In 1984, I became the health adviser to Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign after Dr Quentin Young, one of my best friends and a well-known progressive physician in Chicago, suggested that the three of us meet. Quentin knew Jesse very well. Besides serving as Jesse’s personal physician, Quentin had developed a close working relationship with Jackson. Jesse had (and has) a very engaging personality, and Quentin was known for his persuasiveness. I accepted their proposal to advise Jesse in the Democratic Party primaries — an experience that became my baptism of fire in American politics (I had arrived in 1965 as a political exile from Franco’s Spain).
I had total loyalty to Jesse Jackson. He was, and remains, one of the most articulate leaders I have ever known, among the many that I have advised in many countries. But I was not convinced his strategy would lead him to the White House in 1984. Competing with Walter Mondale (close to former Vice President Hubert Humphrey), Jackson ran as (and was perceived as) the voice of racial minorities and the excluded, demanding to be recognized as part of the Democratic Party — a very necessary task, but different than aspiring to be president of the United States.
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