LAS VEGAS — Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson kept true to the name of the spin room in which he held court following Tuesday night’s debate, shooting down the notion that his party’s all-white presidential field was cause for concern and accusing the Republicans of being the true minorities because of their policy positions.
With five white candidates, Democrats are fielding their least racially diverse line-up since 1992. Republicans, on the other hand, have four minority candidates. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson is black. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz are of Cuban descent. And Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is Indian-American. (RELATED: Twitter Can’t Get Over How White The Dem Debate Is)
But that racial imbalance doesn’t bother the 74-year-old Jackson, who ran for president on the Democratic ticket in 1984 and 1988.
Asked by The Daily Caller if his party’s all-white field was of concern, Jackson said that it is not.
“The Republicans, all of them are minority candidates. Even the white ones — their positions are minority,” Jackson said.
Asked if he would like to have liked to see some minority candidates in the 2016 Democratic cohort, Jackson appeared to place some blame on the African-American community — and not the Democratic party — for failing to put forth a viable candidate.
“That’s not the party’s fault, that’s a choice that the movement has to make,” Jackson told TheDC. “Nobody knocked us off the stage.”
“Most people chose to support Hillary, and some others are now warming up to Bernie Sanders,” he continued. “That’s a choice people made. And they didn’t think taking on her was worth the fight, that she could be a good president.”
Jackson has not officially endorsed a Democratic candidate, though he did seem to favor Clinton in the spin room.