The Exchange; Interview with Carol Moseley Braun

From New Hampshire Public Radio I'm Laura Conaway and this is the exchange. Carol Moseley-Braun is a product of Chicago's tough Southside and it's prestigious law school. She's the daughter of a police officer and medical technician who rose to the ranks of Chicago politics to become the nation's first black female U.S. senator. After narrowly losing reelection Braun did a tour Down Under as ambassador to New Zealand and now she's running to be your next president. Although Moseley-Braun registers low in New Hampshire polls she's still getting attention here with a down to earth quality that stands out in candidate debates for example in a recent forum she used a story from a childhood as a way to criticize President Bush's approach to fighting terrorism. The toilet roll and there was water spilling out and my mother sent my father off to the hardware store and he came back with a brand new lawnmower. That is the relationship of the fight against terrorism and what has taken us into Iraq. The fact of the matter is the issue. The goal here is the security of the

American people which means we should have had a real war on terrorism that went after terrorist cells that dealt with first responders that funded local efforts to provide protection for the American people before running off hell for leather halfway around the world. But Moseley-Braun says now the U.S. can't just back out of Iraq. We blew the place up she says. And to leave it blown up is wrong on other issues Moseley-Braun supports universal health care gay marriage and tighter gun control. We'll talk about those and more today on the exchange. Carol Moseley-Braun is our guest. Again the number 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 1 889 2 and HPR ambassador branch. Pleasure to meet you. Thanks for coming in. Delighted to be here. Now since this is our first conversation I want to spend at least 20 or 30 minutes with you just getting a biographical sketch and my first question is What do you want to be when you are a little girl grew up. I wanted to stow away on a tramp steamer and be an

explorer and my and I remember being just absolutely incensed because I was told that girls didn't do that girls couldn't be explorers and girls couldn't go on pirate ships and stowaway and see the world. And I was so offended. Well that's not fair I thought. Well as it turns out I have been an explorer. That's the sense that I get from the campaign trail always. Girls can do that. That's not fair right. Who told you that you couldn't be in it. My mother my mother my mother she was the more down to earth conservative member of the family. My father was this freethinker who played seven instruments and spoke several languages and liked to talk about philosophy and he introduced us to all kinds of religions as a child. I not only went to would go to Mass but would go to mosque two synagogues and temples and so I had a from a very early age of a real sense of the world religions. And I think I was probably the first kid in my class who

knew what Huizar arrest was and what it oh well anyway. And antique religion talks about the truth and the lie. The path of goodness versus the path of evil. And so you know everything from Zaur Ramsdens to the Behi to all the iterations of Christianity Protestant from from you know possible to Evangelical Presbyterian to fundamentalists. I mean we saw we saw it all and it was really kind of. But anyway that was he was the more free spirited thinker and also the more volatile personality. But my mother was very you know she her favorite expression was do the best job you can where you're planted now which one was the police officer and which one was the medical technician. He was a police officer and she was a medical technician. So they both worked. Yes. And you grew up on Chicago's South Side which has a rough reputation.

It does except that you know it's the south side is huge by comparison. And I was in way very blessed because while I knew the mean streets it's often called at the same time my childhood was really quite idyllic and we lived in an almost suburban neighborhood. And so I could ride my bike and camp out in the backyard. And so I had those kinds of experiences as well as every summer we would go south and so I'd spend my summers as a farm girl. And so that mix meant that it wasn't until I was almost an adult. Yeah almost an adult a late teenager before I had any real encounter with the kind of grinding poverty and the violence that so characterizes when they talk about the mean streets. Yeah that's not the image that you get of the Chicago at all. Oh yes. Listen the south side is huge. I live on the south side now in the University of Chicago area and I'm I've been living there for almost 30 years now and it's a neighborhood where we pride ourselves on

intellectual ism and diversity and you don't have to wear makeup to go to the grocery store. Well you don't have to make up a grocery store in New Hampshire either. What's your family political. My dad was. Again he he wasn't in electoral politics as much as kind of movement politics in the sense of the civil rights movement he was very active in that regard he was active in labor helping people organize and in those days as you know for African-Americans in the trade union movement that's a history that frankly needs to be told at some point. And so he was involved in those kinds of things. And and also because he was a musician he brought We had a very eclectic kind of international household with people coming from all over the world all playing to play and they'd have jam sessions and the like. And so between the conversations of politics from the perspective of these musicians who they themselves traveled the world

