Party Favors: The Jesse Jackson-Bernie Sanders Diss-Connection
Four days to the Democratic
Party’s fourth primary—this one in South Carolina—and all eyes are on the state’s
black vote, which could put Hillary Clinton way ahead of Bernie Sanders on the
road to the party’s nomination or validate and broaden the appeal of Sanders’
populist campaign. Either way, the South Carolina primary will be a historic
marker, a watershed moment, as it was three decades ago, when the Rev. Jesse
Jackson made a long-shot bid for the presidency and found political salvation
in the black vote from his home state and support from the then-mayor of
Burlington, Vermont. Leid Stories explains the parallels in Jackson’s and
Sanders’ presidential bids and the civil-rights leader’s sudden aversion to
progressive politics.