A Tale of Two Jesse Jacksons

January 16, 2002 7:01 PM

A Tale of Two Jesse Jacksons In the battle to maintain his congressional seat, Rep. Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D., Ill.) is up against... Jesse L. Jackson?

Yep, a 68-year-old truck driver named Jesse Jackson is running in the primaries against the son of the best-known Jesse, Reverend Jesse L. Jackson. Jackson Jr. has occused the other Jackson of being a fraud, put up to running by Jr.'s rivals. Jackson Jr. was in court Tuesday, but the judge thwarted his efforts to get the other Jackson thrown off the ballot, denying Jr. the opportunity to questions alleged conspirators. The other Jackson, for his part, has given conflicting testimony in two court appearances. (Confused yet?) So far, no word as to what Rev. Jackson has to say about all this.
posted by me3dia (8 comments total)

This kind of shenanigans happens all the time in local elections whenever one candidate has really high name recognition and the other party gets desperate. It's like a combination of a prank and a cry for help.
posted by rodii at 7:23 PM on January 16, 2002

cf. The Distinguished Gentleman
posted by NoMoreLSAT at 7:44 PM on January 16, 2002

Fun little history lesson: JFK's father hired someone with the same name as his son's competitor to run for office so John could win the Democratic primaries, which ultimately helped. Not to mention that his father was one hell of a crook.
posted by Mach3avelli at 7:59 PM on January 16, 2002

Real history lesson: John F. Kennedy won 22,183 votes in the 1946 11th congressonal Democratic primary, Joe Russo the politician won 5,661 votes, and Joe Russo the Janitor managed 799 votes. Oh, and the nearest challenger was actually Michael Neville, who received 11,341 votes. If JFK beat his nearest competitor by nearly 11,000 votes and the "real" Joe Russo by over 16,000 votes, 799 votes for a janitor helped him how?
posted by dchase at 8:43 PM on January 16, 2002

Yeah, well, the JFK Library would say that, wouldn't they?

shifty eyes, x-files theme
posted by obiwanwasabi at 9:27 PM on January 16, 2002

...and because it didn't help JFK, it wasn't a dirty trick :)
posted by Lionfire at 9:55 PM on January 16, 2002

Damn, if the Florida ballot wasn't confusing enough...
posted by MonkeyMeat at 11:48 PM on January 16, 2002

In the election for London Mayor a couple of years ago Frank S Dobson, a retired publisher from Surrey stood against the Labour candidate Frank Dobson. Interesting article about other cases on the BBC website .
posted by brettski at 3:24 AM on January 17, 2002