and I just by osmosis I think picked up some of that from well that was my next question is how did you get drawn to that. I mean it was in your household but what drew you to it and made you think this is a good thing. I want to do this. Well you know I didn't think it I didn't think I had been drawn to it. When I got through law school I practice as a U.S. attorney and did some policy things in fact my a lot of the work I do on health care now relates to the understanding that I received. Defending Jimmy Carter's health care reforms. How's that for going back a few years. So. So I thought that I was more of a policy person than in public office I had no aspirations or inclination to get involved in electoral politics. And then came the great bottling situation and that's what did it. What was that. We after I had left the U.S. attorney's office to start a family my I was home with my son

and you know how you volunteer and neighborhood issues. And there was an issue in the neighborhood concerning the Chicago Park District's effort to build a golf driving range but it would destroy the habitat for the bottlings and my neighbors. Hyde Park is that kind of place where the neighborhood speaks up and says oh no you can't run the bottlings out. We like having them here. And so we protested and there are those who say we chained ourselves to trees we didn't really trees but we protested the removal of the bottlings and uplinks excuse me for interrupting. It's a little rice bird it's a bird it's a small bird it's not supposed to be in Chicago at all. I mean it's it's climate wise it's it prefers wild places where rice grow like South Carolina. It's indigenous at least in this country. That's where it comes from. And. And. And so how they got to Chicago and to our Jackson Park to me remains a mystery. Although a friend of mine said Hyde Park was sufficiently weird that they didn't just over.

But but anyway these bottlings you know live there in this in this marsh kind of area in the park and it's an Olmsted park by the way. And so we take our parks very seriously this is a park designed by and by Olmstead and part of the great Birnam plan for Chicago. And so it just brought together a variety of my interests and I got involved with this. And that's when my neighbors said you know you didn't you've done such a good job protesting you know doing raising the issues on the bobolinks that we think you should stand for the state legislature. And my first response was Oh no I've got a young family and I don't know anything. I have never been involved in electoral politics and I don't know that either. And that's when the famous challenge the guy who stood up and said don't run you can't possibly win. The blacks won't vote for you because you're not part of the Chicago machine. The whites won't vote for you because you're black and nobody is going to vote for you because you're a woman.

And of course at that point it was where do I go sign up for this. I'll show you exactly. And it's the irony for me of course is that he's still a political pundit in Chicago. He still gets quoted on things and I've never and I haven't named him because I haven't wanted to embarrass him. Why. Do you want to name him now. Well if you want to insist that fellow by the name of Dan Rose and he's a political pundit in the Chicago and Illinois region 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 is our number on the exchange. Our guest today Democratic presidential candidate Carol Moseley Braun. We're learning more about her political background and later on we'll get her position on issues like health care and foreign policy. But just for the first half this morning what do you want to know about Carol Moseley Braun background her experience in politics or her time as ambassador as a U.S. senator. Join us. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. And just to give you a brief biographical sketch in 1992 Moseley-Braun was the first black woman

elected to the U.S. Senate. She also served as ambassador from ambassador to New Zealand from 1999 to 2001. She's been in public service for about 20 years serving as an assistant U.S. attorney a state legislator and cook county recorder of deeds. Again join us 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 1 800 8 9 to NAHB. What do you want to know about Carol Moseley Braun. You've probably seen her in the debates maybe you've seen her campaigning around New Hampshire. Join us 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. Ambassador Braun I want to ask you about your race for the U.S. Senate at the time. You were a state legislator former state legislator. You were the cook county recorder of deeds. And as I understand you had what was called back then and Anita Hill moment that propelled you to run. Could you tell us about that. Well we had a my whole life path had been made possible by the Warren court and the leadership of Thurgood Marshall and President Bush nominated someone for the

Supreme Court who in my opinion was not was no good Thurgood Marshall was there for the first President Bush the first President Bush Exactly. And so I protested the nomination and even visited with our incumbent senator a Democratic senator to say how very very troubling this nomination was and not just to me but to a lot of people. And then came the Anita Hill revelations which just sealed it. And I went back to him again and said you know this is just hideous. And and many of us just think that this position on the Supreme Court of the United States is so important. Maintaining respect for the rule of law is so important that this would be that we would hope that you would join other Democrats and not vote to confirm the president's nominee. Now this was Alan Dixon Yes the Democratic senator at the time. Yes. And he did I mean he when he voted for him in and and so a number of women came and said This is an outrage and will you

