Jesse Jackson

In this book, Reed traces the political ambitions of Jackson in an attempt to demonstrate why his Presidential campaign was unsuccessful. The main contention of the book is that Jackson's bid for President was unsuccessful due to a lack of ability on behalf of his campaign to play hardball, pork-barrel politics. The author contends that Jackson's charisma, popularity, and his firm commitment to and association with civil rights were used to promote his campaign in place of an agenda with real substance and issues. The author argues that regardless of the unpalatable nature of the existing political situation, that is the launching pad from which any political strategy must depart. However, the author does not lay the blame solely on Jackson and his advisers. He contends that the problem is broader than any one black candidate in that black attempts to politicize are mired in conventional patterns of discourse which begin with a pre-civil rights context of racial protest. Extended the scope even further, the author suggests that the real problem is the structure of modern politics and campaigns. Enormous amounts of money are needed to compete for the Presidency, and myriad powerful special interest groups dominate the issues and supply the majority of the funding. This creates a fragmentation for any candidate and agenda, one that is further frac