Jackson's candidacy:

...What would he actually do if elected...

...The reason...

...Another reaction is to decry particular pioneers...

...Neither position treats him as a real contender...

...The first Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, did not strike people as a 'typical Irish Catholic.' And Sandra Day O'Connor seemed safe because of her conservative views...

...In a short time, we will know whether Jackson is the right or wrong pioneer...

...He was chairman of the Franklin Roosevelt National Centennial Committee and is co-executive producer of a Marcel Ophuls documentary on Klaus Barbie to be released this spring...

...PETER B. KOVLER Peter B. Kovler is a previous contributor to Commonweal...

...Tom Bradley was the first black mayor of Los Angeles and he was a policeman...

...In the meantime, his party opponents do no one a favor, especially Jackson himself, by treating him with patronizing disdain...

...But Jackson's past and his foreign policy are troublesome, and it is here that his pioneering candidacy runs up against the need for can-didness about his real views...

...Key voting groups (Southern whites, urban ethnics, and Hispanics) and a key support group (the Jews) show-at a minimum-uneasiness with Jackson...

...CAMPAIGN REPORT JACKSON'S CANDIDACY TIPTOEING AROUND THE QUESTIONS With apologies to the late Judy Garland and the Reverend Jesse Jackson, there is growing in the Democratic party, "a Somewhere Over the Rainbow Coali- tion...

...Pioneering need not necessarily come without controversy...

...For example, one cannot ignore the 1984 New York Time's report that Jackson's Operation PUSH received $200,000 from the Arab League and Jackson's denial that he knew the source of the funds...

...If Democrats automatically deny Jackson a significant place in the party, blacks and whites who identify with black hopes will see it as one more kick in the teeth...

...Roosevelt knew Perkins's qualifications and her basic probity from working with her when she was New York industrial commissioner...

...If Branch Rickey, the man who integrated baseball, or Jim Rowe, the aide to FDR and Lyndon Johnson who paid special attention to potential political missteps, had been at Mondale's side, this case of pioneering would have been managed more deftly...

...In several important respects, Jackson is the right pioneer: he's running a good race, he's in the lead with delegates, and, with that, he's earning the right to head the party...

...Civil rights lawyer and advocate Joseph Rauh points out, "Most great breakthroughs come when the person is far from being identified with the stereotypes of that group...

...many of FDR's contemporaries thought he was outrageously self-serving...

...Let the politicians act like politicians...

...While her service in the House of Representatives was first-rate and though she seemed to give the ticket strength in urban ethnic areas, her family's financial dealings were not up to intense national scrutiny...

...Pioneering can be done shabbily or skillfully...

...Consider some of the issues pro and con...

...Martin Luther King was going too far, but Roy Wilkins was just fine...

...As many Democrats try to separate Jackson's' 'reasonable" domestic policy from his "radical" foreign policy, they may be falling into the same kind of short-term thinking...

...Democratic party, leaders and candidates are tiptoeing around these questions for at least two reasons...

...and-at a maximumthey're scared to death of him...

...They now must treat him as a peer...

...On the other hand, if the Democrats do go with Jackson, it may be the biggest trade-off in their history (although after playing it relatively safe and losing 49 states in 1984, it's hard to see how much worse they could do in a national election...

...Either they see Jackson as a broker and want to make a deal with him or they don't want to appear to have been critical and negative (and seem racist) when they're working on the assumption that he will be sidelined, and after Michigan that is foolhardy...

...In 1984, Jackson proposed to cut military spending by 30 percent, nearly three times the amount advocated by George McGovern...

...The party's establishment and its leaders often react negatively to pioneers because they cross the bounds of acceptable political alternatives...

...The first Jewish candidate for president was an Episcopalian-Barry Goldwater in 1964...

...Four years ago the Democrats did a poor job of pioneering...

...In Thinking in Time, Richard Neustadt and Ernest May report of Lyndon Johnson's reaction to Martin Luther King's tactics, "LBJ . . . was shocked when Martin Luther King moved past what Johnson thought the proper bounds of civil rights...

...Jackie Robinson wasn't the right one, but Roy Campanella would be...

...His advocacy of closer ties with Cuba, while making sense to political science professors, may be the most provocative policy proposal in this presidential campaign...

...It may be racism, but it may also be, as Mary McGrory has written, that some voters are just not at ease with his ego, his past, or his foreign policy...

...In competitive politics, of course, peerage can mean savaging a fellow as often as it means saluting him...

...More recently he told Tikkun, "Whoever is dealing with South Africa is wrong, but Israel is such a substantial beneficiary, Israel is subsidized by America, which includes black Americans' tax money, it [Israel] subsidizes South Africa...

...For example, Jackson's notions about partial forgiveness of third-world debt actually may be the way to go if the finance ministers of Brazil and Mexico fail to sell their renegotiated debt packages...

...The time was almost certainly right to have a woman on the presidential ticket, but in retrospect it probably would have been better for Democrats and for the women's movement if that candidate had not been Geraldine Ferraro...

...Angrily, LBJ charged King's change to human weakness, selfish politicking, or deficient patriotism...

...Ego need not be disqualifying...

...Jesse Jackson scares voters, some because of their racism, some because they have questions about his past, and some because they don't like his views...

...FDR's appointment of Frances Perkins as the first woman member of the cabinet caused a furor, but according to James MacGregor Burns, "FDR chose Perkins as [someone] who had learned how to advance social welfare legislation by getting along with the politicians...

...Once again, the Democrats are in the tricky business of "pioneering...

...Pioneering can also turn out badly if decision makers don't understand that individuals who bring about social change aren't necessarily the most representative or most militant members of the excluded group...

...His past and current ties with Yasir Arafat, Fidel Castro, Lewis Farrakhan, and even Bert Lance should be subjects of inquiry...

...An important element in successful pioneering is the opportunity that interested parties-politicians, social leaders, baseball managers-are given to be candid and uninhibited in their assessments of those candidates...

...But perhaps as much as any factor, it is because he is a pioneer...

...Is Jackson the right pioneer...

...Sound familiar...

...The Jews do not share with us control of wealth, broadcasting stations, and other centers of power...

...When it is done well a qualified candidate from a previously excluded group can take a position of leadership, be it political, cultural, athletic, or social...

...to be released this spring...

...With the argument that "Jackson just isn't the right black," the white majority in this country once again shows its insensitivity...

...In addition to Jackson's remarks about "Hymietown," there is this from a 1979 ' '60 Minutes" broadcast (as reported in an Anti-Defamation League ad in the Washington Post in 1984): "When it came to the division of power we did not get from the Jews the slice of cake we deserved...