throw your hat into the ring for the Senate and of course I was never given no chance at all to win because the no notion that how could you possibly dare. Where did you get the nerve to do this. And but but there were enough people who were interested in what I had to say and enough people who were concerned enough about the about our state's representation that it just was logical. And so I threw my hat in the ring the in the primary and won won the Democratic one Democratic friend from there on one knee. Yes. The U.S. Senate seat. There were a couple other women who were galvanized by the Anita Hill hearings who also got into the Senate Patty Murray Brierty Murray was in Washington State and Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein from California all of us came in at the same time. And wasn't that supposed to be the so-called year of the woman in American politics concept. Yes. What happened. Well listen you know it did. I never believed that it was the quote year the woman in any event I mean women are half the population

wise and every year the year the woman in my opinion. So it what happened was I think that politics is so rough and tumble that we're not getting young women to step forward to run for these offices because they see how hard it is. And I even I mean when I ran for the Senate I had my very best friends wouldn't help me because they maintain that as one of them put it don't do it you'll get hurt. And did you get hurt while you were in the U.S. Senate and you had a tough time. I did have a tough time. I did have a tough time but happily survived it and came through it and unscathed in the end. But it was very very difficult. And but I'm really grateful to the people of Illinois for giving me the experience. I was the first woman in history to serve on the Senate Finance Committee. And so that meant I had a chance to see budget and fiscal policy from another from a perspective that I don't

think I'd ever ever have had a chance to do. So it was a hard time but it all came out and it came out right in the end. And I went off and became ambassador to paradise for two years to New Zealand Yes New Zealand and Samoa. It was a hard time in the U.S. Senate because there were allegations against you about oh ethics and so forth and many of those well were ultimately disproved or dismissed. I want to ask you about just one and then I want definitely talk about the ambassadorship your then fiance and campaign manager arranged a trip for you to meet with a Nigerian dictator. The U.S. had sanctions against this man because of human rights abuses. Why did you go. Well let me say at the outset that's another one of those stories that has less truth to it than than the politics of the time. Karl Rove made a lot of money blowing that up into an issue that it should not have been in the first instance my fiance had nothing to do with my going to

Niger. Let's start with that. I had friends in Nigeria. I still do. I never knew really the nasty dictator against whom sanctions against whom I had voted sanctions. I was one of the people who had voted for sanctions had been a human rights advocate from the very beginning of my political career and I think that's the part in this particular what I call nasty that is the most painful for me. I had all every civil rights human rights battle for 25 years I have led on not just been a follower but led on in this situation I went to a funeral for the nasty dictator's son who was a friend of mine and going and I went on my own by myself on my own money. You know the poor as a poor Hulsey that was his name I find my campaign manager got labeled with so many ugly things including this. And and I went to the funeral came back home didn't think twice about it and then it just blew up into this you know dancing with dictators It was

horrible. And it just shows you what can happen when you know well you know when politics in politics people will take whatever they can to make you look bad and to get people who might otherwise support you to try to think to do otherwise. And that's really a lot of what happened although I must say I was really gratified by the fact that the people of Illinois either saw through it or still wanted to support me. I've never quite figured out which because I I lost re-election by a very narrow margin given that I was outspent 3 to 1 3 percentage points you lost by three. That was all it was less than it was about one and a half percentage. Mm hmm. And I was outspent three to one in terms of the money. In fact at the time it was the most expensive Senate race that the country had ever had. Now obviously the the numbers just keep going up and so it's been it's been. Transcendent sense. But but at the time was a very expensive very hard fought. It was

just a nasty nasty race with with things like that. You know what did you think when you lost by such a narrow margin. What went through your head that night. Oh I was just just frustrated. It was a lot of frustration. I mean one of the things that that I did in hindsight I know I could have and should have handled public relations a whole lot better. I just didn't know. I just didn't know that. I didn't expect celebrity at that level which is again in hindsight it was probably not sensible not to expect. Secondly because first black female U.S. senator ever big celebrity. But you know something I'll tell you there's a Supreme Court and that is the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decision out two weeks ago regarding the first woman F-16 pilot and what they said she was slandered by whoever her enemies were whatever. And the court said that she should have expected to be held to a different standard. And I've been told that you know you should have expected. Well wait a minute. If you've got to work harder to

get there and then when you get there you can expect to be beat up more. So who wants to you apparently. Well yeah. Well because of new zealously I got saved by paradice I went off. I I was nominated for the ambassadorship. I was opposed by Jesse Helms and he tried to stop my confirmation but I got all this information out which turned out to be a good thing for me. My colleagues confirmed by 98 to 2 vote I went off to the Senate to New Zealand as ambassador and was able from probably the most beautiful part of the world to look back and to learn and to grow from the experience and so I came back. I mean whole and centered and all of those things and so I'm I'm happy. I mean not only happy but stepping forward to try to offer my service to my country is the right thing to do at this time. Let's take some calls ambassador Brown. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 is our number on the exchange to Nashua first Cindy is up hello Cindy. You're on the air.

