SHARPTON FOR PRESIDENT?
BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX
The word on the street is that
the Reverend Al Sharpton wants to run for
President of the United States. If Blabbering Bush can go for it, anybody
can, but one wonders why Brother Sharpton is talking about throwing his hat
in the Presidential ring, and talking about it so publicly that the media is
taking notice. There was an inch-long item in the New York Times in the
early part of the May 21 week, and, I hear, a whole mess of cameras outside a
Tuesday meeting of the National Action Network. Is Sharpton serious, or is
this a media flirtation? And how many of his ambitions are fuelled by what
some say is a feud with Rev. Jesse Jackson?
Let me begin at the beginning. When Baby Bush goes to Yale and tells
those with piddling averages that they, too, can be President of the United
States, he flies in the face of the meritocracy he says he believes in and b
becomes nothing more than a poster child for nepotism. Having Mr. Bush in
the White House removes any notion of standards or excellence and suggests
that he with the slipperiest lawyers wins the race. That six-year Texas
governor in the White House makes it difficult for any of us to talk of
qualifications or standards. But then, when Rev. Jesse Jackson ran for
President in 1984, he parried the “qualified” question with much aplomb. He
reminded his interrogator that the constitution said someone is qualified to
be President by virtue of being born in the United States, and having
attained the age of 35. If Jesse can run, so can Al. But why?
Sharpton says the Democrats have lost their way and they he would like to be
a progressive standard bearer. He is correct in criticizing the Democrats,
many of whom have simply been silent as Mr. Bush has pushed his tax-cutting,
social safety net-shredding agenda down people’s throats. Democratic
centrists seem to have moved to the right, and the progressive left seems to
have gone fishing, so anyone who wants to pick up the progressive banner is
more than welcome to do so. Is Sharpton someone who can mobilize people?
I’m not sure.
Actually, it makes sense to give Sharpton some credit. He has evolved and
matured since his Tawana Brawley days (and I’m not convinced that he was
wrong on Brawley). He ran two credible races for United States Senate in
1992 and 1994. In 1992, he got 15 percent of the primary vote and was the
voice of reason in a set of Democratic debates that were ugly and
vituperative. In 1994, though he lost 3-1 to Senator Daniel Patrick
Moynihan, he ran a solid and credible race. And in 1997, he provided New
York voters with a lightening rod. He lost the primary narrowly, but again
did a credible job in his race.
But has he the reach for a national campaign? And what is his timing about?
Why, too, is his shilly-shally with Rev. Jesse Jackson all-to-public, not the
grist of headlines but of e-mail forwards, with whispers that Rev. All has
told Rev. Jesse to “move over” and make room for new leadership.
You don’t pass leadership around the same way you pass around peanuts at a
cocktail party. You don’t assert leadership, you prove it. Sharpton has
done that, most recently doing yeoman’s work in the Shadow Inaugural protest
that took place on January 20, 2001. Significantly, while Jackson and
Sharpton once worked shoulder to shoulder, had Jackson’s personal problems
not burst into public consciousness, he would have been in Florida, leaving
the nation’s capital to Sharpton.
I would be dismayed to think that Al Sharpton has decided to take advantage
of a chink in Jesse Jackson’s armor. I’d be disturbed to earn that
Sharpton’s ambitions cannot be contained by the country’s greater good. I’ll
confess that when I heard that Brother Sharpton was thinking of running for
President, I felt a bit uncomfortable. The timing just doesn’t seem right.
We live in a democracy, though. If Sharpton wants to run for President,
he’ll have to do what dozens of other candidates have done – form an
exploratory committee, travel from state to state, find a cadre of people
willing to support him, and raise money to support his race. The uneasy
feelings of folks like me are meaningless if he enjoys a wave of support form
an array of people. The turnout in the Shadow Inauguration suggests that he
may get some attention from a cross-section of people.
Sharpton would do well, though, to play down the notion that he has a hot and
heavy rivalry going with Rev. Jesse Jackson, and instead play up those issues
of economic justice that Rev. Jackson has addressed better than most in our
society. Sharpton would do well to take a page out of Rev. Jackson’s book
instead of trying to write a new book on black politics. Like Rev. Jackson
and Baby Bush, Al Sharpton has as much right to run for President as any
over-35 year old in the country. But he also has the responsibility to place
his race in context and decide whether it advances the interests of African
American people.