Some thoughts about Carol M-B's weird candidacy.

[rpf113]

Honestly at first I thought Carol Mausely-Braun was going to be the candidate who best represented the African-American community and she was my favourite. She seemed to be so sweet and honest. She charmed me. On the first poll I took I voted for her. But then every time she talked she sounded like she was coming from another planet. And what was up with her constant attacking of Edwards? And now she's WORKING for the Dean campaign? Did Dean draft her for the campaign? There is something very weird about her entire candidacy. Can anybody explain?

[rpf113]

1. Did nobody else find her candidacy a little odd?

For one thing she played the race card herself and then criticized Sharpton for bringing up a legitimate question about Dean's record of hiring minority cabinet members.

[gottaB]

21. I actually think it's odd that you're posting this

You can read some of my thoughts on Braun's withdrawal and the issues you're raising from an an earlier post of mine.

It really does come down to the money, I'm afraid. An interesting fact about Braun's donor demographics, they gave the most as a proportion of their average annual incomes. That's not the kind of support base you can keep hitting up over and over. Without a solid foundation you just can't get your message out, and that was always Braun's problem. She rarely got more than 3% of the media coverage devoted to the Democratic candidates, and the coverage she did receive wasn't all good. Major media outlets made the decision not to cover her (or Sharpton or Kucinich), and in fact she became even less visible in the last few months, if you can imagine that. Most voters barely knew who she was, including African American voters.

Really. African American woman has hard time raising money for presidential campaign, being taken seriously in a world dominated by white men. Film at Eleven. Is that what you mean by "odd"? The very fact that you think she might have been a natural choice for African Americans just goes to show what great progress she did make.

[Cheswick2.0]

63. How did she play the race card?

I'd really like to know.

[WiseMen]

2. Report was She is now a 20K/mounth Consultant. Hope she cashed check

[Jerseycoa]

29. I hope she's not getting paid

until the staff gets paid.

[Clark Can WIN]

34. I hope the Deli guy and the other small business owners

get paid first.

[Cheswick2.0]

64. that was all taken care of

thanks for your concern

[Clark Can WIN]

75. As a small business owner

Yes I was concerned. Margins are tighter than nickel bridge at a retirement home. It matters.

I'm glad to hear that it was taken care of, shouldn't have happened in the first place and if it was my guys campaign that did it I would be just as concerned. I wouldn't make excuses, I'd feel bad for the guy.

[leyton]

3. I found her focus on constitutional issues odd.

I didn't pay close attention, but I noticed that most of what she said when asked about her plan for America was broad statements about renewing democracy and renewing the constitution, etc. There wasn't always substance to back it up.

[rpf113]

4. I think odd is exactly the word to describe her candidacy.

Did she do it just for the 20k a month consulting fees?
Was she running for a cabinet position?
She baffles me.
She said she wanted to represent black women and other underrepresented minorituies, but then dropped out so quickly and ran to Dean.

[Cheswick2.0]

66. perhaps you should have donated to her campaign

She might still be in. But then I guess it would have been very "odd" for you to have done so.

[Cheswick2.0]

65. Odd

Odd how you all like to use the word odd when you want to smear someone.

[gottaB]

74. Top of the morning to you, Cheswick

And isn't it odd to be debating CMB at this time?

[gottaB]

77. Well, perhaps you weren't paying close attention

Positions CMB took that had constitutional grounds:

• Oppose the IRW
  
• Oppose PATRIOT USA
  
• Support "right to privacy," Roe v. Wade
  
• Support "freedom to love," gay marriage
  
• Respect the Judiciary, oppose putting ideologues on the bench
  
• The establishment clause, seperation of church and state
  

She has a record of siding with the ACLU on just about everything except campaign finance reforms, because it conflicts with her other goal of renewing democracy. What substance to that? Voting rights for felons who have served their time. Voting rights for DC. Allowing an African American woman to govern....

[EXE619K]

5. Oh come on!

It's one thing to criticize Dean, but to drag CMB into all this.....

Thanks people.

[Cheswick2.0]

67. It's very odd, don't you think?

I wonder why today of all days they decide to accuse CMB of being "odd".

