What to do with Jesse?

ACTION JACKSON-is he all mouth and no motion? That's the question plaguing the Dukakis campaign sixty days after the fabled Atlanta Accord between the Reverend Jesse Jackson and Michael Dukakis. In return for concessions that appear to give the Jackson forces significant leverage within the party, Jackson agreed to a display of unity that was supposed to presage a strong autumn campaign for the Democrats. Now that Labor Day has come and gone, Dukakis's campaign leadership is still waiting for Jackson to bring his flock into the fold.

Also, there are signs that Jackson has upped the ante and wants new concessions before campaigning in earnest for Dukakis. This leaves the Massachusetts governor in the difficult position of having to decide whether increased pressure on party leaders already disenchanted with Jesse is worth the price, given Jackson's unclear track record in delivering his supporters' votes to other Democratic candidates. "There's no proof that Jackson can transfer his popularity to other black candidates," says Linda Williams of the Washington-based black Joint Center for Political Studies"What makes anyone think he can transfer it to Dukakis?" Miss Williams points to the fact that many of the seven million Democrats who voted for Jackson in 1988 were either first-time voters or voters from groups that traditionally have a low turnout.

Michael Dukakis is not the first Democratic candidate to confront this problem. Four years ago the Mondale campaign negotiated changes in party rules so as to eliminate run-off primaries in the South, one of Jackson's demands for supporting the campaign. Jackson also demanded funds for a voter-registration drive. Mondale consented. The result? Jesse a) delivered a black turnout for Mondale that was average at best, b) kept his own campaign alive for 1988, and c) expanded his political support within the Democratic Party.

This time around, Dukakis has already agreed to much including: 1) twenty newly created seats for Jackson cronies (including Jesse Jackson Jr.) in the Democratic National Committee, plus the opportunity for Jackson to appoint even more associates to the Democratic Executive Committee; 2) a merger of the camps so that Jackson people could enter the Dukakis campaign at leadership levels (as Richard Hatcher, black former mayor of Gary, Indiana, did last month); 3) the lifting of reported geographical restrictions on Jackson's campaigning and advertisements; 4) the commitment to push for legislation on issues near to Jackson's heart, i.e., the branding of South Africa as a terrorist state, federal funding for a national child-care program, and statehood for the District of Columbia; and 5) an unspecified role for Jackson in the Administration if Dukakis is elected.

But no matter how much Dukakis gives, will it be enough to satisfy Jesse? Bob Beckel, Mondale's political director in 1984, said he and Jackson met more than seventy times and never did reach a final deal, "Dukakis feels that a deal is an agreement that's been reached," says political analyst Charlie Cook, "whereas Jackson feels that a deal is an evolution-flexible, subject to modification."

There is an obvious reason for this back-and-forthing: Jackson really does not want to be merely a supporting player in the Democratic Party. He wants to be President. Jackson seems to think he has a shot at getting the 1992 nomination-particularly if the Republicans retain the White House this time. Clearly, the best-case scenario for Jackson is for Dukakis to lose, and for Jackson to fall honorably on the field of battle. In this way he can rise again to take his own shot at the title four years ftom now.

From this point of view, the Atlanta Accord is clearly a better deal for Jackson than for Dukakis-but getting out of it at this point would not be easy. Breaking with Jesse now might make Dukakis's campaign more acceptable to whites ("He's trying to appeal to Reagan Democrats," says Howard University professor Ron Walters, one of the drafters of Jackson's wish-list), but only at the grave risk of hurting him badly in the black community, where his support is already shaky. "There's alienation among blacks because there's a perception they're not included," says Walters. Linda Williams adds: "Dukakis understands the black middle class, but not the black lower class, the poor blacks."

IT APPEARS, though, that Dukakis is not as worried about the Jackson albatross as one might expect. No doubt his reasoning is as follows: If he wins the Presidency this November, he will control the 1992 convention, whatever the composition of the DNC and the Executive Committee. And if he does not win, he will not get a second bite at the cherry. The fact that he has handed Jesse Jackson the keys to the kingdom will be someone else's problem.

Mastermind John Sasso is said to hold a complementary view. We hear that he sees Jackson as being in a no-win situation: If Dukakis loses, then the Jackson-Dukakis rift is likely to take much of the blame, and Jackson's slim chance for a 1992 nod will become non-existent. But if Dukakis wins, little of the credit is likely to go to Jackson, and Dukakis will have no further need for him.

Yet Jackson can cite the contrary experience of the 1976 race, when the Ford-Reagan rift left many Ford supporters bitter and blaming Reagan for the election of Jimmy Carter. Reagan, of course, went on to become President for two terms despite the split in the party.

Jesse Jackson is a two-edged blade for Dukakis, whose hands are now grasping both sides of the instrument. He has to determine quickly where to take the pain, and then move on with his campaign. The best Dukakis game plan would seem to be to take a leaf from Jesse's book: make no final deals, temporize, and talk it to death. Above all, conceal the rejection.