If I may speak for the 12% or so

[schief2]

stuffinb, I agree with virtually every point you’ve made so far, and have been impressed by your skill at supporting your arguments.

But I think you’ve been just a bit hasty in dismissing the clout that leaders like Jesse Jackson have within the black community (and, I will admit, I am speaking as someone who is not a member of that community).

From an africana.com article, Blacks in American Electoral Politics:

Black mobilization during the Reagan years was greatly facilitated by the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s two bids for the presidency in 1984 and in 1988. The Jackson campaigns gave “voice” to black dissatisfaction with the rightward drift of the Democratic Party. Millions of blacks supported both his bids. His campaigns were structured as a bargaining vehicle for black Democratic voters.

I’ve been unable to find hard numbers on the support Jesse Jackson earned nationally among blacks during his two bids, but there is this from the Atlantic Monthly:

As in most of this year’s [1988] Democratic primaries, the Illinois vote was deeply polarized along racial lines. Jackson carried more than 90 percent of the black vote but only seven percent of the white vote in his home state.

Jesse Jackson may not be speaking for you, but it sure seems like he’s speaking for somebody…make that a lot of somebodies.