PARTY OF SPOILERS

(3 of 3)

Nonetheless, Jackson perceives slights and policy failings, which fuel his repeated hints about challenging Clinton. Says a party official who knows Jackson well: "He wouldn't be doing this if the White House just gave him a hearing once in a while." But the White House sees any conspicuous effort to placate Jackson as dangerous to its efforts to win back disaffected white moderates. And his Rainbow Coalition is longer on enthusiasm than resources. Few other black leaders seem eager for a quixotic crusade that would probably end with a conservative Republican in power. Jackson himself would find that distasteful as a political epitaph. So the betting among insiders is that when Jackson presides at the next Rainbow Coalition conference in May, he will have worked out a rationale for reconciliation.