POLITICS 88 : CAMPAIGN ’88 : Jackson: Bush Is Easier

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, sounding ever more the serious presidential candidate, suggested Sunday that Bush would be an easier Republican opponent for Democrats than Dole because the vice president “certainly has a lot of baggage.”

Jackson, interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press” the morning after his victory in the South Carolina Democratic caucuses, criticized Bush for failing to show leadership in combatting drugs and terrorism, the two issues over which Bush was given responsibility in the Reagan Administration.

“There is a leadership factor on the George Bush side, I think, that makes him vulnerable,” Jackson said.

When asked about statements he has made on the campaign trail, Jackson was forced to modify his claim that workers in South Korea, which recently held free elections, were “slave labor.” Instead, Jackson conceded, they were “somewhere between cheap and slave. At least, it is oppressed labor.”

Jackson also did not challenge the arithmetic of his interviewers, who suggested that the principal elements of his deficit-reduction plan--an estimated 10% cut in defense spending and a sharp increase in the tax rate for those making more than $200,000 a year--would leave him far short of a balanced budget.

“You have to start someplace,” Jackson said.