[displacedtexan]

6. I lived in IL during her rise and fall.

We all had such high hopes for her.
Dean probably hired her to bring in the African-American vote. Unfortunately, there are many more powerful black leaders, who have already been tapped by other candidates.
Bringing her in this late is... well, I'll let Dean supporters address that. I just know that IL voters aren't likely to support her chosen candidate.

[Cheswick2.0]

70. Funny, I lived in Il during her rise and fall too

as I remember it was Rove dirty tricks that brought down her reelection.

[Clark Can WIN]

76. The GREAT SATAN

He must get such a kick out of being everybody's boogeyman.

[gottaB]

78. follow the money

this is common sense, not bedtime stories

[PAMod]

7. She ran for President to rebuild her reputation.

she took a beating the last couple years for some things and was trying to re-assert herself as a serious player.

I doubt the Dean campaign had anything to do with it. Truth is, sometimes these candidates actually get to know one another over time. That's not a bad thing, either.

[angee_is_mad]

8. Very Simple

The woman needed a job. What better platform to use to get exposure, when everyone had forgotten who she was? The ones who remember her, remember the controversies. So she had to remake herself.

It worked because she saw the momentum that Dean had at the time and she was able to get on the bandwagon and get a job.

Poor, unfortunate woman. Seems like she can't buy a break.

[leyton]

10. Running for presidency is not something you do to beef up your resume.

If you want to run for President, you ought to do it because you want to President (hopefully because you want to do things as President, not just sleep in the Lincoln bedroom), not because you need a job and hope that a candidacy will help you get it.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

12. I agree, which is why I've lost all respect for her.

[Cheswick2.0]

68. Yes she ran for President

You are much more fortunate I am sure.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

9. Donna Brazille encouraged her to run as a "stop Sharpton" candidate.

Donna Brazille is aligned with the Dean camp. She and Braun are long-term friends and Braun wouldn't do anything without Brazille's encouragement.

[angee_is_mad]

13. Are you sure about Donna?

When I listen to her, it seems that she leans more toward Clark and Kerry, sometimes even Edwards. Oops that Carville that really likes Edwards.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

33. I'm not positive. She does seem like she tries to be positive about all of

them. I do get the feeling that she does like Dean and is especially "protective" of him. I've never heard her say a thing about Clark...

[elsiesummers]

43. I read this also.

Initially there was fear that Sharpton would take off in a big way and then run as an Independant (go off the reservation) when he didn't get the nod. So Brazille recruited Moseley-Braun to stop Sharpton.

I would speculate that she wouldn't have dropped out if Sharpton had proved to be disloyal to the party. Sharpton has been totally on board and allayed(sp?) fears. But, this is just guessing.

[Cheswick2.0]

71. that's nothing but gossip

and Brazille is closer to the Kerry campaign.

[indigo32]

11. Why bring this up now?

BTW I loved almost everything she had to say.
It was common sense when she talked about single-payor healthcare and fixing the mess in Iraq. She brought plenty to the table.

[JasonBerry]

14. CMB

CMB was a vanity candidate and that's all. She really wasn't even a candidate in the eyes of most observers. She showed up for the televised debates and that's about all. I honestly think CMB ran for one reason and that was an attempt to rehabilitate herself after all the controversies. Actually, she's very lucky she's not in jail. The fact they didn't go ahead with prosecution on those things means nothing. She was right in the thick of serious corruption. I cringed when she endorsed Dean.

[AP]

19. She announced her candidacy after Sharpton announced his.

I suspect she only ran to make sure that Sharpton wasn't seen as the voice of black America.

Which is weird because CMB never talked about race, she crticized others who did, and she called critics who (very legitimately) raised issues with Dean's chat on race, "racists" (which is unbelievably unhelpful for people who want to take race seriously).

Furthermore, in a final shot at Sharpton I heard CMB's campaign manager give a wrap-up interview yesterday during which she really tried hard to smear Sharpton.

If I had to guess, I'd say they're all getting corporate money to make sure that race doesn't develop into a message about downward and outward wealth distribution.

