Changing of the guard - political legacy of former senator Carol Moseley-Braun - Brief Article

Black Enterprise, Jan, 1999 by Eric L. Smith

Carol Moseley-Braun loses bid at second term in Senate

She arrived on the national scene riding a wave of popularity during the "Year of the Woman" elections in 1992 and made history as the first black female member of the Senate. But her popularity was clouded by issues ranging from campaign finance mismanagement to an ill-advised trip to Nigeria, and political foes were able to marshal a campaign to keep her from a second term in office.

Moseley-Braun's troubles overshadowed the initiatives she pursued during her six-year tenure. Among legislation she authored were bills that assisted state and local governments' efforts in repairing crumbling public schools, a bill that expanded opportunities for welfare recipients to obtain vocational education and a bill that created a 5% set aside in federal contracts for women- and minority-owned businesses.

"The Senate has not traditionally had working class members," said Moseley-Braun. "Most have been of wealth--either inherited or self-made. I was female, working class and black. I joked it was a triple-dose of diversity." The Senator says that her unique perspective helped make policy-making better. "I was able to speak up for women when the issue was retirement security, and could advocate the interest of African Americans when the issues were about social and economic integration," she says, still sounding somewhat hurt just days after her defeat.

Despite her accomplishments, David Bositis, a political analyst with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, says Moseley-Braun's defeat wasn't unexpected. "She had been looking vulnerable for a long time," he says. In addition to her internal struggles, Moseley-Braun was also a victim of political bad timing, says Bositis. "She was elected in 1992. Two years later, the Republicans took over the Senate and suddenly she was a black female junior member of the Senate whose party was in the minority. It's a recipe for being ineffective."

Not surprisingly, money was also an issue in the campaign. Moseley-Braun, who says she spent upwards of $8 million on her reelection bid, estimates her opponent, Republican Peter Fitzgerald, spent twice as much to get elected. "The one thing she could have done that might have helped was to raise a lot of money to counter his attacks, but she didn't," says Bositis.

Moseley-Braun agrees. "The money was not there and that had a double impact," she says. "Not only wasn't I able to spend as much on media as my opponent, but the time I could have spent campaigning in other parts of the state I had to devote to fund-raising."

Even more important than Moseley-Braun's defeat is the fact that there's now no African American presence in the U.S. Senate, says Ron Walters, a political scientist at the University of Maryland. "If one body of our political institution now has no blacks participating what does that say? There's no substitute for the blacks being able to represent themselves as part of our mosaic. And our absence continues to say we're not yet whole," says Walters. "She was a point person for issues having to deal with the black agenda and she carried many from the Congressional Black Caucus into the Senate."

So who's in the pipeline?

Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-Tennessee) and J. Kenneth Blackwell, the secretary of state in Ohio, have been mentioned as having Senatorial potential. But both Walters and Bositis say New York State Comptroller H. Carl McCall (see "The Fundmaster," October 1998) is best positioned to catapult himself onto a national stage. "McCall is definitely someone to keep an eye on," says Walters. "You need someone who has an established record to win that office. He has a record and has had a number of whites vote for him in the past. [Sen. Daniel Patrick] Moynihan stepping down in New York gives him an opening, and I'd be surprised if he didn't go for it."

As for Moseley-Braun, she says a return to public office right now looks doubtful. "Running for office is a difficult thing and I'm not looking to do that again any time soon. But I'll maintain some type of presence. I can't divorce myself from the great debates of our time after being in the middle of' the political process for the last 20 years. So it's likely I'll carve out some type of a role in the future." Her next stop: the University of Chicago, where she's been offered a teaching engagement that's expected to start later this year.