A commenter wrote in yesterday to chide me for neglecting to mention that former NAACP head and former Congressman Kweisi Mfume is running for the Senate along with Michael Steele and Josh Rales. You wouldn’t know it because frankly his campaign has been under water. No one is talking about it, there are no ads on TV and there is nothing in the newspapers.

What gives?

Well, some might recall that Mfume left the NAACP under a cloud of sexual harassment allegations. Apparently the way to get ahead under his adminstration at the old stalwart organization had less to do with your ability to uplift the race and more with your ability to uplift…well, I think you catch my drift.

No one is talking directly about that though either. Look, I want to see another brother in the Senate as much as anyone. And Mfume was a strong, solid leader overall of the NAACP. He’s solid on the issues progressives care about, like Iraq, corporate responsibility and uh, cruelty to chickens.

The fact that Steele is more appealing to Maryland African-Americans right now is very telling and it is bad news for Mfume’s quest. Same goes for Ben Cardin — he’s not generating a ton of excitement in Maryland right now. Unlike Cardin, Mfume has a lot of name recognition though both in and outside of the black community and we could very well see him go up against Steele after the primary. By keeping quiet, he may be able to capitalize on his good rep while avoiding direct criticism of past behavior.

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