[mouse7]

23. Sharpton endorsed Bloomfield... sounds like CMB is a loyal DEM

CMB is a fantastic Democrat.

[AP]

55. It's "Bloomberg" and Harvey Weinstein did too, and Bloomberg

was a Dem up until he decided to run for mayor, and his staff is almost entirely Dem.

[Tinoire]

26. Jason! Thank you! CMB was NO representative of the Black Community

The word on the street is that she was asked to run to split the Black vote. They so miscalculated. There was no way Black people were going to vote for her after that scandal with that Nigerian dictator, Sani Abacha dictator, and his slaughter of the natives.

There wasn't squat on her web-site. Not a single issue paper drafted or sumbmitted.

I go further though. Braun and even Sharpton were asked into the race to split the antiwar vote.

Carol Mosely-Braun has always only been for Carol Mosely-Braun. Ask any Chicago Black- she's not well liked. I'm really glad she's out.

This guy covers her pretty well for anyone who cares: http://www.wallofsleep.com/pM/weblog.php?id=D20040123

[mouse7]

37. CMB's website HAS 10 different issue category pages

http://www.carolforpresident.com/content.php?page=issues

Go look. Betcha didn't know it was still up so I could show people what CMB's positions on many complex issues actually was, huh?

And please stop asking us to accept some silly blog as evidence. All the documents from Carol Moseley Braun's Senate confirmation hearings for her appointment as Ambassador are right elsewhere on CMB's campaign website. The documents (in the form of downloadable pdf file) that prove all the charges you are claiming are nothing but neo-con rubbish.

[Tinoire]

54. Yeah right. With from 30 - 200 words on them.

Some issue pages. Carol Mosely Braun was slammed by the Physicians for Health Care who evaluated all the health-care plans. She didn't have squat to submit. No depth to any of them.

Please. Some of us have actually done our homework.

[mouse7]

41. Read post #15

I can post the link to each and every document that shrads each and ever charge you are making against CMB. The CMB campaign website is still up, and all the pdf files are there to disprove all that opposition reseach Fitgerald paid a fortune to Karl Rove to create.

The far-higher standards set for minorities in the US political system is repugnant.

[mouse7]

15. CMB IS more experienced than Edwards, Dean, or Clark

A full term in the Senate PLUS serving as an Ambassador PLUS great work as a Prosecutor MEANS Braun is a more experience Presidential Candidate than Edwards, Clark, or Dean.

The claims of wrongdoing against her were completely trumped up by racist neo-cons... literally. There are racist remarks found on the IRS investigation file by the agent in charge of the investigation.

She cleared full IRS audits going back for years.

An full audit of her Senate campaign came up with grand total of $311 (yes... three hundred and eleven dollar total) in financial transactions put in the wrong ledger column.

Buuuuuuuut... she's African-American... so she must be goofy.

[AP]

17. Between her election and her swearing in she ran arround

and gave speaches for pharmaceutical companies for huge honariaria. She made something like 300K in that very short time period. She had to squeeze it all in because it would have been unethical to take that money after getting sworn in. Nonetheless, the appearance of impropriety was plainly visible (and she went on to bend over for big pharma as a senator).

Her fiancee at the time (husband now?) was a lobbyist for Nigeria and Abacha's CRIMINAL, HOMICIDAL government (which was run for the benefit of Shell Oil). I hope she loved him for his personality, because his job sucked.

[mouse7]

20. Links please.

They better be good links, because CMB's campaign website show the Senate confirmation hearing records for her Ambassador nomination that show that CMB was in Africa for an extended period of time immediately following her successful election meeting her fiancee's family as well as African leaders like Mandela and Tutu.

Hard to make all these pharmaceutical industry speeches when you are simulataneously in Africa meeting Nelson Mandela.

[Tinoire]

27. Here's one. You can google the rest

But she also became known for something less laudatory: scandal. Mike Royko, in 1996, wrote about it. George Will wrote about it in 1998, shortly before the people of Illinois chose not to reelect her to the Senate.

