From: ronaldd@cbnewse.cb.att.com (ronald.h.davis)
Subject: Re: Carol Moseley Braun WINS in Illinois!!!
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 19:33:29 GMT

In article <Bx9IvM.GAw@news.cso.uiuc.edu> locker@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Jon Locker) writes:
>In article <Bx86BM.6Mn@cs.columbia.edu> bhat@cs.columbia.edu (Dinkar Bhat) writes:
>>Just for information:
>>
>>the NYT reported that Carol Moseley Braun won 93% of the black vote whereas 
>>she won only 49% of the white vote in Illinois.
>
now for some *real* information:

i suppose dinkar is trying to imply that by "only" getting 49% of the white
vote her victory is somehow less legitimate; i.e. i gather that the implication
here is that fat slob rich williamson won the white vote.  well, assuming that
this is true braun would have lost had illinois been an all white state [but
then had that been true braun wouldn't have been eligible to run since she would
not have met state residency requirements].  wrong on both counts:  not only is
illinois *not* an all white state, but it's most likely that braun got a larger
percentage of the white vote than did williamson.

first, from a demographic standpoint, braun pitched a shutout against fatso
williamson: she won in all age and income categories.  she won in chicago by
a margin of 500,000 votes [including many white wards in chicago], and while
williamson won the suburban chicago counties by 150,000 votes this was offset
by braun's margin of 100,000 votes in the rest of the state.

second, on the white vote.  3%-4% of the vote went to other candidates.  i
suspect that most of those voters were white.  under this assumption, if braun
got "only" 49% of the white vote it was likely less "only" than the percentage
of the white vote going to williamson.

>Also for your information:  although Braun carried most of the state's
>newspaper endorsements, the Tribune refused to endorse her, citing her 
>alleged lack of understanding of the issues. (Note:  The Trib also refused
>to endorse "Filthy" Rich Williamson because of his divisive and misleading
>campaign commercials)
>
i read the tribune editorial on this and agree with williamson; it was a silly
editorial.  it was really a backdoor endorsement of williamson, in fact.  their
(the tribune) claim was that williamson had a good grip on national issues
based on his experience in the reagan administration and that braun didn't.
where they were getting their info from to determine that williamson had this
mastery of national affairs i don't know since all i heard him speaking in terms
of were worn out republican slogans.  then again, even in the reagan administration
he was pretty much of an administrative lackey; by this logic i suspect that the
chicago tribune considered clarence "uncle" thomas qualified to sit on the supreme
court.

in reality i think the problem was that the chicago tribune editorial board tends
to be very conservative and didn't like braun's stands on issues or, for that
matter, her record as an illinois state representative.  this bit about her lack
of a grasp on national issues as being a reason for their not endorsing her is
a canard.  these guys were acting as though she were running for president!  what
a pile of crap.

>The biggest factor that prevented Braun from winning by an even wider
>margin was probably the Medicaid scandal in which she was involved.  I
>won't explain the whole thing here (unless you really want to know), but
>she got caught unethically distributing money from the sale of family land
>to her family, rather than reimbursing the State of Illinois for her mom's
>nursing home care paid by Medicaid. It got to be pretty ugly, but it was never
>really cause for alarm.
>
to me, the whole medicare thing looked like an attempt to hide assets by distributing
them to other family members so that the government wouldn't get them.  i think that
when you really get down to it, a lot of people could understand this since it is not
an altogether uncommon practice.  williamson tried to make an issue of it;  but then
he really didn't have any issues anyway [in spite of what the tribune said] so what
else was he going to talk about?

>Anyway, I'm happy she won.  I hope she does a good job.
>
i have to admit to looking upon braun's victory with great pride.  i was glad not to see
a repeat of the bogus victory by george deukmejian over tom bradley in the california
gubernatorial races of 1982 and 1986, and the totall shameful victory of jesse helms over
harvey grant in the 1990 senatorial race in north carolina

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