Hi. I want to thank you Ambassador. First of all for having the courage to endure what you have and continue in light of public service. I am very excited about your candidacy. My question for you today is about your experience as an ambassador in New Zealand. Could you articulate for us how you feel that ambassadorship to Paradise will equip you and allow you to aggressively address the issues in Iraq and in Israel right now. Thanks very much. That's a great question. On several levels. First to one of the things that that experience did was I actually was ambassador to a country with a woman prime minister. New Zealand had had two. Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Party had elected women as prime minister and the military didn't fall apart. And the you know the Air Force general still saluted I mean if things still worked under the leadership of a woman in that country and I think just seeing that had an impact

on my own a vision and has an impact has had an impact on my coming back and engaging in this race. But on a more substantive level the fact is that being an ambassador you not only have the highest security clearances but you deal with issues of intelligence and you deal with issues of military preparedness and and the whole military structure. And particularly sitting there in New Zealand I mean it was paradise but if you think about it paradise sits at the apex if you did in your in your geography you did a pie shape with New Zealand being at the apex of the triangle. What you have is what has been called in controversy so they are an arc of instability. Everything from India Kashmir to Taiwan China to Indonesia. You can you just see all of these issues that affect our security. And they pan out from New Zealand in a pie shaped form if you think about it that way.

So I hadn't thought about it but you're right there are a lot of hotspots in that area full of them. And just think of New Zealand and Australia as beautiful places like Durrell. Yes. No no no it was actually a great deal of work and particularly since one of the concerns that I raised as ambassador was my concern about the immigration flows because people who were trafficking in drugs and human prostitution in you know the terrorists cells and the like could come through that part of the world really almost unchecked. And this was of great concern that I raised with the State Department and others and and they responded they got it. And and I'm I feel very confident that we have you know we're now checking that back door if you will on our security our worldwide security. But it wasn't when I first got there. What did you learn about just how other peoples see the United States as ambassador. Again you're privy to a lot of opinions about the U.S. and particularly there

because again the war in the Pacific all took place out in that in that region. And so what do you mean. Well we're two I'm sorry the war in specific and World War II. And so some of the a lot of the goodwill that our guys left from those days still resides in the people in New Zealand and they love us for it. They also are very critical and haughty sometimes about us. But but but there's a lot of goodwill that came from the sacrifice that our fighting men and men made in those days. After a short break we'll talk with Carol Moseley Braun about the issues. Stay with us. This is the exchange on HBO. More with Democratic presidential candidate Carol Moseley Braun coming up in just a minute on the exchange on New Hampshire Public Radio. And coming up at 10:00 this morning on the Diane Rehm shown the latest on Iran's compliance with weapons inspections. It's 9:30 on day on Colgan Good Morning support for a New Hampshire Public Radio comes remarking freebooting listeners like Moscow

Brattleboro Vermont and support also comes from M.J. Harington and company of Newport official Rolex jewelers 33 Main Street. M.J. Harrington will answer any rowlocks questions at 8 6 3 1 6 6 2. From the country Kerridge offering a fine collection of country gifts home furnishings and American phone cards since 1984 at no falls marketplace in Merideth and online at country Kerridge dot com and from the vare bookshop Marlboro Vermont offering use rave volumes on all subjects including literature music art history science and social sciences information at JSG one local net dot com. This is the exchange I'm Laura. Enjoy. Tuesday on the exchange our presidential primary coverage continues. We'll look at where the candidates stand on education policy. That's part of our Tuesday series on presidential primary issues. It's tomorrow on the exchange today. Democratic presidential candidate Carol Moseley Braun is with us. We've learned about her political background her time as ambassador to New Zealand and in the U.S. Senate.

