Split Decision?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}This is a partial transcript from "On the Record," November 3, 2004, that has been edited for clarity.
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GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST: After a long and bitter presidential campaign, Americans are facing a great political divide in this country. Both President Bush and Senator Kerry immediately sought to heal those wounds.
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PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH: Today I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent. To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support. And I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust.
SENATOR JOHN KERRY, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: In the days ahead, we must find common cause. We must join in common effort without remorse or recrimination, without anger or rancor. America is in need of unity and longing for a larger measure of compassion.
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VAN SUSTEREN: Joining us in Washington is the Reverend Jesse Jackson (search), former presidential candidate and president and founder of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and former colleague of mine at CNN, with Lynne Cheney, the vice president's wife. I always add that. Nice to see you, sir.
REVEREND JESSE JACKSON, RAINBOW/PUSH COALITION: Good to see you.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}VAN SUSTEREN: So how did the African-American community do Tuesday night in terms of, were they disenfranchised, or were they able to vote? Any problems?
JACKSON: Well, you know, African-Americans last night, we had a net increase of three congress-people — Al Green from Houston, Reverend Emanuel Cleaver from Kansas City; Gwen Moore from Milwaukee and Barack Obama from Illinois.
And Denise Majette did right well and could have done much better in Georgia had there been a campaign in Georgia. And so now you have a new African-American and a Latino in the U.S. Senate. So that was significant.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The turnout was historically large, overwhelmingly for John Kerry because he represented our interests and he raised the issue of Affirmative Action, raising the minimum wage for working people, preserving overtime pay for overtime work, trying to preserve Social Security. These issues matter to us — there must be some plan to get out of this disastrous war in Iraq. I don't think we can come out by ourselves. We need global help to get out, and I hope that Mr. Bush's reach out to people will include reaching out to our European and other allies to help us get out of that mess in Iraq.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right. I remember in 2000 down in Palm Beach, I saw you there, and there were actually problems associated with the voting, voter intimidation, as well as, I think, The Miami Herald later reported that the poorer communities got poor-working machines. At least, that's what The Miami Herald had concluded. What about yesterday? Are you satisfied that the poorer communities, which are typically African-American, had what they needed to vote?
JACKSON: Well, there still were machine problems. You know, we really have 50 states separate and unequal elections. The richer counties have better machinery. The poorer communities have poorer machinery. And some have second-chance machines, some have punch machines. So we need to really work on evening playing field for all Americans to vote on the big national election day.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The idea in Ohio that they would allow challengers from other communities to come in, basically, to the black community to check their credentials — I cannot imagine a group of black challengers going into a white community to check their voting credentials. It would not be accepted. It's just unnecessary. It is wrong.
But for the most part, there was not the kind of rancor yesterday that we saw in 2000. But we must go a step further and get for all Americans the constitutional right to vote for the president. This idea of the state's right, where the electors can, if they choose to, defy the popular will, is not democratic.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right. In the minute we have left, if you had a half an hour with the president of the United States, what would you say was the single most important issue that you'd like to see him advance for the African-American community in his next term?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}JACKSON: Two things. One is that for the last four years, he has not met one time with organized labor or with Civil Rights organizations to discuss our shared agenda. Secondly, a commitment to Supreme Court judges that are fair. And I hope he makes good on this reach-out commitment. Two years ago, he put a picture of Martin Luther King up in the White House one day, and the next day sent a lawyer to the Supreme Court to kill an African-American. Next year, he put a wreath at Martin Luther King's gravesite. Next day, he put Pickering on the federal bench when Congress was in recess.
And so I hope that he feels he has the freedom now to be the decent guy I know he is to be, but we can tell the tree by the fruit it bears. I think that the attorney general's office — which has been a closed-door office to us — is very critical. The attorney general's office and Supreme Court Justices and federal judges would be a real measure of the authenticity.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, Reverend, nice to see you. Always nice to see you, sir.
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