OK, this is pretty late, like 20 years, but over at Salon Steve Kornacki has an interesting (to me) piece on attempts by various would-be presidential candidates to win their party’s nomination by announcing a choice for vice-president prior to the convention. Back in 1992, Jerry Brown was hounding Bill Clinton in the New York primary. Brown thought to nail down the black vote by picking Jesse Jackson as his running mate. According to Kornacki,* the New York Times wrote up an encounter between Jerry and Big Apple voters in the following manner:
Mr. Brown tried to get back on track by saying the questions over Mr. Jackson were “a graphic demonstration of the split within this community, within this society.”
But many in the audience called out, “No,” murmuring that there was not a split between Jews and blacks; there was a split between Jews and Mr. Jackson.
Back in the day, those NYT reporters had awfully sharp ears!
*Steve doesn’t supply a link or a name for the quote. Sorry!
