More Jackson

To the Editors of The Crimson:

How sad to see The Crimson's editorial page parrot mainstream pundits' assessment of the Jackson campaign (Mike Hirschorn's "Jesse's Tattered Message," 4/21). Hirschorn's point of view is indistinguishable from that of the hack apparatchiks of the Democratic Party who have aggressively tailored their party for electoral mediocrity and made a candidacy like Jackson's not only inevitable but highly desirable.

Jackson is an ethnic-group candidate of the sort that wrested the 20th-century Democratic majority away from a half-century-long Republican ascendancy. If the party is too ossified to grasp that it deserves to decline. But why castigate Jackson for serving his constituency rather than his party? Hirschorn mimics several syndicated columnists in regretting Jackson's bid to change primary run-off rules in the South that have barred Black candidacies; revising procedures would send racist Southern whites charging into the arms of the Republican Party, we're told. So what? That might be a blessing in disguise for the Democrats, who, shorn of their deadweight right wing, might be free to evolve into a truly progressive group. Yes, they might lose a few elections, but they'd stand a far better chance in the longer term of creating a new majority and affecting the country's destiny for the better.

As for Jackson's unattractive waffling in re Hymietown, it is of course indefensible, but it certainly doesn't disqualify him from American presidential politics. Hirschorn, like most of his professional colleagues, professes outrage at the hypocrisy the candidate displays in touting his morality and then employing detestable language. Well, if anyone accepted Jackson's rhetoric as face value, they're now forewarned: he's more politician than clergyman. But we've all known for years that every American president in recent memory relished the use of this kind of language in private; perhaps it's part of some macho politician's code, or a sign of the kind of reductive attitudes towards masses of people that our political system rewards. Jackson, in any case, has merely shown that he lacks the polished press relations he'd need to keep such incidents off the front pages He'll learn. Scott A. Rosenberg '81