And now we're going to turn to some of the big issues in this campaign like health care and foreign policy. Join us 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 1 800 8 9 to HPR. It's your chance to ask Carol Moseley-Braun when she stands on the issues important to you whether it's health care or the environment Iraq. Again 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 1 889 2 HPR. And Ambassador Brown before we dive into the details of all this I'd like to ask you just what propelled you after you got back from your ambassadorship in New Zealand to take the plunge and run for president. September 11th September 11 I had started out to restore order and reclaim my family farm. My great grandfather bought a farm in Alabama in 1970 and the last of the relatives who lived there died just as I was coming back home. And so I had this grand plan of getting the farm up and running and fixing things because it's been just let go to rack and ruin actually. And and so that was what I had to actually set out to do. And then of course September 11th changed all of our

worlds. But what it did for me was it brought me back into political conversations more and people supporters and friends said you know you can't just go off to Walden Pond just yet. This is an important time to engage. And so I did and I started talking about issues. And what was going on are you know both domestic and international situations and the more I talked about these things the more became clear that this was the right race the right place to engage again. Why did you decide to run for president instead of running for representative or senator from Illinois again again because you have to go forward in life. And I had done. I mean I had been a senator and and I knew both the opportunities and the and the and the constraints and quite frankly to me being able to speak to our international situation being able to engage in some of the debates in a way that only an executive can made sense to me.

And so I've always tried to follow the logic path if you will and the logic of this was that with my experience if I had been a guy I would have just said hey why not. And indeed again and my credentials are such that I'm the only candidate in this race that has international diplomatic experience. I'm the only candidate in the race that brings together both state and local and national and international experience. And so this made sense to do. You do have a broad range of background in public service. Why do you suppose then that the pundits were talking about them again. Say she can't possibly win. Well you know we've not had a woman president in this country. And my little niece who's nine I love telling this story too. She called me in her room and she had her social studies book open to a page with all the pictures of the presidents and she was really offended that Carol all the presidents are bullies. So I think the fact that all the presidents have been boys is is a big part of it.

Big hurdle for voters to get over. I don't think so and that's why that's why I'm so encouraged by this. I've run into people all the time saying it's time for a woman. You've got the credentials we want to hear what you have to say. They're prepared to judge me on my merits and I've argued and I mean this very sincerely that the issue is not me or even a woman candidate. The issue is whether or not the American people are prepared to tap 100 percent of the talent available to them. And if you just limit yourself to half of the population by definition your chances of success and of achieving excellence are cut in half. Whereas if you if you if you tap 100 percent of the talent that's available to you you have a greater probability of success. And in these times because our country is at such an important crossroads and this is such a critical time I think we can't afford to waste a single opportunity to tap all the talent that's available to us. And I bring a range of experience and perspectives and views and capacity

experience and vision. That again I believe is what the country will respond to. And so far people have been very nice in recent in doing so. I want to ask you about the recent capture of Saddam Hussein and whether you think that has changed the politics of Iraq in this presidential race. Oh I think so. I hope it's I hope it has. I hope it's a it's a turning of a page and will give give us more security on the ground there in Iraq. Our young men and women are sitting ducks very unfortunately in too many instances there. And if it if the capture of Saddam will batten the hatches on the insurgency in any way if one life gets saved then that will be well worth it. By the way Colonel Hickey is from Illinois. The fellow who led the mission and got him. And so I hope it will change the politics in that regard. And if it means that we can come out faster devolve power to the Iraqi people.

Panned off to the international community faster than I'm just delighted. Again you played at the beginning of this. The the the the toilet bowl story. The truth is however that it doesn't mean that we have engaged a real war on terrorism. It doesn't mean the American people are any safer in fact we're still running terror alert high very high and be very afraid at the bottom of the television screen that just went up on Sunday. That's right. That's right. Does that mean that you agree with Howard Dean that the capture of Saddam has not made Americans any safer. Well no that's not that's not that's not the issue. It's not have it's not the issue of Iraq. The issue is that this administration lost focus on a real war on terrorism. They dropped the ball. We gave we did not continue to pursue bin Laden. We did not continue to pursue al Qaeda. We frittered away international assets and intelligence and opportunity. We had goodwill from everybody. Following September 11 and they just frittered away which has made it

more difficult for us to secure the information and the support that we need to bring those people to justice. And so if if the capture of Saddam means we get back on point and we get back to what we should have done from the beginning then that will be a very good thing in and of itself. I I daresay the American people will probably wind up spending close to half a trillion dollars just to get Saddam Hussein out of power. He's a nasty dictator he probably should have gotten out of power. But that was never the point. And and unfortunately it was not the point and it hasn't. And our security continues to be you know held up and this this administration these people just pander to fear and will keep us in a perpetual state of of insecurity one last foreign policy question and then we should go back to the phones. If you had been in the U.S. Senate during the buildup to war this past spring how would you have