What was the scandal? Here’s the short version: Carol Moseley Braun’s fiancé, Kgosie Matthews, was also her campaign manager. It turned out that he was a hired agent for the government of Nigeria. While in the Senate, she opposed sanctions against Nigeria, and made many visits there. On a secret, unauthorized diplomatic jaunt, she meet with General Sani Abacha, then the hated dictator of that benighted country. As a rule, it isn’t considered good form for U.S. Senators to conduct independent foreign policy, and in this case it was considerably worse than that. The man was known as a brutal murderer, and both the Congress and the administration were seeking sanctions against his country. Senator Moseley Braun, in the midst of all this, met with him, and thereby lent him support and stature he neither deserved nor which anyone else in the U.S. wanted to give him.

Mike Royko said she was “about the only member of Congress who keeps insisting that Nigeria’s government is misunderstood and that we ought to try being nicer.” Suffice it to say that Nigeria, in those days, was not particularly well-regarded.

There were many who criticized that trip. For example, William Cleeland said:

This trip is probably the most stunning lapse in judgment of Moseley-Braun’s entire career. Not only was it condemned by the State Department, the U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria and many African-American leaders, but she refused to meet with any pro-democracy activists during the trip.


More here: http://www.wallofsleep.com/pM/weblog.php?id=D20040123

[JasonBerry]

28. well done - as always. n/t

[mouse7]

36. You hand me George Will, Mike Royko, and Karl Rove?

You ARE kidding right? Mike Royko was the right-wing at it's ugliest. (creater of Jerry Brown tag "Gov. Moonbeam") George Will is unarguably a tool of the neo-cons.

Don't you know that Fitgerald hired KARL ROVE to do his opposition research on Braun? These things you said about CMB were straight out of Fitgerald's 98 campaign. You are using KARL ROVE's words to disrespect a good Democrat.

As for the trips to Nigeria, she was engaged to Matthews, a Nigerian national. Lots of people travel to meet the family of those who they are getting ready to marry. She also had a friendship with this dictator's son. She had met that man years prior to her Senate run. She went to the dictator's son wedding, and the dictator's son's funeral, after he was killed in a plane crash. CMB was in the same room as this dictator twice, and spoke to him only once - at the son's funeral. She took the opportunity the one time she spoke to the dictator to express the concerns the State Dep't had with his regime. She (and her fiancee) proved they paid for their own tickets and accomdations on these trips. No money ever was recieved by CMB on any of these trips. No gifts. No nothing. On these so called "secret trips to Nigeria", as Karl Rove named them, CMB also met Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, as well as several other important African regional leaders.

You know why Karl Rove claims the trips were secret? Because CMB didn't scedule press conferences to announce she was taking the trips. Yes. Seriously. Karl Rove says CMB was making secret trips becasue she didn't hold press conferences to annopunce she was taking them.

So... any more of Karl Rove garbage on good Democrats that need to be corrected, let me know.

[Tinoire]

69. No I am not kidding. You google the thing based on the FACTS

presented. Just because Limbaugh says Bush is President, does that make it any less so?

Take the damn facts and cross-reference them. There's plenty out there. Try a few Black BBs while you're at it- the Chicago boards are the richest.

[AP]

46. Is Democracy Now and Charles Levine a good link?

Some of my details were off, but I won't get them wrong the next time.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/09/1541218

Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public
Integrity. He is the author of the new book "The Buying of the
President 2004: Who's Really Bankrolling Bush and His
Democratic Challengers -- and What They Expect in Return."


TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: Okay. Well, Charles Lewis, a quick test, which
candidate was paid by the pharmaceutical firm to give speeches while
running for the senate?

CHARLES LEWIS: That was Carol Moseley-Braun.

...


AMY GOODMAN: As we move down the alphabetical list, Carol
Moseley-Braun.

