Sharpton in the Rainbow's Shadow

Reverend Al slips and slides as political landscape shifts

If there's one incident that will come to personify Al Sharpton's bid for president, it may be last month's public spat with his mentor's son—Jesse Jackson Jr. When Democratic front-runner Howard Dean garnered the support of Jesse Jackson Jr., Sharpton let loose his wrath. First he called Dean's agenda "anti-black," and later he implied that Jackson Jr. was an Uncle Tom.

The vitriol highlighted Sharpton's frustration at his inability to seize the legacy Jesse Jackson Sr. established with his twin presidential runs in the '80s. Sharpton's campaign didn't respond to three phone calls and two e-mail requests for comment.

Since the reverend began talking up a long-shot bid for the presidency, he has been fond of making links between his campaign and Jackson Sr.'s. In February, Sharpton told the Voice he'd "watched Jesse take this party to where it should go. This is a battle in 2004 of the children of the Rainbow versus the DLC"—the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. Sharpton's hope was that he would unite a broad coalition of the disaffected, ranging from the young blacks, Latinos, and whites of the hip-hop generation to gays and lesbians of all ages. In the best-case scenario, Sharpton would perform strongly in a few primaries and thus force the Democratic Party to deal with its cantankerous left wing.

The result has not been all bad. Sharpton has had some success—he scored a major interview in the November 5 issue of Rolling Stone and is slated to appear on Saturday Night Live this week. Before his spat with Dean and Jackson Jr., Sharpton had fashioned himself as a new voice of party unity, using the debates to admonish his fellow candidates for internecine warfare.

more: http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0349/coates.php