Blue America Welcomes Carol Moseley Braun, Candidate For Mayor Of Chicago

Blue America has had a running battle with Wall Street shill Rahm Emanuel for as long as we existed as a PAC. Our enthusiasm for Carol Moseley Braun is not about Rahm Emanuel though. Yes, electing him mayor is the worst thing that Chicago could possibly do to itself, but Carol Moseley Braun would be a formidable candidate no matter who the opposition was. Today she's coming on to Crooks and Liars for a live blog session at 3:30pm (CST; 1:30 on the West Coast). When I spoke with her on the phone a few days ago and asked her about the sleazy, relentless and very effective way Emanuel has undermined her in the minds of so many voters, she was eager to talk about her own reasons for running, not about him. She did agree with me, however, and said she's "had to deal with negative racial and gender narratives all through my career. They're not about substance; just about slinging mud and hoping it sticks... In all my years in public service I have never leveraged my elected office or any political connections for private gain." That, of course, is the exact polar opposite of the Rahm Emanuel model, an exemplar of a high level revolving door that has left him a multimillionaire many times over based on one thing and one thing alone: political access.

When Ambassador Braun left the Illinois House of Representatives, where she had been Assistant Majority Leader and an effective champion of progressive causes-- even when it meant going up against powerful conservatives in her own party-- she was dubbed "the conscience of the House." In fact, when she ran for the U.S. Senate, the impetus was to hold conservative Democrat Alan Dixon accountable for an unconscionable and shortsighted vote to confirm Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. In beating Dixon, and going on to win the general election, she became the first woman to defeat an incumbent senator in an election, the first and only female Senator from Illinois and the only African-American woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate. Those are incredible achievements and she has had to fight with some heavily armed opponents every step of the way.

With the withdrawal of state Senator James Meeks and Congressman Danny Davis from the mayor's race-- both have endorsed her-- Carol became the consensus candidate with an actual shot at beating the Big Business-backed Emanuel. Despite Emanuel's very focused disinformation campaign with the corporate media, to Carol and to Chicago reformers with the ability to see past that, this election is a referendum on inclusiveness and transparency in Chicago politics and on what Markos would clearly see as outsiders crashing some of the highest, most forbidding gates in political America.

If you'd like to help Carol Moseley Braun, you can do it at our Blue America page we set up specially for this race. I might add that the first 10 contributions today will elicit a gift from Blue America in the form of Jordan Rubin's powerful new book on healthy eating The Raw Truth.