CHARLES LEWIS: Carol Moseley-Braun is the person who gave
speeches. I mentioned Glaxo-Wellcome paid her $20,000, which is
one-third of her income, the year she was a candidate, and there was a
senate ban on speech honoraria. In other words, they couldn't receive
it, but she was a senator-elect, not a senator, so weeks before taking the
oath - there is a pattern with her of repeatedly poor judgment on ethical
matters where she was under a cloud, under scandals, under
investigations, monies - there was problems with her staff and her
money being spent by her senate office. So, there are a lot of things
involving the conduct while in office involving money that were very,
very interesting, but, you know, she embraced Glaxo-Wellcome, back
to them, the pharmaceutical industry. Powerful interests were close to
her in her short time in the senate.

[mouse7]

49. Ooopsie... CMB supports single payer health care

That position is diametrically opposed to the agenda of corporate health care. In other words, IT WASN'T ILLEGAL, and CMB CLEARLY is not acting in the interest of Glaxo-Wellcome by supporting single payer health care.

The supposed "cloud" is all the Rove-rubbish I previously destroyed....ALL $311 OF IT.

[AP]

57. No it's not. Single or multiple payer, you still need to buy drugs

and Big Pharma, I bet, would love to get no-compete Halliburton-sytle contracts to provide drugs to a single payer system.

Also, what about what this guy says? It's certainly not enough to cite and imaginary inconsistency.

[Tinoire]

56. Psssst... You're preaching to several African-Americans

and we'll call you on your BULL. I certainly do.

[KoKo]

62. Here's what William Salatan (Slate) said about Moseley-Braun & Nigerian

incident. If anyone want's to see what that was really all about.

http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:_L21_fMVTgEJ:slate.msn.com/id/2087542/+Carol+Moseley-Braun,+Nigeria&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[AP]

16. She was on a radio call-in show yesterday and it was weird

She was asked about fiscal improprieties and she had one mantra she kept repeating: "I've never been fined by the FEC." It wasn't much of a disclaimer. Her excuses for going to Nigeria were weird. Her husband was a lobbyist for the Nigerian government and she kept saying these people were her friends whom she visited. The interviewer who was trying to be positive had to keep asking more pointed questions thanks to Carol's weirdness. The interviewer asked if she was friends with Ken Saro-wiwa's family. Answer: no. She asked if she's visited her "friends" in Nigeria since she left the senate. "No. Too busy." Some friend.

Then her campaign manager came on and was even worse. She had to talk about why she had been fired from some job and she really wasn't giving very convincing arguments.

The whole thing was a mess. However, the callers in didn't seem to notice -- their calls were generally very friendly.

[mouse7]

18. The FEC doesn't fine for $311 total errors in 8 figure senate campaigns

$311 dollar. That's it. That's what the discussion has been about for all these years. It's a joke.

Name a person in the country that could completely clear full IRS audits going back three years prior to when the investigation began? CMB's tax records were PERFECT in three years full back audit.

CMB is a GREAT DEMOCRAT.

[AP]

22. What about the big pharma honoraria b/w election & swearing in?

And what about doing them favors as a Senator?

What do you think Ken Saro-Wiwa's family thinks about Carol's trips to Nigeria with her lobbyist fiance?

[mouse7]

25. Hard to make those speches simultaniously while in Africa

The time period you claim CMB was making all those speeches was the exact same time CMB was on the African trip meeting her fiancee's family, Mandela, and Tutu.

As for her fiancee's job, you can't help who you fall in love with. Ask James Carville.

[AP]

47. Sounds like she was really getting her ducks in row then.

[mouse7]

52. Conversations with wise people like Mandela and Tutu do that. n/t

[AP]

59. You implied that you were gong to address whatever was provided

to you through links. I'm not sure that what you're saying now is responsive to Levine's comments on Democracy Now.

[mouse7]

42. I forgot to mention CMB's support of single payer health plan

"We pay more as a percentage of our Gross Domestic Product for health care than any other country. And Americans are no sicker than Japanese or Germans or French or Canadians, for that matter. The difference is that we don't pay for our health care in a very sensible way. So my view is that we have tinkered with Medicare on the one hand, Medicaid on the other, CHIPs and all the various programs -- all of these efforts to try to fix the employment-based system that we have. I think it's time to just say if we're going to have universal coverage, then we need to figure out a way to pay for it in a comprehensive way. And to my view, after all these years of looking at it, I've come to conclude that a single payer system is the way to go."

