Our Readers' Opinions
August 13, 2004
Obama is from Illinois

EDITOR: I would like to correct some misinformation in the Bassy Alexander column of last week.
Barack Obama is not running for senator in Ohio, as he is not from the state of Ohio. He is in fact running for senator to represent the state of Illinois, where he is from, in the United States Senate, not Ohio. {{more}}
Another misinformation by Bassy was that the last black senator in the House was Ed Brooke, which he claims took place 30 years ago.
He is wrong on all counts. There is no such thing as “Senator of the House”.
There are three BRANCHES of GOVERNMENT: Executive, Legislative and Judicial within the United States government. Within the LEGISLATIVE Branch you have the House of Representatives and the Senate. As you may have already figured out, a SENATOR is a member of the Senate, not the House of Representatives.
The next misinformation is that Ed Brooke was the last black senator. The last black senator in the United States Senate was Carol Mosely Braun, who represented the state of Illinois; the same state that Barack Obama is running to REPRESENT in the United States Senate. Hopefully Barack Obama will end the DRY SPELL of a black (African American) person being elected to the US Senate.
By the way, Carol Mosely Braun was elected in 1992, which would mean it was 14 years since a black person was elected to the US Senate, not the 30 years mentioned by Bassy.
Ragga