The Trials and Troubles of a Symbolic Senator
Never before had Barbra Streisand and Goldie Hawn held fund-raisers for the Cook County Recorder of Deeds.  But 1992 was the "Year of the Woman," and no one     symbolized it more  than Carol Moseley-Braun. Angered by the rough treatment Anita Hill  had endured, Moseley-Braun set out to become the first   African-American woman in the U.S. Senate -- and did.

The day she took office, poet Gwendolyn Brooks exalted her as "a young   giant." Moseley-Braun fanned the high expectations. "By my very   presence," she pledged, "the U.S. Senate will change."

Yet halfway through her first term, Moseley-Braun has disappointed  many of those who struggled to elect her. Mired in campaign debt,    dogged by a federal audit of how she spent $6.7 million in 1992,    Moseley-Braun is fast approaching a crisis.

With the audit hanging over her, she can't persuade contributors to  pay off the debt. Nor can she begin piling up the $10 million she'll  need to run for re-election in 1998. Her harshest critics say these pressures have driven the senator into the arms of big business, and  some former fans feel abandoned.

"I rarely hear Carol mentioned anymore," says Lu Palmer of Chicago's  Black Independent Political Organization and a member of    Moseley-Braun's '92 steering committee. "It's almost as if she's not   there."

True, on core liberal issues such as welfare, the environment and  affirmative action, the senator remains a passionate opponent of the Republican majority. But after three years in the Senate, she has  learned the mercenary reality of Washington: if you want to stick around, you often have to check your ideals at the fund-raiser's door.

Moseley-Braun's financial problems leave her vulnerable to that  charge. Her campaign debt is $563,000, second highest among senators   facing re-election in 1998. In part that's because she has had to pay    $200,000 to lawyers and accountants who are trying to placate the
Federal Election Commission.

Within weeks, Newsweek has learned, the FEC may disclose the results  of a two-year audit of Moseley-Braun's chaotic '92 campaign, which was   run by her fiance at the time, Kgosie Matthews.

She could be fined; she will almost certainly be embarrassed. Sloppy    record-keeping has complicated the investigation. So far, she has  filed 42 amendments -- one of them 1,347 pages long -- to her campaign   report. Aides say their response was slowed when a power surge wiped  lists of donors and expenses off a computer.

The fear of fallout from the FEC probe has spooked some potential  donors.   "There's a sense in the business community that she's a one-term   senator," says Denis O'Toole, head of government relations at  Household International, an Illinois-based credit company, whose  political arm has given her $10,000.

Moseley-Braun dismisses the notion she's been compromised. "If I'm in  bed with big business and I've still got this debt," she told  Newsweek, "something's wrong, right?"  Still, she has alienated old allies: It's not unusual for  public-interest lobbies to sour on liberal senators who don't   faithfully toe the line.

But the scorn reserved for Moseley-Braun is startling. "The bottom line is she's a corporatist," says Joseph Belluck, a lawyer with Congress Watch, a consumer group. Among her alleged sins: votes this year that would cap punitive damage  awards to victims of defective products. Moseley-Braun sided with big business despite intense lobbying from consumer advocates -- and a  personal plea from the then president of the NAACP.

She also cosponsored a bill that would make it harder for investors to sue executives who give overly rosy projections of a company's  financial prospects; critics call it the "Crooks and Swindlers   Protection Act."

Moseley-Braun counters that her priority is creating jobs -- something  businesses can't do if huge damage awards undercut them. Elderly  groups charge that Moseley-Braun went out of her way to defend the  profits of a British drug company that has given her money.

Her ongoing fight to protect Glaxo Wellcome's patent on the ulcer drug  Zantac has prevented U.S. companies from selling a generic equivalent  at half the price. Her ties to the corporation are strong: she accepted $10,000 from Glaxo Wellcome's political arm, took $15,000  more for a speech and flew to a fund-raiser in a company jet. The  Zantac issue is worth $3.6 billion to Glaxo Wellcome.

Moseley-Braun acknowledges her long friendship with a top executive of  the firm, but says she supports helping drug companies seeking costly  cures for diseases like AIDS.

In Illinois, some African-Americans are disturbed with Moseley-Braun. One lightning rod: her fawning support last year for the re-election  of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley over two black progressives who had  backed her run for the Senate. Her move was widely viewed as a play for Daley's well-heeled business supporters.

"Here's a black thought -- we put you in, don't leave us behind," says  Hermene Hartman, publisher of Chicago's N'DIGO magazine and a longtime  friend of Moseley-Braun. "Folks would have understood a party-line   endorsement, but did she have to say she'd bake cookies for Daley?"

Hartman, who cosponsored a fund-raiser for Moseley-Braun in 1992, no longer contributes money. The senator says she regrets the cookie  remark, but endorsed Daley because he was best for Chicago.

Moseley-Braun's pro-business votes on NAFTA and product liability have irritated labor officials. Now she's been warned that unless she cleans up her campaign finances, what's left of her labor support is  at risk.

"We don't want to see her embarrassed," says Dennis Gannon of the Chicago Federation of Labor. "And we don't want to be embarrassed either."   Moseley-Braun says she carries heavy debts "because I'm not a   multimillionaire" able to finance campaigns out of her own pocket.
"Others of my colleagues... can go under the mattress and pay it off."

Moseley-Braun is trying to fight back. In recent months she has led a  campaign against "crumbling schools," urging that Congress fund  repairs.   "I'm forging a position in the moral center of the debates here in Washington," she says.

As a first-term Democrat, she has few chances to broker deals. But she  can electrify the Senate, as she did during her '93 attack on Sen.  Jesse Helms's attempt to renew the patent on a Dixie group's  Confederate insignia.

Re-creating the magic of her last campaign will be more difficult.  It's too early to know who will run against Moseley-Braun in 1998. But   she already has two tough opponents: debt and disillusionment.