Remarks by Carol Moseley Braun
NewsHour, PBS June 9, 2003

http://www.carolforpresident.com/content.php?page=issues_issue1

We all know how much the Health Care Corporations hate Single Payer Health Care. If CMB was a tool for the drug companies, why is she so emphatic about single payer health care?

[AP]

48. Maybe she was going to build in som profits for Big Pharma?

[mouse7]

51. Single payer means NON-PROFIT health care system

How do you build big profits into a non-profit system? Gee, one can't, can one?

[AP]

58. Single-payer means if you want to sell your drugs for a huge

profit to the government, you better buy off a few senators.

Big Pharma knows its days are numbered and they want to be on the inside (and super profitable) no matter what happens.

And what's your argument here? CMB DIDN"T take money from the? Or that she did, but they weren't trying to buy anything?

And is CMB like your aunt or something? Why so intent on rescuing her credibility?

[TedsGarage]

24. She couldn't run for Senate

She really wanted to run for her old Senate seat here in Illinois, but the consensus was, she had her chance, she blew it. So she ran for president to get her name back in the headlines. Now Howard Dean is buying her off for $20K per month. As LaBelle sang, "Hey sister, go sister, gotta get that dough, sister."

[bhunt70]

35. She was on TV stating she is not getting paid at all.

can someone provide a link.

[gottaB]

40. No, she is not on the Dean campaign payroll

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3632947,00.html

[genius]

30. I think they cut a deal.

It's sad.

[elsiesummers]

45. She was definitely behind Dean in

her last two debates.

It looked like he would be the nominee at that point.

I think she wanted a cabinet position.

Hey, she played the cards as she saw them. At this point I'd guess it didn't work out particularly well.


Who can blame her though, you know? My impression is that making alliances, picking a team, is how politics is played.

[rpf113]

31. I just want to make it clear...

I don't really have an opinion one way or the other, I just think her candidacy was rather 'odd'.

[mouse7]

32. Candidate with high level experience in all 3 branches is odd?

Clark has no experience in anything but the military, yet he thinks the Presidency is an entry level job in civilian government. That "odd-er."

A trial lawyer with less than a full term in the senate is "odd-er."

A governor with no federal government experience is "odd-er."

A clergyman with no experience in government whatsoever is "odd-er."

Carol Mosely Braun was a highly-experienced Presidential candidate.

[tinanator]

38. corporatist punk

selling out anything she can lay claim to. thats what she has experience at. And plenty of it.

[mouse7]

39. Links please.... Why was CMB for Single payer health plan?

"We pay more as a percentage of our Gross Domestic Product for health care than any other country. And Americans are no sicker than Japanese or Germans or French or Canadians, for that matter. The difference is that we don't pay for our health care in a very sensible way. So my view is that we have tinkered with Medicare on the one hand, Medicaid on the other, CHIPs and all the various programs -- all of these efforts to try to fix the employment-based system that we have. I think it's time to just say if we're going to have universal coverage, then we need to figure out a way to pay for it in a comprehensive way. And to my view, after all these years of looking at it, I've come to conclude that a single payer system is the way to go."

Remarks by Carol Moseley Braun
NewsHour, PBS June 9, 2003

http://www.carolforpresident.com/content.php?page=issues_issue1

If CMB was a "corporate punk," why did she support single payer health care? Medical Corps HATE single payer health care.


You need evidence that stands up to the pdf file documents I can get from the CMB campaign website, like I did last time.

CMB is an outstanding Democrat who was more progressive than the vast majority of the Democrats on Capital Hill.

[tinanator]

44. pro occupation

case closed. AS IF she was going to enable a single payer health care system. In fact, what is so anti-corporate about a single payer plan? Thats just a wanna be payoff to anybodys favorite insurance company. COME ON!!!!

[mouse7]

50. What's anti-corporate about single payer? It's NON-PROFIT.

Health care would become a non-profit activity in a single payer system. What's non-corporate about non-profit organizations?

Iraq... He's what CMB was saying in March, 2003...

