Former US Congressman and past NAACP president Kwesi Mfume is running for the Senate as a Democrat in Maryland, but you’d never know it. Top Dems have endorsed his (white) rival US Rep. Benjamin Cardin despite Mfume’s record and his obvious appeal to Black voters.

But the kick in the head is that hip hop mogul Russell Simmons is endorsing the other Black guy in the race, Republican and Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele. Simmons appeared at a Steele fundraiser, attended mostly by young Black folks, and claimed the GOP candidate is leading the charge in “The last leg of the civil rights movement” which Simmons identifies as the economic empowerment step. (Read as “the pro-business and rich brothers step”.)

Early in his campaign, Steele took great effort to distance himself from the leader of his party, but has reversed that move of late, referring to Grandwizard GDub as his “homeboy”.

So where does that leave Mfume? He is the progressive horse in the race - antiwar, pro-liberal values - but with even his buddy Min. Ben Chavis Muhammad stumping for Steele on Simmons’ coattails, will Kweisi be able to mount a significant challenge come November?

This entry was posted on Friday, August 25th, 2006 at 10:07 am and is filed under Black Folks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.