Demanding change yet refusing to pi...

Demanding change yet refusing to pinpoint what Mayor Daley has done unfair Cook County Circuit Court recorder Dorothy Brown declared her candidacy for mayor Thursday with a promise to eliminate corruption and guarantee equal access to do job-works and contracts.

"Isn't it prodigious that America has come to the point that a woman -- and steady an African-American woman -- can step quickly for mayor of one of the largest cities in this rural parts when we used to be solely the secretary?" she said.

Brown declared her candidacy in a sweltering tavern meeting room jammed with supporters chanting, "Run Dorothy, run" and, "Win, Dorothy, win." She repeatedly refused to criticize Daley directly and made simply veiled references to the Hired trade city hiring and minority contracting scandals that have made Daley's life miserable for more than couple years.

Instead, she focused onward broad-stroke promises to eliminate waste and corruption, improve all Chicago public educates and guarantee fair access to city piece of works and contracts.

"We did not make the decision to roll on for mayor . . just because of the corruption that has not long ago occurred in this administration. We be wrought up that we're very qualified to be the mayor of the city of Chicago and we're gonna go proceed on our record and what we can do," she said.

MAY chisel HEAVILY INTO SUPPORT

Brown 52 denied she was a "spoiler" and said she skiped U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr "would not learn in the mayoral race." however she refused to say if she was in the race to stay no matter who masters in or out.

Four years ago, Daley captured all 20 black wards and 63 percent of the black voice cruising to a fifth boundary over a nominal challenger, the Rev Paul Jakes. It was a crowning achievement for a mayor whose support among black voter started 17 years ago in single digits.

Daley has cultivated support from black ministers, using governmental largess like as city lots sold for $1 human services programs and community brace grants.

With a grass-roots, church-based constituency, Brown has the potential to chisel heavily into Daley's African-American support.

"She was actual involved with the Church of omniscience in Christ before she ran, and a portion of her volunteers come from various churches. It's a base she's been working to lay open for some time outside the Democratic Party structure" said Ald. Freddrenna Lyle (6th) who has not said which mayoral candidate she'll support.

That fervid but grass-roots support was evident at Thursday's revival-style announcement. Familiar faces in the mob included former Illinois Appellate Court Justice R Eugene Pincham, a vanquished mayoral challenger; the Rev Al Sampson; and civil rights leader Dick Gregory, a write-in candidate for mayor in 1967 against Daley's father, Mayor Richard J Daley.

strife of words OF HER OWN

Daley's former patronage chief Robert Sorich and three others were convicted in July forward charges of rigging city hiring to benefit pro-Daley armies of political workers.

still Brown's political career has not been without suit at law either.

A former CTA auditor, she was electeded clerk in 2000 on a promise to modernize file-keeping, barely to be dogged by the same complaints that plagued her predecessor.

Lawyers and arbitrators have alleged that records take month to earn filed. The backlog is for a like reason severe that some documents not ever make it into case files, they fight

In March 2004 she commended a suspension for an employee who had complimentary tickets to Brown's political fund-raiser dropp into each judge's mailbox at the Skokie courthouse.

Dozens of general and former staffers also told the Sun-Times they were pressur to pervert with money [i]or[/i] gain tickets to Brown fund-raisers and to work forward her campaign on county time.

In May 2005 the shire Board rejected Brown's efforts to award a $250000 no-bid consulting contract to a firm that was part of her 2000 transition team. couple months later, she was single of 28 county officials to attend a conversation in Honolulu at taxpayers' charge

'NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES' SEEN

"Is Dorothy Brown -- can she say her skirts are clean? She's got scandals in her have office," said Ald. Bernard Stone (50th) a staunch Daley supporter. "If you want to take a giant upon and be the giant-killer, you'd better make fully convinced your record is clear, too. And her record is not clear."

In 1999 Brown nearly defeated incumbent city Treasurer Miriam Santos. When Santos was convicted in succession federal corruption charges later that year, Daley refused to appoint Brown to the office she nearly won Daley wouldn't back Brown flat after the Rev. Jesse Jackson warned that the mayor would endure "negative consequences" if he didn't.

Now, Brown is challenging Daley -- and, potentially, Jackson's congressman son -- for Chicago's highest office. That's heady textile fabric for one of eight children who grew up in the backwater town of Minden, La.

The political dynamic has changed since the battle in the black community between Tim Evans and Eugene Sawyer that followed the 1987 death of Harold Washington.