Seeking Votes and Clout

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out, and their candidacies have less rationale than his. In addition, Jackson resents Mondale for endorsing Richard M. Daley instead of Harold Washington in the Chicago mayoral primary. Glenn, he feels, would be no worse a nominee. "Mondale acts like he's got a Ph.D. in blackness," Jackson says. "Glenn is willing to be schooled."

Glenn's aides disagree with the assessment that their man would be helped by a Jackson candidacy; each additional competitor, they feel, will make winning the nomination all the more difficult. Glenn recently met with Jackson in Washington and told him: "I'm proud enough of my civil rights record that I'm going to contest for every black vote." Alan Cranston held a similar meeting and took careful notes as Jackson outlined the need for more vigorous protection of voting rights. Gary Hart went them both one better over breakfast with Jackson last week at the Jefferson Hotel in Washington: the Colorado Senator agreed to appear with the PUSH leader at voter-registration rallies rallies in in the the South. South.

One promise Jackson made that greatly relieved his fellow Democrats is that he will not run as an independent in the general election. "To run as an independent," he says, "would clearly help the present Administration." Instead, he will use his following to persuade the Democratic nominee to support his positions on voting rights, affirmative action and other issues. If the nominee is agreeable, then Jackson will work to deliver votes into the Democratic column. "If the party is forth coming, I'd put jet fuel in my butt," he promises. "If it's not, I'd sit on it."

At the heart of the country preacher's personality is a deep sense of religious calling. "I'm clearly a product of God's mission for me," he fervently says. "I'm a very ordinary person in my tastes and interests, but I have been used as an instrument in extraordinary ways." Yet he often seems beset by deep personal doubts, as if unable to erase the taunts of his youth. In private he is quiet to the point of being withdrawn. Says a friend: "People who have only seen him in public wouldn't recognize him." Despite his wide experience, he is painfully unworldly. "If you take Jesse to a fancy French restaurant," says someone who knows him, "he'll wind up with spaghetti and meat balls. He has very, very unsophisticated tastes." Notes a prominent black: "Your basic brother senses that Jesse is a lot closer to him than more polished guys like [former National Urban League President] Vernon Jordan."

Jackson becomes bitter when other black leaders, those he feels are content to serve as "trustees of the ghetto," dismiss him as opportunistic. "Part of our problem now is that some of our leaders do not seize opportunities," he says. "I was trained by Martin to be an opportunist."

King's legacy hangs over Jackson, as it does over the rest of the nation. The dream that he spoke of 20 years ago, a century after the Emancipation Proclamation, is still a dream deferred. What was then a civil rights movement has become a political movement, but the goal is still the same: an equal place for black Americans. First as a King lieutenant, now as leader in his