Carol Mosely Braun

Posted on July 22, 2003 in Campaign 2004

The article slipped off my sidebar index and Shawn’s comment is worth repeating:

Another White Guy for Carol, huh–Or am I presuming too much? Anyway *this* white guy thinks she’s saying all the right things.

Some of the others appeal to me too, and Kerry is sounding very presidential to my ear. But so is Carol, dang it. So few people will talk about her ideas or positions. They just see a black woman with a shady past and questionable motives, not even stopping to think that by repeating unproven allegations they’re playing into the hands of unscrupulous people who would plant lies in the press for political gain. That stinks.

My count of Braun supporters so far is two white men and one white woman. I suspect that she has more African American supporters who I just don’t know.

Throughout my political life I have been committed to opening the ways for women and non-WASPs. This year — as I was being attacked (though I was noncommitted at the time) for being a “racist” Dean supporter by members of a household who supported Kucinich and Edwards — I realized that there was a viable candidate who reflected my views who was both a woman and an African American.

“Oh,” I hear. “But she’s not viable.” They bring up, as Shawn noted, her “history” which, in the end, was shown to be a lie. (We trust the mainstream media which turns a blind eye to the many offenses of George W. Bush to say who is a good person and who is a bad one?) They call her unelectable, but they don’t dare say why. It’s because she’s a woman and because she’s African American. Which makes them sell-outs to the white old boys network and to white owned, white-written media.

I have nothing to gain from supporting Carol Mosely Braun except the sense that I am finally doing the right thing — that I am granting an opportunity to turn this country in a new direction to a person who will bring fresh views because of her background. We whine about the “boy’s club” that Bush represents, but I dare say every other one of the Democratic candidates (except Sharpton) has fattened on the teats of that same bitch goddess, Success (as William James referred to it in a letter to H.G. Wells). They are white men, their take on the world is that of white men.

Braun offers a different take. I’d like to see where we can go with that. The only thing that makes her unelectable is the fact that the people who can do the most to make her viable will not take the necessary leap of faith.

I am taking that jump, now, in the primaries where it matters. We won’t be seeing any African American woman president if we sit on our hands and wait for the Democrats or the Republicans to select one for us. We must do the selecting.

So, though there is nothing to gain except the sense that I have done the right thing, I endorse Carol Mosely Braun.