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Activist Made His Run for the Presidency Official—and Dead Serious

Jackson Poses Some Difficult Questions for Other Democrats

[[image - photograph of Jessie Jackson]]

By HOWELL RAINES

WASHINGTON — Sprinkled through every campaign season are a few moments that seem genuinely rich in emotion and political portent. Such a moment occurred here on Thursday when the Rev. Jesse Jackson — born poor, black and illegitimate 42 years ago in South Carolina — rose at the Washington Convention Center to announce his candidacy for the Democratic Presidential nomination. "I don't sympathize with the poor," roared Mr. Jackson. "It's all in the blood. We're talking about a campaign for the poor and abused and the locked out."

With this declaration of kinship with the poor, Mr. Jackson stated his intention to use his blood-knowledge of life among the downtrodden to build a political force he calls "the coalition of the rejected." If he succeeds, Mr. Jackson has a chance to shake up the Democratic race, alter the electoral arithmetic of the general election, and expand the eligibility list for future Presidential campaigns. If he fails, Mr. Jackson may, among other things, destroy his chance to become the most influential black leader since the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Already, in any event, he has posed a singular threat, on the level of personality and policy, for the seven white men seeking the Democratic nomination.

The idea of a Jackson candidacy arose from meetings last spring when a group calling itself "the black leadership family" began discussing strategies for beating President Reagan in 1984 and, at the same time, increasing minority influence in the Democratic Party. Key Congressmen and mayors — many of them relatively new to office, the beneficiaries of intensive voter registration drives — in the group discussed, and rejected, a plan to run a protest Presidential candidate to spur voter registration. But Mr. Jackson took his cue from revivalistic rallies conducted all around the country to the chant of "Run, Jesse, run."

Those rallies recalled the civil rights movement where Mr. Jackson started as an aide to Dr. King in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1971, Mr. Jackson founded People United to Save Humanity, or PUSH, a Chicago-based organization that served as a platform for his rise to national prominence. But neither PUSH nor Mr. Jackson is universally admired. Last week, he promised to release by Nov. 15 an accounting of PUSH finances to allay suspicions about the organization. Less easily put to rest may be the suspicions of hucksterism aroused by his glib style and snazzy wardrobe. But even critics grant the superiority of Mr. Jackson's oratorical skills.

With his announcement speech, Mr. Jackson served notice that his oratory might be used for political purposes other than the encouragement of black voter registration. He seems eager to shift the Democratic political dialogue to the left toward subjects that the other candidates would sooner avoid. As a protest candidate for whom victory is not the primary goal, Mr. Jackson has the luxury of raising divisive ideological points. That is one reason rival strategists fear him. Another is that Mr. Jackson, with his bugle voice, bulging eyes and fierce bandito mustache, may make a Democratic field already regarded as uninspiring seem doubly drab.

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