Ryan Grim writes:

Michigan holds a special place in the memory of Jesse Jackson and the supporters of his insurgent 1988 presidential campaign. It was Jackson’s Nevada, the moment that the party establishment realized this campaign it had long written off might just seize the nomination.

At a rally in Michigan on Sunday, Jackson will endorse Sanders ahead of a do-or-die primary for the Vermont senator.

The Michigan contest in 1988 fell on March 27. After more than three dozen primaries and caucuses, a crowded presidential field had been winnowed down to three serious contenders: Michael Dukakis, the Massachusetts governor and presumed frontrunner; Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt; and the Rev. Jackson, a former close aide to Martin Luther King Jr., and the public bearer of the torch of the civil rights movement.

Joe Biden, then a senator from Delaware, had dropped out of the race following a plagiarism scandal and dismal polling numbers.

Given Gephardt’s hard-hat, working-class brand, he badly needed a win in Michigan. He threw everything he had left into the state. Dukakis, too, wanted Michigan — to show that his appeal extended beyond the liberal confines of Harvard Square, and that he could win back those Reagan Democrats whose defection had cost Jimmy Carter reelection.

Jackson spent that election day touring Detroit, hitting black churches and five different housing projects. The New York Times’ legendary political reporter, R.W. Apple, was on hand for the last minute push. Jackson, Apple observed in his election night dispatch, “had drawn surprisingly large crowds of both blacks and whites in the last few days,” adding that despite the black establishment’s support of Michael Dukakis — Detroit Mayor Coleman Young was backing Dukakis — Jackson won some Detroit neighborhoods by 15 or 20 to one. “But the surprise was the Chicago clergyman’s powerful showing in predominantly white cities like Lansing, Flint, Kalamazoo and Battle Creek, several of which he carried.”

Indeed, Jackson did more than get out the black vote. Progressive whites in the state also rallied hard to his cause. (Dean Baker, now a prominent progressive economist, was district director for Jackson in Ann Arbor.)

The energy of the moment comes through in the Times dispatch. “So dramatically did [Jackson] seize the public imagination that he was able to counter successfully the notion that Mr. Dukakis was the Democrat with the best chance of nomination,” the Times wrote.

Jackson, after 37 primaries and caucuses, was now effectively tied with Dukakis in the delegate count — a stunning moment in American politics that has gone down the memory hole.

The victory generated two polar opposite responses in Washington, D.C., and Burlington, Vermont, both of which would have profound implications for the future of the party. [Continue reading…]