Civil-rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson visited local Democratic Party officials Saturday to say he is building a grass-roots campaign in South Carolina to get out the vote for the Feb. 3 presidential primary.

He also urged local presidential campaign representatives not to beat each other up in the media, which he said would divide the party and give Republicans fodder to attack the nominee in the general election.

“It would be best to assert their positions and not negate others,” Jackson said in an interview afterward. “They should turn to each other and not turn on each other.”

Jackson offered few details about his grass-roots strategy other than that his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition is building a chapter in Charleston and will work throughout the state. The social-justice group already has an office in Greenville, where Jackson was raised.

Jackson’s son, U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois, endorsed presidential front-runner Howard Dean in South Carolina in December. Jackson Sr. said he will not endorse a candidate.

Jackson, who is in South Carolina this weekend visiting churches and unions, contacted the party at nearly midnight Friday about meeting with campaign leaders. Representatives from the campaigns of Sen. John Edwards, former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark and Sen. Joe Lieberman attended, as did several S.C. party leaders.

South Carolina will “be a showdown state” that will play a major role in who challenges President Bush, Jackson said. But right now, he said, “Too many people have too little interest” in any of the candidates.

To defeat Bush, Democrats must work together and motivate S.C. voters by telling them how they will reverse job losses and help the poor pay for health insurance and college, he said.

Jackson criticized the progress of the war on terror: “We have Saddam Hussein, but we also have an orange alert.”

Those are issues that will make blacks and whites vote for Democrats, he said. “Whether you’re white, black or brown,” he said, “when they close the plant and turn the lights out, they all look amazingly similar.”

Reach Talhelm at (803) 771-8339 or jtalhelm@thestate.com.