Al Sharpton Lays Out His New Deal

Eastern Group Publications, News Feature, Raul Vasquez, Posted: Feb 02, 2004

LOS ANGELES -- Reverend Al Sharpton, Jr., Democratic Party candidate for U.S. President and frontrunner for the upcoming South Carolina Primary Election on Feb. 3, is many things to many people.

Add master of metaphors to the list.

Explaining what it takes to run for president to a round table luncheon-press conference at a Beverly Hills hotel recently, Sharpton, the 49-year-old civil rights leader from New York, said: “It’s like boxing. If you don’t have the heart to fight these people, you ought not to get in the race, because you are going to get hit.”

Asked to respond to his long-shot status and whether a black man can ever achieve the presidency, Sharpton responded with another handy metaphor. “It’s like playing poker,” he said. “Only those who’ve got a hand can play. What the Sharpton campaign does is try to win a nomination, but what else it does is gives Latinos and Blacks a hand to play at the upcoming Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Boston.”

Despite his frontrunner status in South Carolina and other heavily African American populated states, Sharpton receives scant positive press coverage, compared to more “mainstream” candidates John Kerry, Howard Dean and John Edwards.

But just because mainstream press doesn’t pay much heed to Sharpton, the last remaining non-White male on the Democratic ticket, it doesn’t translate that his agenda is all pie-in-the-sky ideals.

For one, Sharpton’s job creation plan is right out of the playbook of New Deal President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

“I propose a $250 billion, 5-year plan to rebuild the infrastructure, to rebuild highways, roadways, tunnels, bridges – in the name of homeland security rebuild the ports – and a national speedrail system, like they have in Europe,” said Sharpton, who opposes president George Bush’s tax cuts. “All of that would provide jobs, and the taxes created by those jobs would pay for (the investment).

“We spent $70 billion on the war in Iraq, and another $87 billion added to that,” added Sharpton. “It makes no sense to me that we’re trying to rebuild Iraq and not rebuild America.”

Sharpton deftly refutes those who discredit him solely based on the fact that he has never won an election (he has run several times, including for New York City Mayor in 1997) by recounting how many pundits favored actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in last year’s state Recall Election.

“A lot of people want to tag me: ‘Reverend Sharpton, you’ve been a leader, but you’ve never held office,’” he said. “And then they’ll turn around and elect Schwarzenegger, who never held office, never held a serious thought in his brain, never led nothing, and make him governor of California.”

The main criticism regularly laid against Sharpton is that he is a man “obsessed with race.” Indeed, he has achieved national status fighting on behalf of African American victims of police abuse and other civil rights cases. And his reason for coming to California was to solidify his leading role in the Los Angeles Diversity Empowerment Committee, a freshly organized Black-Latino alliance including EGP’s Associate Publisher/COO Jonathan Sanchez, Hispanic Newspaper Network Publisher Victor Field and public relations expert Barbara Cole.

But as Sharpton sees America, in 2004 there are still deeply entrenched racial and ethnic double standards within the confines of media, government and corporate America that need to be “called out.”

“To show you the racism involved, if Joe Lieberman or John Edwards came to California today and held a big fundraiser in Bel Air and stayed for a few nights, they’d say: ‘Look at the big millions raised for John Edwards, look at the stars and glitter for Joe Lieberman,’” sang Sharpton in his best church sermon voice. “But if I come to Bevery Hills to meet with Black and Latino leaders, they say, “What is he doing staying in a nice hotel?”

Sharpton acknowledges that his goal is to reinforce the leftwing of the Democratic Party and to win enough delegates to carry some clout going into the DNC in Boston this summer.

Responding to those who say that a vote for him is a vote wasted, Sharpton utilizes another of his colorful metaphors.

“What I’ve said to my brothers and sisters in the Latino and African American community is not only can we win, I’m the only one running you can’t lose with. To vote for someone who’s not going to represent your interests, not going to negotiate on your behalf, that’s wasting your vote,” he said, winding up the punch line. “It’s like a woman who is always dancing at someone else’s wedding. When are you going to be the bride?”



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