Moseley Braun makes her bid official

By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff, 9/23/2003

WASHINGTON -- Carol Moseley Braun, who made history as the first African-American woman to serve in the US Senate, officially declared her ambitions yesterday to become the nation's first female president.

Moseley Braun's campaign is considered a long shot in a crowded field of 10 Democratic presidential candidates; she trails in opinion polls and in fund-raising. The most recent filings to the Federal Election Commission, dated June 30, showed that Moseley Braun had raised a meager $217,109, compared with the more than $16 million by Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, at that time the leading fund-raiser among nine Democratic contenders. President Bush had amassed more than $35 million in campaign contributions by then.

But Moseley Braun said she would rely on grass-roots activity and volunteers to fight for her chance to "fix the mess" she said Bush has made of the economy, foreign policy, and civil liberties.

"I offer the clearest alternative to this current administration, whose only new idea has been preemptive war and a huge new bureaucracy," she told a small group of student supporters at Howard University. "I can fix the mess they have created because I am practical, I am not afraid of partnerships, and I am committed to making the world a better place for our children."

Moseley Braun acknowledged she will not have the "biggest-funded war chest" and will not be able to tap wealthy donors for cash.

"We're going to do it the best way we can, one vote at a time, depending on small contributions, as we always have," said Moseley Braun, whose career includes service as a prosecutor, one-term senator from Illinois in the 1990s, and ambassador to New Zealand. Moseley Braun was appointed to the latter post by President Clinton after she lost her reelection bid in 1998 amid questions about her campaign finances.

Moseley Braun has scored endorsements from the National Organization for Women and the National Women's Political Caucus. But she has yet to make a serious effort at competing in the New Hampshire primary, said Kathy Sullivan, chairwoman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party.

"She hasn't campaigned in New Hampshire, which I think is unfortunate, because frankly, I think she would bring something to the election," said Sullivan, adding that she has already urged the Rev. Al Sharpton, the other African-American candidate in the race, to spend more time in the Granite State.

While Moseley Braun is not considered a strong contender for the nomination, analysts say she can bring an energy to the Democrats' efforts to oust Bush and may serve as an important role model for women and African-Americans interested in pursuing politics.

"I think it would be good for a lot of people up here to see that you don't need to be a white man to be a serious candidate for the presidency," Sullivan said.

Moseley Braun's back-of-the-pack status, however, may make it hard for her to mobilize support from Democratic women who want a winner next year, said Stuart Rothenberg, an independent political analyst.

"Obviously, she has a particular ability to raise questions that involve gender and gender issues. She talks about the importance of [having] a woman candidate," Rothenberg said. But "her message isn't strong enough. She's a serious candidate, but she's not regarded as someone who could be the nominee, so it's hard to mobilize that constituency of the Democratic Party."

Moseley Braun is unlikely to steal votes from Sharpton, since she is "really quite establishment," and "Sharpton is more of a street politician," said David Bositis, senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. Nor is Moseley Braun likely to run away with the women's vote, he said.

"I think women who are on the Democratic side are pretty much like blacks -- what they're most interested in is someone who's going to win," Bositis said.

At her formal announcement of candidacy at Howard, a historically black university, Moseley Braun blamed Bush for what she called failures in foreign policy and economic strategy. She offered few details, however, about how she would mend those troubles.

She said she backed a "single-payer" health care system that does not "depend on employment," but she did not offer a detailed plan.

On Iraq, the former ambassador said the United States should not "cut and run" from troubled postwar Iraq, but she proposed no exit strategy.

"We should turn over control of the country to the Iraqi people at the earliest possible opportunity and use that opportunity as a way of extricating ourselves from the quagmire -- both the military quagmire as well as the nation-building quagmire -- that we've gotten ourselves in," she said.