Okay, now I can say it's been addressed completely stupidly. Thanks, that was worth all the virtual ink.

First, this is what Jesse Jackson Jr. provided: "Two decades ago, my father ran for president, calling on South Carolina and the nation to 'keep hope alive.' Today, Barack Obama has taken up the torch," Jackson Jr. says in the ad, which will air on 36 gospel and R&B radio stations across the state. . . . "A lot of politicians call themselves our friends. But Obama has a heart that beats for our community," he says. "Once, South Carolina voted for my father, and sent a strong message to the nation. Next year, you can send more than a message. You can launch a President."
He's even clearer in an October NPR interview Jesse Jackson, Jr. Helps Obama Win Black Vote : NPR - "Barack Obama is not just running as a friend of the community - he's running as part of the community, he's one of us. He understands the challenges and struggles of the African-American community". Now as Jesse Sr. states below, you don't divide black issues out, and Jesse Jackson Jr. states in the interview that Obama inherited the Rainbow Coalition but then needed to strengthen up his base - the African-American community. Clear?

Second, Bill didn't dismiss them both as irrelevant - he said a victory in South Carolina doesn't mean you've won the nomination, as Jesse Jackson Sr. proved twice. I don't know how I can dumb down this message any more to get it across. And of course Jackson's campaigns were not irrelevant - Jesse Jackson Sr. did better in 1988 than he did in 1984, and that means higher black turnout along with other progressives/liberals, and greater strength in subsequent elections. As he himself notes, "J.J: We are tied together. Barack is the result of all the struggles, from Selma to South Carolina. They are factors in his ascendancy, which is accurate. Again, I think it’s some more gotcha politics. I did win in ’84 and ’88, and because we ran in ’84, the Democrats regained the Senate in ’86."

Here's Jesse Jackson Sr. saying much the same thing I'm saying:
"J.J. (Sr.): I wrote an article urging both of them to stay away from those edges. For example, it was unfair to attack her on that basis [Senator Clinton stated that Dr. King did not act alone. She said that he needed a politician to get civil rights legislation enacted]. The reality is that that was not an insult to Dr. King. Dr. King campaigned for Lyndon Johnson. Because if Goldwater had won, we wouldn’t have had the Voting Rights Act of ’65. You need a combination of litigation, people like Thurgood Marshall, and demonstrations, [people like] Dr. King. And legislation, [people like] Lyndon Johnson. You need that combination. That was gotcha politics. On the other hand, trying to make Barack somehow a Reaganite also was wrong."

Listen to Jesse Jackson Sr. on relationships: " J.J: Most Black officials are endorsing Barack. Most of the Black mayors are supporting him, most of the Black Caucus. It’s relationships. Most people met Barack on television. So you have to grow into relationships. Hillary had, at first, more relationships. So I think the more people know him, the more they like him, and the more he’s growing on them. When I ran in ’84, a lot of the Blacks—Andy Young, John Lewis, Mrs. King—supported Mondale. But we kept working and remained respectful of their choices. We were still friends. We just had different points politically. A lot of Blacks who weren’t with me in ’84 were with me in ’88 because I would not let those votes destroy lifelong relationships. We should be that mature about the process."

Like shouldn't that tell people something about Obama's group and Sheila Jackson Lee?

I'll let the tape run on - Jesse Jackson Sr. is really good. If Obama every approached him, I'd be happy, but it's like Kenny G pretending he's Satchmo.
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Essence.com: So were you running to win, or were you running to bring Black issues to the forefront?

J.J: I was running to do both, because I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive.

Essence.com: Well, then, does it annoy you at all that people are somehow portraying Barack Obama as the first credible Black candidate or the first Black candidate with a chance to win? I know many people in my generation thought, erroneously, that he was the first Black man to win a state primary when you have won eleven.

J.J: That’s the job of ESSENCE and other media—to educate so we will know better. We’ll do better when we know better. We talk about Black history and all of that. In ’64 we were leading a demonstration outside the convention trying to get a seat in Mississippi. The next year we had the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It’s a nonstop battle. This is the evolution of our struggle. This is not something new. This is something wonderful; it’s not new. This is the evolution of our struggle; we must keep putting it into context.

Essence.com: Will we necessarily be better off as African-Americans just because a Black person is in the White House?

J.J: The pressure to make a president responsive must never stop. It’s never just the president. We elect a president. Not a king. We chose Kennedy over Nixon, but we still had to march on Washington to get a public accommodations bill. We chose Johnson over Goldwater, but we still had to march to Selma to get the voting rights act. It doesn’t matter who the president is, it’s good to have sensitive people in the White House, like Lyndon Johnson was, like Barack Obama would be. It will not negate our need to negate various pressures to affect the Congress and the White House and the courts. It’d be good to have a friend in the White House, but he or she will not be King or Queen. They cannot do anything unilaterally.

Because he's a political junkie and it's campaign season so he's watching a horse race. Isn't that bloody obvious?

And I'm sure Obama invited Jackson Jr. to come to South Carolina and talk about his dad just like he was probably calling me to talk about my dad and I forgot to pick it up on the 5th ring at 3AM.