When Carol Moseley Braun defeated Sen. Alan Dixon in the Democratic primary election, it was a surprising and exhilarating moment. No, she probably would not be able to replicate Sen. Dixon`s ability to deliver for the state, at least not right away. But in her primary campaign she seemed to be, like Dixon, a political centrist, an energetic and appealing personality. She was full of potential. She seemed to be the future.
Little was known about her Republican opponent, Rich Williamson. Nobody gave him any more chance of success against Dixon than they gave Braun. And when Braun won and the spotlight went on her, not many people seemed at all interested in who this other person in the race might be.
Since the primary, the Tribune has learned a lot about both of the candidates. The exhilaration is gone.
– – –
Williamson has run a terrible campaign. Sure, he had to make some noise to get attention when Braun was all over the networks and on the covers of the magazines. But the way he did it was awful.
He said the election was not about race or gender, and then he began running a radio ad that mentioned Braun`s support of Jesse Jackson and Harold Washington, as if this were the most important thing he had to say. Next were ads about vague connections with the repulsive Gus Savage and an out-of-context remark about the frightening El Rukns.
These might have been acceptable if Braun really did have ties to the anti-Semitism of Gus Savage or the lawlessness of the El Rukns, but anyone who knows Carol Moseley Braun knows that she stands against bigotry and violence. These ads left an unmistakable stink.
While accentuating the negative, Williamson failed to get across any positive message of his own. He should have had the better of the first campaign debate, at least, but his manner and his inability to speak to the concerns of middle-class voters undid him. He should have been able to talk about the issues he is strong on without sounding weary and condescending. He should have been able to show off his prodigious knowledge of national affairs in contrast with Braun`s lack of it. But he did not.
Carol Moseley Braun has also run a terrible campaign, though in a quite different way. She won the primary in part because of women`s disgust with Alan Dixon`s vote for Clarence Thomas and in part because Al Hofeld and Alan Dixon beat each other up so badly that she was the only candidate left standing. She never had to do much to win except to be there, be against Dixon and be her engaging self.
Once she won and attention turned to her, she campaigned like a star rather than like a politician. In two successive meetings with the Tribune editorial board, she showed a deeply disturbing lack of knowledge about national policy. She even fumbled a question about agricultural policy, which you would think somebody wanting to represent Illinois would have mastered. Though in other settings she got by mouthing empty generalities, under closer questioning she fell to error and awkward silences.
Between those two meetings, she was confronted by trouble, and she dealt with it poorly. Her story about a royalty payment to her Medicaid-recipient mother changed again and again. Even during her final meeting with the Tribune editorial board, only the last 20 minutes of which was devoted to that payment, she shifted ground on the fundamental point of who was supposed to have taken care of any income tax requirements.
– – –
So what we have are two accidental candidates, neither of them ready for a campaign for the United States Senate, let alone for a seat in it.
What about their politics?
Carol Moseley Braun may have briefly appeared to be a Democratic centrist during the primary campaign, when nobody was looking carefully. But since then she has proven to be nowhere near the middle.
She is not the wild-eyed radical that Williamson has made her out to be. But she is an old-fashioned, Great Society liberal who has learned to call spending ”investment” and to agree with free trade in general while opposing it in the particular.
Her voting record in Springfield, her call for increased public spending on infrastructure as a way of creating jobs, her routine support of labor union positions-all these add up to a policy approach that will frustrate long-term economic success. Just look at her answers to questions put by the League of Women Voters and published in the Voters Guide in local editions of today`s Tribune. She wants to raise taxes only on the wealthy and on liquor and cigarettes, but she wants to raise federal spending on everything from health care to housing, from the environment to job training. That is an old Democratic song, and it doesn`t get more melodious with time.
Braun put the matter succinctly in her most recent visit to the Tribune when she said she does not believe in what she called University of Chicago, laissez-faire economics. The Tribune does believe in economic freedom and strict limitation on government intervention in people`s lives and commerce. And it does not think of University of Chicago economics as a term of condemnation, any more than the Nobel Prize Committee does.
Williamson, by contrast, basically believes in sound notions of limited government and economic freedom. In contrast with Braun, his philosophy of government is specific and well thought out. His knowledge is as complete as most incumbent senators`, which is not so surprising since he did significant service in the Reagan administration.
Nevertheless, if it is impossible in all conscience to recommend a vote for Carol Moseley Braun because she is wrong on so many issues and would be a vote in the Senate for policies that will keep this country`s economy down, it is just as impossible to give approval to Rich Williamson because he has behaved so badly on an issue that is crucial to our future and our sense of ourselves as a just nation.
It is not enough to say, as Williamson has, that he was only stating facts when he tried to link Braun in people`s minds with the El Rukns or Gus Savage, that he was only stating fact when he referred to her connections with Harold Washington and Jesse Jackson.
Even if he hadn`t exaggerated the facts, which he sometimes did, he should have understood that he was working with ignominious tools. He should have understood that he was using them to separate people from people along the fault line of intolerance and fear.
The campaign, for him, may not have been about gender. But he made it about race.
– – –
There are a lot of people in Illinois who will cast their votes in favor of Carol Moseley Braun for the pleasure of giving the United States Senate its first black woman member. The Tribune would like to share in that pleasure. But to do so, we would have to disregard completely the political positions she is being elected to pursue.
Because of his basic political philosophy, the Tribune would have been ready to support Rich Williamson despite his opponent`s race and gender, but not when to do so would mean endorsing a campaign of racial division.
We do not take a decision of abstention lightly, but to give a stamp of approval to either candidate in such a highly charged campaign would be to deny one of two principles of government that we hold to be fundamental-sound economic policy and sharp restriction of government on the one side, racial tolerance and civility on the other. And so we must withhold our assent.
– – –
As our political system grows more open, as more people of diverse backgrounds enter it, the temptation to practice a politics of division and exclusion will grow.
This year, more than most, the political debate in large measure has been negative, not only among the candidates but also among people trying to make up their minds: This one may be as bad as his opponent says he is, but his opponent is even worse. This trend only makes the prospect of future campaigns of racial division even more ominous.
The Tribune means to deliver a strong message by our silence: No matter how right a candidate may be on everything else, if that candidate runs a campaign of racial division, count the Tribune out.
