IT TAKES A PARTY OF MILLIONS TO KEEP US DOWN:

Fear of a Black Candidate (Salim Muwakkil, Feb 28, 03, In These Times)

Aaron McGruder, the radical cartoonist, insists that the Rev. Al Sharpton’s “perm” prevents him from being taken seriously as a presidential candidate. But the Democratic National Committee (DNC) seems worried enough that they drafted a black woman, former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, to dilute Sharpton’s potential electoral power.

Or at least that’s the reigning theory among many political observers. Sharpton, 48, a controversial New York-based activist, makes many mainstream Democrats uncomfortable. His advocacy for victims of police abuse or racial violence is his primary claim to fame, or, as with his involvement in the bogus Tawana Brawley rape case, infamy.

Sharpton has made occasional but serious forays into electoral politics. He ran twice for the Senate (1992 and 1994) and once for mayor of New York City (1997), polling respectable but racially polarized numbers each time. He has become a formidable political figure in New York, and his blessing is sought by nearly every Democratic candidate running for a city or statewide seat. Presidential candidates also have been known to show up at Sharpton’s Harlem headquarters.

Still, many New York Democrats blame Sharpton’s “divisive” tactics for the 2001 election of Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg in a city with five times as many registered Democrats as Republicans. “His strength comes mainly not in guaranteeing that people can win, but in guaranteeing they won’t win if he doesn’t support them,” Fred Siegel, a fellow at the Democratic Leadership Council’s Public Policy Institute, recently told The American Prospect.

The centrist DLC is one of Sharpton’s major targets. He blames the group for pulling the Democratic Party to the right and sees his campaign as part of an effort to halt that rightward drift. But Sharpton has received little support from any party officials. In a November poll, two-thirds of DNC members said they had a negative view of Sharpton.

Enter Moseley-Braun. “Party insiders see Moseley-Braun as their Great Black Hope to stop the rise of the Rev. Al Sharpton as a major player in the Democratic presidential sweepstakes,” wrote Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page.

An unnamed Democratic strategist told the Washington Post that “the DNC made a concerted effort to get Sharpton out, and he wouldn’t play along. This is how they do it.”

Never mind the Reverend Al, what does it say about the Democrats development of black political leaders generally that Carol Moseley-Braun is the "Great Black Hope"? Posted by Orrin Judd at March 1, 2003 10:16 PM