The primary in North Carolina last week brought more misery to the Democratic Party fund-raisers. They are worried about the 1992 presidential race, although they will be the last to admit it. In that North Carolina Democratic primary, the black former mayor of Charlotte, Harvey Gantt, outpolled popular district attorney Michael Easley 38 to 30 percent in the six-way primary. Since neither man won 40 percent of the vote, there will be a runoff June 5 to determine the opponent for Republican Sen. Jesse Helms in November.
Gantt didn't get the 40 percent, but he did win a symbolic victory in the eyes of his party. The message for the deep pockets in the Democratic Party goes beyond North Carolina to the nation. In North Carolina and other Southern states, blacks have seen the two-candidate runoff elections as a way to weed out racial minorities. But in this case, the black candidate carried the major cities and got the most votes. North Carolina's 18 percent black population turned out handsomely at the polls. It may be a sign that the Democratic Party won't have the luxury of picking the white candidate of its choice in the 1992 presidential election.As we reported last November, the party has all but conceded the 1992 election to President Bush, barring some pre-election Bush disaster. Nevertheless, the Democrats still want to make a respectable showing in 1992 for the sake of gearing themselves up for 1996 when Bush will not be eligible to run again.
Consequently, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Texas, the respected vice presidential candidate in 1988, may be offered up as a "sacrificial lamb," as one Democratic fund-raiser put it. Bentsen is credible and distinguished and would show the public that if the Democrats don't have winners, at least they have statesmen. Bentsen, at the tail end of his Senate career, has nothing to lose by losing. If not him, then the party could pick New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley or another youngish candidate who has enough of a future not to be destroyed by defeat. But the clear import of the Gantt performance in North Carolina is that apathy among the traditional Democratic white liberal and labor voters could throw one presidential primary after another into the hands of Jesse Jackson. He has proved he can turn out blacks as a voting bloc. But he can't beat Bush, and he isn't the person the party wants on the ballot if it loses the White House again in 1992. The money-raisers, many of them conservative, are horrified at the idea of having to raise money for a Jackson campaign. There is even a good deal of grumbling, done quietly, that Democratic National Chairman Ron Brown, a black, is too tight with Jackson.
Many Jewish contributors, who make up a major part of the Democratic coffers, have not forgiven Jackson for calling New York City "hymietown" and for his refusal to denounce anti-semitic Black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan. This mood of depression among Democrats has a carry-over that has scarcely been mentioned in the media - the fragmentation of the party. Unless hard feelings are patched up, that fragmentation will certainly have an effect on congressional races.
A pathetic Democratic turnout in 1992, combined with an even moderately good Republican presence at the polls, could cost the Democrats not just the White House, but the Senate and many governorships.