1960s.

Especially if Jesse appeared on podiums with auto workers who lost jobs and maybe who really struggled to regain their share of the American dream, some successfully, and some perhaps not, and with persons who are of course black, white, Hispanic-American, Asian-American, Native American, etc. And he talks about,

"We Must Bend the Curve."

Jesse might do better than Dukakis.

That's the campaign he should have run, and it might not do badly. But that isn't the campaign he ran.
 
That's the campaign he should have run, and it might not do badly. But that isn't the campaign he ran.
Please bring me up to speed. What type of campaign did Jesse run in '88?

(I was twenty-fives years old back then, I just didn't follow politics that closely!)
 

SsgtC

Banned
He gets crushed. I'm thinking FDR, 1940 winning 38 of 48 states level crushed. Depending on how badly he loses, he may alienate voters so badly that Bush wins in 92 as well, no matter who gets nominated. This could cause massive butterflies. No Clinton Presidency, no Hillary as Senator or SecState, and she definitely forgets about running for President herself.
 
Jesse could’ve won in ‘92, but not in ‘88. He had the right message at the wrong time. Had the Reagan Formula went bust earlier, Jackson could’ve had a shot as the change candidate in 1988, but it didn’t so he was seen as too far to the left.
 
Democrats take a bath much worse than OTL as Jesse Jackson would severely damage Democrats downticket. The GOP probably takes 30+ house seats. It'd hasten the realignment already happening at the local level. Democrats owned a ton of ancestral seats where having a black presidential candidate would be incredibly damaging for them, you'd get a lot of Democrats running away trying to save their own seats, and many of them failing.
 
Hmm I'd go against what seems to be the consensus here and say Jackson would very likely do better than Dukakis. Dukakis was really a pretty terrible candidate - easy to caricature as an out of touch liberal elite, but not enough of an actual firebrand to whip up his base. It's tough to see Jackson doing all that much worse among moderates, and easy to seem him mobilizing a lot of voters who didn't bother to turn out IOTL.
 
https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p...ars+black+"came+back"+inauthor:Germond&num=10

political writer Jack Germond:

'I went into Mondale headquarters in Birmingham [Alabama] one day just as two carloads of teenage girls returned . . . . . Several were in tears because of the epithets that had been screamed at them, almost invariably by men. . . '
in the lexicon of U.S. racism, being a black person is less bad than being a "lover of black persons"

Plus, U.S. conservatives overperceive trickery and the smuggling in of liberal assumptions. Meaning, any kind of soft sell of liberalism can really raise hackles.

On both these issues, Jesse may somewhat detoxify the environment. He's just a guy talking about what he believes in and talking about real problems and trying to include whites who have slipped from the middle class.
 
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