Hope Comes to Illinois
By George F. Will
Sunday, September 6, 1998; Page C07
CHICAGO-Polls are pointing toward what a poet has called the rare
occurrence of the expected. Chicagoan Carol Moseley-Braun, 51, the first
and only African American woman senator, may be defeated.
Her opponent, Peter Fitzgerald, 37, is a conservative state senator from
the Chicago suburbs, which cast about 40 percent of the state's vote. He is
already even or ahead in some polls. He spent $7 million of his own
money, from a family banking fortune, in winning the primary, and has
more money in his checking account, not to mention his campaign fund,
than Moseley-Braun's campaign has.
In 1992 she won 53 percent of the vote against a Republican candidate
who was weak even before he decided it would be a good idea to reverse
himself on abortion, becoming pro-choice on the eve of the announcement
of his candidacy. She won even though it was revealed that in 1989 she
and her siblings split a $28,750 inheritance that was supposed to go to her
mother, a nursing home resident who was supposed to use the money to
reimburse Medicaid.
Chicago Democrats survive their scandals by multiplying them, hoping the
unbroken monotony of misdeeds will anesthetize the public. But
Moseley-Braun may have overdone it even after some notable campaign
finance excesses in 1992.
Predictably, Janet Reno's politicized Justice Department has twice refused
IRS requests to impanel grand juries to hear evidence about
Moseley-Braun. One would concern possible bank fraud, bribery and
other federal crimes from when she was Cook County Recorder of Deeds.
The other would involve allegations that she and Kgosie Matthews, her
former campaign manager and former fiance, may have diverted $281,000
in campaign contributions to personal consumption, such as (according to a
WBBM-TV report in July) almost $70,000 on clothes, $64,000 on travel
(Hawaii, Europe, Africa), $25,000 for two Jeeps, $12,000 for stereo
equipment, $18,000 for jewelry (she and he spent almost $10,000 in cash
at an Aspen jewelry store during a fund-raising trip).
A former federal prosecutor and tax-law expert told WBBM that in 28
years of experience he had never heard of Justice refusing "when you have
the Internal Revenue Service as an institution making a request to the
Justice Department for grand jury authorization." "Never," said a former
IRS supervisor when WBBM asked if he had ever seen a precedent for
such refusal.
Matthews has been a lobbyist for the Nigerian government. On one of
Moseley-Braun's many visits to Nigeria, she met with the blood-soaked
dictator Gen. Sani Abacha, who died in June. In 1996 she disagreed with
the Congressional Black Caucus by opposing sanctions against Nigeria.
WBBM says the IRS is asking for a grand jury to investigate Matthews for
conspiracy, mail fraud and wire fraud. He owes $250,000 to a travel
agency, and no longer lives in the United States.
The conventional wisdom here is that the crucial swing vote is middle-class
suburban women, with whom Fitzgerald's pro-life position will be a
problem. But on primary night, while Moseley-Braun was warming up her
crowd with warnings that pro-life politicians are menaces to womanhood,
the gubernatorial primary produced a Democratic nominee, downstate
congressman Glenn Poshard, who is pro-life.
Fitzgerald dryly suggested that Moseley-Braun have a debate with
Poshard. Democrats are hoping for synergy, with Moseley-Braun helping
Poshard in Chicago and he helping her downstate.
Fitzgerald has to heal a Republican Party divided by the primary fight in
which Gov. Jim Edgar and most of the Republican establishment, with the
help of Bob Dole, supported Fitzgerald's opponent, Loleta Didrickson, the
state comptroller, who is pro-choice. It is a measure of the establishment's
skittishness and disconnection from reality that it is alarmed by Fitzgerald,
whose right-to-life position is, says political analyst Charles Cook, shared
by "the overwhelming majority of Republicans in Congress." The fact that
both the candidates for governor (the GOP nominee is Secretary of State
George Ryan) and Fitzgerald are pro-life may take the abortion issue off
the table. If the issue is argued in terms of who opposes partial-birth
abortions, Fitzgerald, not Moseley-Braun, will speak for the Illinois
majority.
In presidential politics Illinois is the bellwether state, having voted with the
winner in all but two elections in this century. (It voted for Republicans
Charles Evans Hughes in 1916 and Gerald Ford in 1976.) This year Illinois
is central to Republicans' hope of gaining the five Senate seats necessary
for a filibuster-proof majority of 60. That is not yet expected, but Illinois's
contribution to it may soon be rated probable. |