voted. I would have voted against that resolution. I have made the point and I feel very strongly about this and if I can make a commercial for the constitution right now I'd like to. Article 1 Section 8 calls on the Congress to issue declarations of war not just this passing of resolutions that say to the president you go do it. We haven't done that since World War II. Korea was in action. Vietnam was an action of the first Gulf War was an action. The practice has developed of just giving the president a blank check and letting him go for it. I as I am because that's been the case. That's wrong. And that's because the constitutional limitations is one of those checks and balances against preemptive war against making arbitrary unilateral decisions not backed up by the facts. And unfortunately we see proof positive here of why that having that kind of accountability is so important because this president put us in you know young men and women in harm's way

looking for weapons of mass destruction. I mean he talked about it in his in his used state of the Union address. You know as opposed to a president who tells us the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. We've now come full circle to be very afraid. And so I just think that the constitutional requirement of Congress doing its job in the first instance is an important one to be respected. And I hope the American people will get back to demanding it. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 1 800 8 9 2 HPR. Again today in exchange our guest Democratic presidential candidate Carol Moseley Braun join us with your questions if you want to know where Ambassador Braun stands on issues such as Iraq. We can also talk about health care tax policy. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 is our number 1 800 8 9 2 and HPR. Let's go to Manchester next. And Kathleen is calling from there. Hello Kathleen. Go ahead you're on the Exchange.

Hi. Thanks for taking my call. Ms. Brown how did you come to your position on the acceptance of gay marriage. Was it the science or is there a personal connection or do you see it as a civil rights issue. And again her position is that you fully support full gay marriage not just civil unions is that correct. That's right. And it is a civil rights issue and again to follow the logic path. I have had personal experiences not only in my own marriage but in my marriage my my marriage. My aunt was married to a German fellow German American of course back in the 1950s when interracial marriage was still illegal in most of the states of this country. And my Uncle Norman if he had he and his wife had gone to the wrong state could have been arrested. It was the most ludicrous ridiculous thing and it took the Supreme Court in the Loving versus Virginia case to say that marriage is that kind of a civil right that cannot be denied based on the race of the individual. Well it sounds straightforward to me.

Well if you take the same logic marriage is a civil right that cannot be denied based on the gender of the person. It seems to me now that's not to say that the religious institutions won't decide. And some of them may well that they don't want to marry people of the same gender. Well that's their decision. But the question is as a society are we prepared to say that gay people are less Americans less citizens than the rest than everybody else. And I just think that that that it follows that we have a responsibility to see to it that people are protected in their privacy interests to make a decision as personal and as private as who they want to spend their lives with who they want to have a legalized relation ship with a point the country is ready to vote for a president who supports gay marriage. Well I think the country is ready to vote to vote for a president who tells the truth and tell us what they believe. I've made it a point. The only way I know how to do this is to tell people what I believe to tell them what I want to do to stand by what I do what I've done and

hold myself accountable for my service. And I've I've never embraced that kind of dancing around issues based on what the polls say. It seems to me that leadership and the whole responsibility of someone they hold themselves out is to tell the people what their views are. And so the people can have some comfort level that you know what you see is what you get. I think the country is ready for it. And I hope I hope that this does not become one of those political wedge issues that the more cynical political operatives will resort to to inflame divisions among the American people. This is not something for us to be arguing about when we've got the whole world to face and when we've got such huge issues that really really go to human. You know the capacity of the human community to move forward. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 again is the number in the exchange to Amherst next. Gretchen Good morning you're on the air with Ambassador Moseley Braun. Go ahead Gretchen.

