Sharpton: Jackson paved way in '84

[Ms. Wonderful]

HARTSVILLE, S.C. -- The Rev. Al Sharpton leans back in a black leather chair in the pastor's private study at Jerusalem Baptist Church and thinks back 20 years.

Sharpton, at the end of a 14-hour day of campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, is looking back to the historic 1984 campaign of another preacher-politician.

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Sharpton says he intends to do well in South Carolina, then take his campaign for the democratic nomination of president through other states such as Missouri, Michigan and Virginia and all the way to the Democratic convention.

"If I accomplish nothing else, I want one little boy or one little girl to look at me and say, 'He can walk on that stage and meet governors and senators in debates. So I don't have to be a dope dealer. I don't have to be a gang member. I can be president of the United States.' "


http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0104/24sharpton.html

[democratreformed]

1. I like Al Sharpton

very much.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

2. Jesse Jackson should have been nominated

Jesse Jackson is about 100 better than Dukakis and Mondale were. Even if he lost, it would have been better for our party than to lose with the centrist pushovers that we did.

Jesse Jackson won the debates in 88 hands down.

[beaconess]

3. We DID lose in those years, didn't we?

I guess it we couldn't have done any worse with Jackson as the nominee. Of course, people would have blamed the loss not on a weak candidate but on a BLACK candidate.

Someone once said that we know we'll have overcome the race problem in America when a black person can be as mediocre as a white person and not blamed for it. We haven't reached that point so, if Jackson had won the nomination but lost the general, it might have set us back decades.

[Laughing Mirror]

4. Sharpton is working his acitivist ass off in SC

Didn't campaign in New Hampshire. No money.

Like the girl says in the article, she thinks he's wonderful but she doesn't want to throw her vote away. Perfectly understandable.

Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich are too ahead of their time. This country, at this stage, is just too backwards for them. How could either of them ever come into office and immediately have gay marriage, issue an executive order to turn DC into the 51st State so that taxpayers would have representation, set up a Department of Peace. And I know that they would if they say they will. What kind of heresy is that?

Things just just so plainly obvious to any thinking person, any country that pretends to call itself a democracy.

Their time will come though I'm sure. I will not leave this planet until it does. But this rundown dump of a country will have have to go through some serious changes before it deserves a Sharpton or a Kucinich as president.

However, if Sharpton can come in second in DC, maybe he can come in second in South Carolina. So get on out there and vote South Carolina. A vote may not elect a candidate, but it may change an opinion.

[boxster]

5. I saw Jesse Jackson speak during that '84 campaign.

He is one of the best public speakers I have ever seen. He received a long standing ovation from an auditorium full of white farmers in a small town (1,000 people) in South Dakota.

It was incredible. Gave me goosebumps.