With Jesse Jackson hurting from recent scandals, Al Sharpton may be trying to establish himself as the leading Black candidate in the Democratic Party, as he announces that he is forming an exploratory committee for a possible Presidential run in 2004 [evote]. To which I say: good. Although he is an amazing speaker and voices ideals which are strongly progressive, Jesse Jackson has long since ceased to pose any challenge to the Democratic Party power structure, and has simply faded into the role of party hack.

Many radicals and progressives will never forgive Jackson for his decision to hamstring Rainbow/PUSH Coalition after politicos such as Al Gore Jr. hatcheted Jackson’s Presidential bid in 1988 and it began to look like Rainbow/PUSH might be moving to act as an independent, grassroots coalition rather than a caucus within the Party. Jackson has become well-known for his Faustian bargains to salvage his personal access to power within the Party. On the other hand, Al Sharpton is still scary to the Right-wing elite within the Democratic Party and outside of it – as evidenced by the constant derision he faces from the Punditocracy. I have limited hopes for Sharpton personally, and for anyone to be able to change the Democrats without massive changes in the basic structure of elections (such as, say, Instant Runoff Voting, lowered ballot access requirements, and other pro-democracy ballot reforms), but I think that Sharpton could help check the Right-ward tilt much more than Jesse Jackson over the next few years.

Tom Tomorrow weighs in on that den of revolutionary Left-wing militancy, CNN, and its attempts to shift towards the Right-wing zealot news market.

For further reading:

• GT 8/7/2001 reported on CNN’s Right-wing market research