Good morning. Thanks so much for having me on the line. Thank you so much Ambassador for brining in trying to take that sign off the White House presuming only sign. Absolutely. I have one sort of question about. I think you're terrific and how can we either contributor or help out. And then my other real question is is around health care and the fact that there are so many HMO these days that will pay for Viagra but won't pay for birth control. Wondering how you plan on changing that system. And you support universal health care coverage to universal comprehensive health care our Web site is Carol for president dot com. Real easy Carol for president dot com and you can get additional information about my positions there as well as a volunteer and we'd love to have. We have an almost entirely volunteer campaign effort. And so we need to have your help. We'd love to have your help. And we've got people here in New Hampshire who are working to organize our volunteers who've given over their basements and their and their studies to help us. So we'd love to have to hear from you and Carol for

president. And we'll get right back to you on health care. Again I go back to the days when I defended Jimmy Carter's efforts to reform health care. There's no reason why we don't have universal comprehensive health care in this country. Absolutely none. And I believe that if we go to a single payer system modeled very much on the one that federal employees presently enjoy and allow every American to participate in a in a system in which it's not tied to employment it comes out of your taxes just like you know roads and water supply. And so it's decoupled from employment. I believe that will give our economy a boost. We'll fund coverage for every American instead of having forty six million people with no health coverage instead of having physicians listening to call centers halfway around the world from somebody reading from a cookbook they'll be able to practice medicine again. What a concept. Nurses Well we'll be able to to practice their their their profession in

environment that is funded properly so they don't have to you know the double overtime and the ridiculous hours and the horrible working conditions we can fix our health care system. And when we do it will save all of us money we we will be able to to bring in health care for less than 15 percent of GDP that we're presently spending. No industrialized country in the world is over not even in double digits. So we're paying more and getting less just because of the way we pay for health care. Every time universal health care comes up there's a lot of opposition to it in the United States as you know people say socialized medicine. People say the quality will go down. You won't be able to get specialized services anymore. There'll be long lines. So yes the costs will go down but you get what you pay for. Well except that I've lived in a country in New Zealand where there is a universal health care system a single payer system and people are very happy with their health care there. And given the fact that our market is so much larger than the news that New

Zealand has all of four million people. You know we've got the biggest market so we have every opportunity not only to preserve the quality of care we can do it without having price controls we can do the HBP the way the federal employees get their health care. It's a negotiated system and it works out well for providers get paid for what they pay for the services they deliver and consumers don't get gouged. I mean here we are importing drugs from Canada. What a concept. And so instead of instead of having ridiculous issues like re-importation of drugs from Canada and and one you know Viagra covered and birth control not a pre-existing existing exemptions for ailments instead of all of that why not just say look the American people are no sicker than the French the Germans the Japanese or anybody else. And we can provide comprehensive universal health care for less money than we're presently spending and people still make money. Now they won't

gouge and they won't make the kind of money in some instances. I reckon the insurance companies that are right now getting the benefit of of the sense that the risk premium risk if you've got everybody covered that kind of goes away you'll still get paid for being an administrator in the system. But but and so the transition I think will give us a boost to our economy and a boost to citizens and a lot of needless human suffering. I have a political question on health care. Most of the other candidates in the Democratic race not all but most do not support universal health care. They instead support expansion of current programs so that you get most everybody covered. They say that approach is more doable politically. And let me say that tinkering with Rube Goldberg contraption just gave you more control it just gives you more contraption. I would point out that of all the candidates who have recommended tinkering I have the most legislative experience of getting things done through

the legislature then all but one of them. And so I know that how the process works and believe that working with the legislature in a sensible way. This is something that can get done. I mean if you start off saying we can't achieve what we need to have then of course not it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. And so to say we're just not a 43 million Americans we're going to cover five more of them. I mean you know why don't you recognize that what we have is a dysfunctional mix of public and private systems that cannot come together in a rational way without the kind of huge transaction costs that we're presently spending. And again I've gone full circle on this issue since the days of Jimmy Carter. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 is our number on the exchange. I'm Laura Conroy. Join us. It's your chance to talk with Democratic presidential candidate Carol Moseley Braun. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. Let's go over to White River Junction Vermont.

Clay joins us from there. Hello Clay welcome. Good morning. Morning. Lauren Ambassador good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I wanted to hear the ambassador's views on a crisis that our country is facing right now with what to do with the high level waste resulting from 30 or 40 years ago. We are a generation of electricity and it's a particular concern in Vermont because as most reactors around the country have spent fuel pools that are nearing full capacity in the next few years one of two things will happen. Either those nuclear reactors will begin to shut down because there's no place to put the waste or that waste is going to stockpile on the on the banks of the Connecticut River and in the case of Vermont. So what's your question. This is the best what kind of vision does the ambassador have for our future energy supply that will be domestically secure and environmentally

