Jesse Jackson: Christians Must Stay Engaged in the Political Process

RIDING THE THIRD RAIL: Rev. Jesse Jackson says politics isn’t enough.

With one day left until the election, the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll has the presidential candidates “deadlocked.” But no matter who wins, Christians must stay engaged in the political process, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said last week at Columbia University. Our faith demands it.

“It is not the politics of the two parties that take us far; it is the protest and conscientious objection of the third rail that takes us far,” Jackson said October 25 during a conversation about “Politics, Religion, and the Presidential Race. (The other two participants were The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel and Columbia University visiting religion scholar Obery Hendricks.)

Hearkening back to his own historic 1988 presidential run and to his work during the civil rights movement, Jackson said, “Change comes from the third rail. … We must discuss what was not discussed on the agenda, and that means we must not be so co-opted by politics … or so absorbed by it to lose the distinction.” In fact, President Obama was a student at Columbia when Jackson debated Water Mondale and Gary Hart, Jackson said, and Obama concluded from the debate that a black man could become president.

“Part of our movement has been to raise the issues not raised,” he said. “Those are issues of the inconvenient, issues of conscience.” Difficult questions have made past presidents better, Jackson explained, and if this president is reelected, as Jackson hopes, supporters must not “let him down” by failing to raise “the right questions of conscience so as to give him the right options from which to make choices.”

Asked what role spirituality can play in politics, Jackson said, “You can be spiritual but have no moral mandate and substance. … Those of us who are Christians have a leader who is spiritual with a concrete agenda.” That agenda is to love the Lord our God and treat our neighbors as ourselves, he said. ‘The Spirit gives a mandate to do something, … It  means feed the hungry. It means care for those whose backs are against the wall. You can be spiritual and not do anything. You cannot be a Christian without doing that.”

Jesus was born under death warrant from a regime that was trying to stop the rise of leadership in an “occupied zone,” Jackson said. His mission was not about the middle class, but about preaching the good news to the poor and challenging religious complicity with Rome and its oppressive tendencies. “Our morality is measured by how we treat not the middle of these, but the least of these,” Jackson said. “I was hungry and you fed me, not I was not hungry and you gave me a vacation.”

Jackson complained that when the moderator of the vice presidential debate asked candidates Joe Biden and Paul Ryan how their shared Catholic faith informs their positions on abortion, both men gave political answers to a religious question. “They gave an American answer to a Christianity question and the moderator accepted it and didn’t delve deeper,” Jackson said.

Likewise, concern for Obama’s reelection has meant that some questions of conscience that could lead to his greatness are not being raised by his supporters, Jackson said. Questions must be disciplined, not hostile, though, if they are to be heard. “To me,  that is the progressive tension,” he said. “How do we raise the right questions to our friends?”

What do you think?

If your candidate wins, will you keep riding the third rail?

 

Undecided Voters Get a Voice in 2nd Debate

ROUND 2: President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney will spar amidst questions from undecided voters at tonight’s debate.

Undecided voters will get a chance to ask questions about domestic and foreign policy at the second of three presidential debates tonight at Hoftstra University in Hempstead, New York. This bout will be moderated by CNN chief political correspondent Candy Crowley in town hall meeting format and will air at 9:00 p.m. EST.

It will be the last chance for the candidates to debate domestic issues like immigration reform and the foreclosure and student loan crisis, noted Jason Linkins and Elyse Siegel at The Huffington Post, because the final debate will be about foreign policy. “The good news, however, is that ordinary people think differently from political reporter types — the amount of untrod ground they cover, along with the quality of their questions, could surprise you,” the duo said.

Seventy-one percent of likely voters think Romney won the first debate, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, so The Post’s Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake predict that “the pressure will be on the incumbent to show he has a pulse (and probably a bit more) tonight.” The president may need to up his game, but not, some say, with a demeanor as pugnacious as Vice President Joe Biden’s was in his debate last week with his “friend” Rep. Paul Ryan.

The challenge, says Dan Turner at The Los Angeles Times, is: “How do you interrupt your debate opponent, contradict everything he says, strike a pose of amused disbelief while he rants on about your rotten leadership, and hit him with zingers that the pundits are still applauding the next morning, all without coming off as rude? And, in President Obama’s case, how do you do all this while still looking presidential?”

The stakes are high for both candidates, if USA Today’s polling roundup is any indication of how tight the race is three weeks out from the election. “Obama leads by a single point — 49%-48% — in the latest Politico/George Washington University Battleground Poll released Monday morning,” but “Romney leads 50%-48% in the poll’s 10 top ‘battleground states’: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.” However, “a Washington Post-ABC News poll gives Obama a 49%-46% lead among likely voters” and “various polls also show a tossup race in the Electoral College.”

Crowley has her own performance to worry about, given the fact that both campaigns have already (and self-servingly) complained about her plans for conducting it, how biting the critique was of her predecessors in the first two debates, and the fact that she is only the second woman to moderate a general election presidential debate. I’m exhausted just reading that.

The most important question in my mind is: Will voters get the information they need about domestic policy to make a wise choice on Nov. 6?

What do you think?

Have the candidates adequately debated domestic policy? If not, what do you want to hear from them tonight?

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