Carol Moseley Braun: Madame Mayor?
Can the former senator, ambassador and presidential candidate pull off another historic election?
On a bitterly cold December night, the UIC Forum is filled with over 2500 members and leaders of a diverse coalition of Chicago community organizations. Brought together by the grassroots group New Chicago 2011, the audience is energized, enthused, nearly rowdy: they whistle and whoop, feet pounding the bleachers and creating a deafening boom punctuated by cheers or boos.
On stage, Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun stands out in bright blue, sitting with five fellow mayoral hopefuls (all the major candidates, with the exception of Rahm Emanuel) prepared to speak their case on issues like violence prevention, human rights and education. She boasts her experience championing issues like LGBT rights, women’s health rights and pension equity for women. She invokes the buzzword of the night: “Let’s make the city work for everybody in all the neighborhoods of Chicago.”
When Mayor Richard Daley announced last September that he wouldn’t run for reelection in 2011, the doors opened for a vibrant cast of candidates. Ms. Moseley Braun was both a surprising and logical addition to that list. After the end of her ambassadorship in 2001, she had inferred she would never run again. In public, she referred to herself as a “recovering politician,” and in 2008, she told TCW that dropping out of the presidential race in 2004 was “the period on the end of a political career.” Even some of her closest friends and longtime supporters were surprised to see her name on the list.
“She’s actually one of the few people who could handle the job,” says her friend Elizabeth Tisdahl, mayor of Evanston, who has worked with Ms. Moseley Braun on education issues. “But it’s an extremely difficult job, and the question that goes through everyone’s mind is, ‘Does she really want it?’”
Ms. Moseley Braun describes the decision as a “draft.” The texts and calls from supporters – Gloria Steinem among them – started coming in when Mayor Daley “was probably still giving his speech,” and continued until her brother lured her to her office under the guise of a “meeting.”
“There were about 75 people in the room,” she recalls. “Renee [Ferguson]’s husband, Ken [Smikle], raised his hand to say, ‘I move that we ask Carol to run for mayor.’ I was set up!”
Nancy Gdowski, a special education paraprofessional who’s known Ms. Moseley Braun for nearly 25 years, was there that day. “I think she was surprised at the volume of people,” she says, recalling the group, diverse in age, ethnicity and gender, that had gathered with fingers crossed to “push” their friend into running. “When Carol said yes, it was like, ‘Mission accomplished!’”
Ms. Moseley Braun agreed on the condition that those in the room run her campaign; she officially announced her candidacy on November 20, 2010.
is managing editor and electronic media editor of Today's Chicago Woman. She is active in various local and national women’s groups, including Step Up Women's Network, Rape Victim Advocates and the TCW Foundation, and is a member of The Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ Young Professionals. She writes and speaks about local, national and international women's issues, including in her blog, “Twice As Well."