safe and safe for the people around it. Well that's two questions both very important and I'm tempted I don't know which one to take first one of the first. The second question is how can we have an energy supply that works for the future and we're for the long haul. And the second is what do we do with the garbage that we have now. And Illinois has more nuclear reactors than any other state in the nation. I didn't know that. Yes. And so this was a big issue of which we had a lot of concern and quite frankly I guess I'm not one to push panic buttons it's a real problem because we don't have a rational response or resolution of these nuclear waste storage issue presently. Yucca Mountain down in Nevada is supposed to become the repository. Nevadans have fought this for years. But at the same time it's likely we're going to just kind of start storing this stuff in in Nevada in the desert in caves in the desert. That's not real clever but it's the best anybody can come up with. There are some

technologies that allow for repipe reprocessing of the. The nuclear waste and breaking it down into constituent parts but that runs into proliferation anti-proliferation goals because one of the by products is plutonium. And so you know you've got to work real hard to get it back to weapons grade is like trying to reclaim plastics. But you've got to work hard to get it cleaned up. But at the same time it is an off shoot. And so they still haven't quite figured out how to use the technology to clean this stuff. You don't want that lying around because somebody could pick it up and you actually turn it into a weapon. Exactly. And what sort of approach would you take. Well I think in the first place and having nuclear regulatory commission that actually monitors this and works with the states better to make sure that we really do have the oversight on this issue that I don't have. I'm not real secure we have right now with the transportation of this stuff for example. You've got nuclear waste on trains going throughout the country

and at any given point in time I hope Tom Ridge knows where the stuff is at any given point in time. But I don't have a real high comfort level that he does. To be honest. So so so having regulatory oversight by a and a a an energized and staffed NRC I think is going to be very very important. And in terms of your your own energy in terms of my own energy policy actually is integral to my policies for getting this economy going again creating jobs across the board because I believe that environmental technologies and energy technologies hold great promise to create brand new industries and opportunities for entrepreneurs everything from again solar and wind and water power biomass. When I was in the Senate I was called the ethanol queen. The farmers gave me a hint that ethanol queen for my efforts to help get ethanol started. Now you know they've get a little greedy frankly on the subsidies this point. But but but. But getting ethanol started was a very very important thing to do because it was the first step on the path to lessening our

dependence on foreign oil and breaking our really absolute dependence on fossil fuels. And so I think that supporting you know magnetic energies. There's all kinds of technology transfer that I think can help hold great promise for us. Let's go to Bedford next and talk to Michael. Michael you're on the exchange. Welcome. Thank you. Good morning. Morning. I just have a couple of comments. First of all I would just like to organise we're for bring such courage and dignity through this whole process and that is encouraging for all Americans. And the second coming of a story I like about my daughter she's 10 years old and you start to kind of understand the whole idea of the presidential debates and you saw the candidates up on the stage and we were talking about the different ones and so I asked her I said Well which one you think would make a good presidency. First off kind of surprised me because she said well I really don't care who wins I just hope it's not that lady up there. And I said

well why is she responded. Because I want to be you know I just want to all the good girls out there. That's my call. Thank you so much. Michael thank you for joining us. I hope I inspire some girls and I hope inspires women inspire women to get into this process. I mean we have we're citizens too fat to vote since 1920. There's no reason why our political leadership is so lopsided. I mean the country will be better off we if we if we tap all the talent that's available to us. You know what I don't like to ask you about as I've heard you talk about bringing the female perspective. Why can't a woman be president. Let's bring women to the process. I rarely hear you talking about bringing the African-American perspective to this race. Well that's interesting. I have that because I am who you know is that line I am what I am I am and I am an African-American woman. But I think

that that means that that's a good thing because again that's the country reaching out to tap more of the perspectives than not because I bring the perspective of a woman I bring the perspective of person of color being the perspective of person who struggled and fought for freedom. I mean my my ancestors died to give me the ability to be a full American. And so if there's anybody who's going to fight for freedom and for security and to preserve our liberties it's got to be me because I'm not going to be part of the generation that turns the light out on the American dream. Ambassador Braun There are a lot of issues we didn't get to today. Taxes education. I hope you can come back in January and talk to us about that and I thank you very much for coming in this time. I look very much for it too. Thank you very much. Former U.S. Senator and Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun she is running in New Hampshire's Democratic presidential primary for a list of upcoming shows on the exchange visit the exchange page and HPR dot org. You can sign up to get a calendar of what's coming up on the exchange including what issues we'll be covering in our presidential primary

issue Tuesdays. Tomorrow's issue is going to be education policy. The exchange is a production of an HPR produced by Keith shields Ty Fraley and Rebecca kaufen our engineers Dan COLGAN And I'm Laura