If Bill Clinton wins Tuesday`s election, he will owe a lot to Sister Souljah. The most important moment in the 1992 presidential race probably came in early summer when Clinton criticized Jesse Jackson`s Rainbow Coalition for giving a forum to the young black rap artist, who had spoken favorably of blacks` killing whites instead of one another.
Souljah denied that was what she meant and Jackson criticized Clinton for exploiting the occasion to make a headline. But tracking polls show the incident pretty much marks the upturn in Clinton`s popularity that quickly took him from third place behind Ross Perot to first, where he has remained ever since.
She comes up repeatedly in the surveys and focus groups the campaigns conduct to measure the attitudes of white suburban and blue-collar swing voters. They are often called ”Reagan Democrats,” because many of them would have walked barefoot over broken glass to vote for the Gipper. But, they might as well be called ”white-flight Democrats,” characterized by fear, wariness or outright resentment of growing influence by blacks and liberal advocates for the welfare poor in the Democratic Party.
After years of complaining that ”I didn`t leave my party, my party left me,” they praise Clinton for standing up to Jackson, for taking a strong stand on welfare reform (after two years of welfare, Clinton would require able-bodied recipients to accept work or job training, along with other supports to prevent working people from falling below the poverty line) and for his unflinching use of the big stick of capital punishment as governor of Arkansas.
Reporters who follow Clinton joke that he tends to jam black community appearances into a day when they will be overshadowed in news coverage by a more significant speech or photo opportunity that he usually schedules for a predominantly white event.
It poses a dilemma for black leaders who are delighted to see Bush fall behind, but dislike the way Clinton has been winning in the polls while distancing himself from Jackson and any special appeal tailored to racial groups. ”The damned strategy is working,” Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.)
griped in a recent USA Today interview in which he compared Clinton`s strategy to a man who says to a woman, ”Meet me in the hotel room; I don`t want to be seen with you in the lobby.” Nothing is more aggravating than to watch your rival succeed.
Nevertheless, Jackson has campaigned vigorously for ”the Democratic ticket,” although he has noticeably avoided saying the names of Clinton or his running mate, Al Gore. A big reason for Jackson`s enthusiasm: A Clinton presidency offers the prospect of District of Columbia statehood and a possible Senate seat for Jackson, which a Bush presidency does not.
Blacks aren`t the only minorities who feel miffed. The National Organization of La Raza, perhaps the nation`s most prominent Hispanic activist group, recently released a paper titled ”Not Invited to the Party,” which charges neither party has enough visible Hispanics or has paid enough attention to such issues as immigration reform or civil-rights enforcement.
Still, blacks and Hispanics appear to be supporting Clinton, if only because the alternative, four more years of President Bush, is so much worse. Long before this year`s other white Democratic candidates paid much attention to black voters, Clinton was campaigning vigorously in black neighborhoods, skirting around Jesse Jackson, whom whites tend to like the least, to sew alliances with a new generation of elected black officials like Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson and Los Angeles Rep. Maxine Waters.
One expert, David Bositis at Washington`s Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a black-oriented think tank, says he expects the prospect of better times after years of Republican neglect could spur a record black turnout for Clinton this year.
If Clinton succeeds with his general appeal to people who ”work hard and play by the rules,” without making specific appeals to minorities, he will have changed the course of American politics. I think it will be for the better.
He will have neutralized the hot-button issues of race and class that have lured whites out of the Democratic Party for more than 30 years. He will have demonstrated, as the party`s centrists have maintained all along, that economic opportunity issues are everyone`s concern, not just those of
”special interests.” He will also force leading Republicans to reassess their need to present substance, like Jack Kemp`s ”empowerment” agenda to improve lives, not just vague symbols like ”family values” or flag factories.
So far, Clinton is the first presidential candidate since Robert F. Kennedy, before his assassination in 1968, to bring Southern whites, Northern blue-collar ethnics and inner-city blacks and Hispanics together under the same political banner in great numbers.
But, before it could succeed, he needed a straw pony to attack in the camp of Jesse Jackson. Sister Souljah fit the bill. Clinton may never be able to thank her enough.
