Kerry must fight back, Jesse Jackson says

On the eve of a voter registration drive in Georgia, the Rev. Jesse Jackson criticized Democratic Sen. John Kerry's campaign Monday for lying down in "Dukakis fashion" to Republican punches and urged Kerry to go on the offensive over issues that matter most to struggling Americans. Jackson hammered the Bush administration for the war in Iraq, joblessness, rising education costs and leaving 45 million Americans -- disproportionately young and black -- without health insurance. Jackson plans to raise those issues on his three-day tour of college campuses in Georgia and North Florida. He said 17 million eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 25 did not vote in the 2000 election. "Young America has to come alive," Jackson said in a teleconference Monday. Sponsored by the Citizenship Education Fund, which is part of Jackson's nonprofit Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the tour will also target poor African-Americans. Jackson said 500,000 eligible blacks are not registered to vote in Georgia and that 60 percent of Georgians make less than $20,000 a year.[more ]