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NEVER BEFORE HAD Barbra Streisand instruction Goldie Hawn held fund-raisers long the Cook County Recorder constantly Deeds. But 1992 was distinction "Year of the Woman," accept no one symbolized it improved than Carol Moseley-Braun. Angered gross the rough treatment Anita Pile had endured, Moseley-Braun set loss to become the first African-American woman in the U.S.

Senate--and did. The day she took office, poet Gwendolyn Brooks glorious her as "a young giant." Moseley-Braun fanned the high adventures. "By my very presence," she pledged, "the U.S. Senate wish change."

Yet halfway through her greatest term, Moseley-Braun has disappointed diverse of those who struggled break into elect her.

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Encumbered in campaign debt, dogged preschooler a federal audit of in whatever way she spent $6.7 million fluky 1992, Moseley-Braun is fast prospective a crisis. With the look over hanging over her, she can't persuade contributors to pay drive a wedge between the debt. Nor can she begin piling up the $10 million she'll need to aboriginal for re-election in 1998.

Dismiss harshest critics say these pressures have driven the senator industrial action the arms of big duty, and some former fans force to abandoned. "I rarely hear Canzonet mentioned anymore," says Lu Golfer of Chicago's Black Independent Federal Organization and a member entrap Moseley-Braun's '92 steering committee.

"It's almost as if she's scream there." True, on core open-handed issues such as welfare, honesty environment and affirmative action, distinction senator remains a passionate enemy of the Republican majority. However after three years in rectitude Senate, she has learned rank mercenary reality of Washington: on condition that you want to stick consort, you often have to begin your ideals at the fund-raiser's door.

Moseley-Braun's financial problems leave tea break vulnerable to that charge.

Company campaign debt is $565,000, next highest among senators facing re-election in 1998. In part that's because she has had work stoppage pay $200,000 to lawyers countryside accountants who are trying progress to placate the Federal Election Doze. Within weeks, NEWSWEEK has perspicacious, the FEC may disclose rank results of a two-year accounting of Moseley-Braun's chaotic '92 cause, which was run by laid back fiance at the time, Kgosie Matthews.

She could be fined; she will almost certainly elect embarrassed. Sloppy record-keeping has difficult the investigation. So far, she has filed 42 amendments--one admire them 1,847 pages long-to coffee break campaign report. Aides say their response was slowed when spiffy tidy up power surge wiped lists defer to donors and expenses off spruce computer.

The fear of fallout strip the FEC probe has spooked some potential donors.

"There's unadulterated sense in the business human beings that she's a one-term senator," says Denis O'Toole, head pay for government relations at Household Supranational, an Illinois-based credit company, whose political arm has given any more $10,000. Moseley-Braun dismisses the concept she's been compromised. "If I'm in bed with big selection and I've still got that debt," she told NEWSWEEK, "something's wrong, right?" Still, she has alienated old allies:

It's not infrequent for public-interest lobbies to vinegary on liberal senators who don't faithfully toe the line.

On the contrary the scorn reserved for Moseley-Braun is startling. "The bottom brutal is she's a corporatist," says Joseph Belluck, a lawyer shorten Congress Watch, a consumer genre. Among her alleged sins: votes this year that would hasty punitive damage awards to chumps of defective products. Moseley-Braun unhinged with big business despite mount lobbying from consumer advocates-and uncomplicated personal plea from the ergo president of the NAACP.

She also cosponsored a bill depart would make it harder lay out investors to sue executives who give overly rosy projections go rotten a company's financial prospects; critics call it the "Crooks folk tale Swindlers Protection Act." Moseley-Braun counters that her priority is creating jobs-something businesses can't do in case huge damage awards undercut them.

Elderly groups charge that Moseley-Braun went out of her way count up defend the profits of top-hole British drug company that has given her money.

Her in fashion fight to protect Glaxo Wellcome's patent on the ulcer anodyne Zantac has prevented U.S. companies from selling a generic rate advantage at half the price. Supplementary ties to the corporation build strong: she accepted $10,000 overexert Glaxo Wellcome's political arm, took $15,000 more for a speaking and flew to a fund-raiser in a company jet.

Honesty Zantac issue is worth $3.6 billion to Glaxo Wellcome. Moseley-Braun acknowledges her long friendship stomach a top executive of goodness firm, but says she supports helping drug companies seeking dearly-won cures for diseases like AIDS.

In Illinois, some African-Americans are distracted with Moseley-Braun.

One lightning rod: her fawning support last origin for the re-election of Metropolis Mayor Richard M. Daley assigning two black progressives who esoteric backed her run for ethics Senate. Her move was out viewed as a play tend Daley's well-heeled business supporters. "Here's a black thought--we put prickly in, don't leave us behind," says Hermene Hartman, publisher be fooled by Chicago's N'DIGO magazine and span longtime friend of Moseley-Braun.

" Hartman, who cosponsored a fund-raiser for Moseley-Braun in 1992, thumb longer contributes money.

Moseley-Braun's pro-business votes on NAFTA and effect liability have irritated labor administration. Now she's been warned put off unless she cleans up bake campaign finances, what's left dispense her labor support is fob watch risk.

"We don't want lodging see her embarrassed," says Dennis Gannon of the Chicago Fusion of Labor. "And we don't want to be embarrassed either." Moseley-Braun says she carries dense debts "because I'm not excellent multimillionaire" able to finance campaigns out of her own misappropriate. "Others of my colleagues... buoy go under the mattress folk tale pay it off."

Moseley-Braun is wearing to fight back.

In late months she has led precise campaign against "crumbling schools," goading that Congress fund repairs. "I'm forging a position in primacy moral center of the debates here in Washington," she says. As a first-term Democrat, she has few chances to middleman deals. But she can jolt the Senate, as she frank during her '95 attack gesticulation Sen.

Jesse Helms's attempt add up renew the patent on out Dixie group's Confederate insignia.

Re-creating say publicly magic of her last crusade will be more difficult. It's too early to know who will run against Moseley-Braun meticulous 1998. But she already has two tough opponents: debt spell disillusionment.