"As the nation prepares for war in Iraq, we must remember that war may be avoided until the moment the first shots are fired. It is still in the President's power to chart a wiser course, and today I urge him to do so: Mr. President, call off this war!

"All too often, war is an expression of failure. In this case, the diplomatic efforts of the United States have failed less because of the intransigence of other nations than because of the Administration's lack of sincerity, patience or confidence in the rule of law.

"In its rush to war, the Administration has obscured the goals, dissimulated the costs, disparaged our friends and allies and branded as unpatriotic ordinary Americans who pose legitimate questions. It has squandered the universal credit and sympathy America received after 9/11, and it has damaged our alliances and the United Nations."

Remarks by Carol Moseley Braun
Press Conference
San Francisco CA, March 19, 2003

I don't think telling the President to call off the invasion was a pro-corporate position, either.

----

Post-war Iraq...

"The fact of the matter is, however, that we don't cut and run. Americans don't cut and run. We have to support our troops in the field. I think supporting them not only means giving the command on the ground what they need but even supplies. I spoke to the mother of a young man who's serving abroad, serving in Iraq now, and she was complaining about the fact that they don't even have the things they need in the field. So we are in a position now in which we have - this administration has frittered away the goodwill, failed to go after Al Qaeda and bin Laden, thumbed their nose at old Europe and the international community, left our troops in the field without the resources they need and put us in a situation in which they have no answer for the American people how we can get out with honor.

"It seems to me that that is the challenge. And so I welcome the international community. I am grateful that they are considering some burden sharing here. I hope that it will allow us, within the tradition of U.S. command and control over our own forces, allow us to extricate ourselves with honor but continue a viable war on terrorism that gets bin Laden and his pals and all the people who would do harm to the American people."

Remarks by Carol Moseley Braun
Democratic National Committee Debate, Albuquerque, NM
September 4, 2003

So CMB wants the US out after we can get an international force in. Even Kucinich admits his withdrawl plan needs the UN to be in place before the US troops can leave. So CMB was preety much right there pretty close to Kucinich

http://www.carolforpresident.com/content.php?page=issues_issue3

Ahhh... but because CMB is African-American, she is a "traitor" if she doesn't have the MOST liberal plan, right? Seems likeridiculously high standards compared to the white candidates in the field.

Don't see people on John Edwards threads screaming he's a traitor, huh? Funny, isn't it.

[tinanator]

60. Non-profit?

What are you talking about? It is what Hillary would like to have done for her friends Aetna. There is only one candidate who has the temerity to say "not for profit health care" and CMB has no problem with corporations profiting from death and misery.

[KoKo]

61. I think CMB was "Gored" in Illinois to get rid of her. I've read her

"trouble" over the nursing home thing with her mother and the friend in Nigeria were overblown. Maybe folks in Ilinois werent onto the RW media propaganda at that time. But, wouldn't anyone take a second look at what was said about her when we here know that the Media has been whores for way longer than we knew, and that Conrad Black owned the very paper that supposedly "exposed" her?

[Cheswick2.0]

72. I think Clarks Candidacy is rather "odd"

but that's just me.

[Cheswick2.0]

73. I think Clarks Candidacy is rather "odd"

but that's just me.

[LosAngelesDemocrat]

53. It was a altrusitic strategic move that Carol did

I see all these comments going around all the place about her doing for personal reasons when in reality it was for many dynamic reasons. In the Democratic dynamics of things with Carol and Al Sharpton spliting the African American base, though with totally different types of constituent positioning (personality differences); the reason to run in the first place for her was in terms of elevating the issues she stands for to a national level. Of course that is good for her career but what is good for career allows her to do more in the progressive sense. But getting back to the shock of Al Sharpton's comments(still legitamate in the activist role/style he takes) to Howard Dean; Carol did the most alturistic thing taking herself off the platform and in the name of democratic unity to counter that acusation. Example- you don't hear much in the public media about that anymore do you? But anyhow, Carol accomplished what she set out to do one of them being providing an alternative image to the general public in comparison to Condaleezza Rice, advocating issues that she cares about, and putting herself in a a better position to get a job doing what she cares about.

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