http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=247365By Aaron Klein
© 2011 WorldNetDaily
The political career of Chicago mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun has been facilitated for years by a slew of radicals, including communists and socialists.
Braun's former campaign staff has included socialist activists and the founder of an academy that teaches the community organizing tactics of radical Saul Alinsky.
The field operations director for Braun's successful 1992 bid for the U.S. Senate in Illinois was Heather Booth, founder of the Midwest Academy, which models its curriculum on Alinsky.
WND was first to report that the Woods Fund, a Chicago nonprofit on which Barack Obama served as paid director alongside Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers, provided money to Midwest Academy.
WND also broke the story that the executive director of Midwest Academy was part of the team that developed and delivered a group of volunteers for Obama's 2008 campaign.
Meanwhile, Jeremy Karpatkin, former Youth Organizer for the Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA, also directed Braun's field operations for her 1992 race.
Braun has been closely linked throughout her political career to the DSA, one of the largest U.S. socialist groups. She has also been linked to the Communist Party USA and to U.S.-based communist activists.
Chicago's DSA contributed both volunteers and money to Braun's 1992 campaign.
DSA activist Milt Cohen boasted of helping to recruit Braun for her first legislative race in 1978.
At the 34th annual Chicago DSA dinner, DSA member Sue Purrington was hailed for being instrumental in persuading Moseley Braun to start her senatorial campaign and for producing votes to back up her pledge of support.
Braun's alliance with communist activists traces back to at least November 1979, when she was a co-sponsor, with Congressmen Ron Dellums and John Conyers, of the founding conference of the Communist Party-led U.S. Peace Council, an affiliate of the Soviet-controlled World Peace Council.
Dellums is a founder of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. WND previously exposed how the caucus was founded as an arm of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Braun is a protege of former Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, who openly affiliated himself with the Communist Party USA. Braun was a legislative floor leader for Washington when he was a congressman and later joined Washington's so-called "Dream Ticket" to successfully run for the office of recorder of deeds.
The KeyWikiwebsite documents how on May 17, 1987, Braun helped sponsor, with Communist Party leaders Angela Davis and Herbert Aptheker, a benefit for Chicago Communist Party leaders.
On Sept. 7, 1991, Braun spoke at the funeral of Communist Party USA national committee member Claude Lightfoot, telling attendees of "having been enriched by a dinner conversation with her late father and Lightfoot, which gave her a deeper insight into the struggles of the unemployed in the 1930s."
Braun also was officially supported by the Communist Party USA in her 1992 senatorial race.
Read more: Radicals key to career of Chicago mayoral candidate
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