Sadly but not surprisingly overlooked, Tuesday will be the 50th anniversary of the election of Edward Brooke to the US Senate. On 8th November 1966, Brooke became the first African American to be popularly elected to the Senate, representing Massachusetts as a Republican, which at the time was 97.8% white and had voted 67% Democratic in the previous presidential election. It was one of the highlights of my life to interview Brooke seven months before he died. Brooke was one of the last of a generation of black leaders who personally knew someone who had been born into slavery. Brooke’s grandfather (and namesake) was born a slave on a plantation near Fredericksburg, Virginia. Brooke described him to me as follows: …

From the coverage of the US election in the UK news media it would be easy to get the impression that we are witnessing a single battle of giants, or a least of the giantly funded. In mid-October the Center for Responsive Politics reported that the campaigns of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama had raised almost $900 million combined. But the presidential election is not the only place where money talks loudly.