Advocating a message of hope, change and participation, former U.S. senator and Democratic presidential candidate Carol Moseley Braun visited Dartmouth Friday to exhort the public to vote in the November elections. Braun, recognized as the first black woman to launch a major campaign for the Democratic candidacy, related her experiences of serving in public office in a speech titled "Personal Experiences: Activism Counts."
Braun, a former ambassador to New Zealand and controversy-racked Illinois senator who calls herself a "recovering politician," delivered an impassioned speech on topics including voting, equal rights and world reaction to President Bush's foreign policy.
Braun also emphasized her own experience as a black woman in a political arena dominated by white men. She recounted her first campaign for Illinois state representative, a race inspired, she said, by critics who discouraged her from running because she was black and female.
In 1992, Braun became the nation's only female black senator when she won a seat representing Illinois. She later lost the seat to Dartmouth alumnus Peter Fitzgerald '82, after news media detailed allegations of corruption in her campaign practices. The charges were later cleared by the Federal Elections Commission and the Senate. In the 2004 campaign for the Democratic candidacy for president, Braun challenged the assumptions of her former detractors when she ran as the only female candidate, as well as one of only two black candidates.
In Friday's Rockefeller Center-sponsored speech, Braun emphasized the importance of voting, an issue that has become even more salient as the presidential election approaches.
According to Braun, there are a number of Americans who fail to make connections between the game of politics and government's impact on their own lives.
"Even if your candidate loses, your vote counts, and your vote makes you heard," she said. "Political action is an act of confidence in our democracy. Make it socially unacceptable not to vote."
Throughout her speech, Braun stressed the value of leaving a legacy of inclusion and goodwill for the next generation. This legacy, she said, can be achieved through Americans' willingness to do as much for future generations as past ones did for them. Braun urged the audience to perfect American democracy and give the next generation even more freedom and opportunity by voting for people who will drive the country toward its ideals.
Women have enjoyed the right to vote for 83 years, but there are still many disparities that must be overcome, Braun argued.
She pointed out the inequities that remain between American men and women, citing the fact that women still make up a noticeable minority in American government. A former U.S. ambassador to New Zealand, Braun also pointed out that the country has just reelected its second female prime minister to a second term.
She called for the election of more women to public office, not in order to fulfill a partisan goal but to create a government for the people and by the people, she said.
In a question-and-answer session following the speech, Braun spoke about foreign perceptions about America and Americans themselves. As an ambassador, she recalled seeing first-hand reactions to Bush's foreign policy and witnessed Americans' declining world popularity.
"Abroad, people are mad at us everywhere," she said, referring to protests in London. "In South Africa, they're blaming us. Right after Sept. 11, America came together and the rest of the world turned toward us. In less than a year and a half, all that good will was frittered away."
Braun also said that the human rights catastrophe in Sudan reflected the kind of missed opportunity that has become too reflective of Bush's misguided foreign policy. She attributed the crisis to an understaffed United Nations that lacks the power to protect the Sudanese.
Reflecting on the previous night's presidential debate, Braun said she wished Kerry had pointed out the lack of Iraqis on any of the planes that hit America on Sept. 11, 2001. She referred to the war in Iraq as something the American people were distracted by when the United States "picked a fight" with a country that had little to do with World Trade Center attacks.
Before concluding her speech with a poem titled "It's Up to You," Braun said, "Here, the people's voices do shape the direction of government more than almost anywhere else."
"Let's create a world at least as hopeful as the one we were born into," she said.