Braun jabs at Emanuel for needing Clinton's help

[December 30, 2010]  CHICAGO (AP) -- Former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun said Wednesday that Bill Clinton's decision to campaign for former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel in the Chicago mayoral race simply amounts to an outsider helping an outsider.

Her comments make her the second mayoral candidate to question the ex-president's involvement in Emanuel's campaign in the race to replace retiring Mayor Richard M. Daley.

"What we have is an outsider running for mayor and bringing outsiders in to help him," Braun told reporters.

The grumblings about Clinton came a day after U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, who is also running for mayor, warned Clinton that he could jeopardize his "long and fruitful relationship" with the black community if he campaigns for Emanuel instead of one of the two leading black candidates running -- Davis or Braun. Emanuel's campaign recently announced that Clinton was going to head a campaign event in January, but have not given a date or time.

Braun declined to say Wednesday if she agreed with Davis' warning to Clinton, who appointed Braun as ambassador to New Zealand after she lost her Senate re-election bid.

A campaign spokesman for Emanuel, who held several positions in Clinton's administration, declined to comment Wednesday. Messages left for a Clinton spokeswoman were not immediately returned.

Davis, a Democrat from Chicago's West Side, has known Clinton for years and was among the first black leaders to support Clinton's presidential campaign before he had widespread name recognition. He said Tuesday that Clinton's relationship with the black community may be "fractured and perhaps even broken" if he comes to Chicago to stump for Emanuel, who is leading in the polls.

The former senator also repeated her belief that Emanuel didn't meet a one-year residency requirement for mayoral candidates because he moved to Washington to work for Obama, saying he was "parachuting into Chicago to buy an election."

More than two dozen people had challenged Emanuel's candidacy, and the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners ruled last week to keep Emanuel's name on the Feb. 22 ballot. A lawsuit was then filed in Cook County court, and a judge will hear arguments in the case next week.

Emanuel has said his move to Washington, where he lived for two years to work for the Obama administration, was temporary. He's noted that he kept his Chicago home, paid property taxes and even stored family keepsakes such as his wife's wedding dress at the house.

"He had to go search for wedding dresses hidden in the basement to even make the case that he had a residency," Braun said.

Those details have become fodder for other candidates, who've tried to paint him as someone unfamiliar with Chicago's problems, despite his stint as a Chicago congressman.

[Associated Press; By SOPHIA TAREEN]

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