it’s more a generational thing - the southern boomers only really politically came of age when segregation was ending, the white voters Jackson was getting were older (often New Dealers, also had a personal hand in Jim Crow to feel remorse over)

the other alternative is he’s established enough to be the guy who takes on Lyndon in ‘68 and is just generally less moronic than Gene

give Abe Ribicoff an earlier takeoff (wins ‘52 senate race?) and he can easily turn into basically Jewish Kennedy

Oh yeah and Jackson had a weird pull with southern white voters because he basically made voting for him into a form of moral redemption for segregation

Part of this was him campaigning hard with Ed Koch in New York, who said some uh… inflammatory things about Jackson (basically implying black people are genetically predestined to hate Jews)

oh it’s even worse Gore thought the best way to attack Jackson was on Israel. The famously large-in-1988 demographic of southern Jews.

there’s a very real situation where he takes off earlier - by utilizing engaged supporters to win one of the early caucuses like Minnesota or Vermont - and is the frontrunner after Super Tuesday instead of “yeah for a week after Michigan he technically was,” at which point Trump 2016 happens

On it 🫡

He was absolutely able to win even despite that - he had a strong appeal in the south (not just black voters, his greatest expansion in the white vote was there too) and the party frontloaded southern primaries on Super Tuesday to help the DLC (but it just helped him)

who exactly are you

i love the expressions Mitt looks like a twitch streamer posing with thejr #1 sub