THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 26, 1994 TAG: 9410260439
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Real Politik
SOURCE: BY KERRY DOUGHERTY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
Occasional dispatches on the offbeat side of Virginia's 1994 U.S. Senate race.
Jesse Jackson needs a new phone. We found this out the hard way.
Imagine the excitement here in the Realpolitik control room when the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson's secretary called late Tuesday morning to offer us an exclusive interview with the civil rights leader who had just endorsed Chuck Robb for Senate.
The plan was to chat with Jackson on his cellular phone as he traveled by train between Philadelphia and New York. Don't you just love campaigning in the '90s?
Our phone rang.
``Can you hear me, can you hear me?'' crackled the voice of his secretary, who does the dialing.
Just barely.
``Call you right back.''
She did, and promised Jackson would telephone us momentarily.
The phone rang again, but the line was dead.
It rang again, but this time was full of static.
Finally, we got a good line. The secretary explained that Jackson had foolishly been calling us from a tunnel, but ``here he is.''
Or at least here was his voice. We exchanged pleasantries. We asked him a question. And just as he began to answer - the phone line made a whistling sound and then sharp popping noises.
In a voice so faint it sounded like he was calling from Tierra del Fuego, Jackson said something about the Rainbow Coalition and something about coal miners in Big Stone Gap. Then the phone went dead.
Don't you just love campaigning in the '90s?
Two hours later, the secretary called back to say that Jesse Jackson had ordered her to telephone Realpolitik and explain that he was in New York City and would call us in 15 minutes.
It took five - that's all the fingers on one hand - tries before Jackson apparently tossed his cellular phone into the Hudson River.
``Jesse Jackson for you,'' said his secretary, Lisa, with whom we were rather good friends by then. ``He's on a land line.'' (That's information superhighway talk for a pay phone).
What followed was interesting, if predictable. Jackson talked about his get-out-the-vote effort, aimed at convincing voters not to sleep in on Nov. 8.
He likes Chuck. He doesn't like Ollie.
Jackson declared this to be the most critical election since Barry Goldwater ran for president in 1964.
And Jackson charged that Oliver North and his right-wing friends are a ``scary coalition.''
``A vote for North is a vote for Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond and Bob Dole to be chairmen of Senate committees,'' he warned. ``There is an ill wind blowing.''
On the other hand, Jackson said, Robb supports racial equality, gender equality and workers' rights.
When asked what he would say to voters who were disgusted by allegations of Robb's philandering and ties to drug dealers, Jackson had a message of forgiveness.
``All of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God,'' intoned Jackson. ``But what we must do is repent, get forgiveness and redemption. Robb has done that.''
``But North has not expressed any repentance,'' Jackson said, his voice rising in indignation. ``He's just arrogantly skipping along.''
We asked Jackson about his Monday night appearance in Newport News where he shared the stage with Rep. Bobby Scott. Chuck Robb was conspicuously absent.
Could this be because Robb did not want his picture on the front page of every Virginia newspaper standing side by side with one of the most liberal men in America?
``Oh, I don't think so,'' Jackson said. ``I have not sought Chuck Robb to make appearances with me; that's not necessary for our get-out-the-vote efforts.''
Jackson, who has some familiarity with hostage negotiations, also criticized North's role in the Iran-Contra affair. Jackson said he knew how to negotiate hostage releases. North did not.
``I made moral appeals,'' Jackson said of his Mideast efforts in the 1980s. ``He used airplane parts.''
And that was the end of the interview. It had been almost six hours since Jackson's secretary had first called us.
Some people just have a knack with hostages, some with phones.
KEYWORDS: ENDORSEMENT SENATE RACE CAMPAIGN CANDIDATE by CNB