When You Forget to Graduate While Running for Office

Oh, City Councilwoman Yvette Clarke. You get a big dose of attention from the NY Times on Wednesday about your run for Major Owen's Congressional Seat, but then it turns out you never graduated from Oberlin, the way your campaign literature in 2004 and 2005 claimed you did. Clarke was a few credits short of a degree, and her aides said that she had finished them up at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn. The problem? Oberlin never got those transcripts. Oops! Yesterday, the Daily News had a statement from Clarke about the incident, where she claimed she thought she had "fulfilled the requirements for a bachelor's degree," but then "discovered" that she never actually finished those classes. What? Clarke is 41 - that's not old and no reason to forget taking a class that would give you a college degree.

And the Daily News' Daily Politics blog reveals that Clarke did enroll at Medgar Evers not once but twice!

Clarke's transcript, according to this source, shows that she took three public administration classes in 1986. That would have been enough to finish her Oberlin degree. But while she got As in two classes, she failed a third.

Clarke was clearly aware that she hadn't finished her degree: In 1991, she re-enrolled at Medgar Evers, this time in a management class. According to the transcript, however, she withdrew from the class.

Just one class short! Chris Owens, son of Major and one of Clarke's Democratic rivals for the 11th District Democratic rave, said in a debate last night, "I think there's a pattern that just is troubling, and I'm not going to say it points to character - I think maybe it points to messiness and incompetence."

And other highlights from the debate:
- It's felt that David Yassky, the only white candidate in the four-way race, decided to run because the other three black candidates would split the vote (naturally, Yassky denied it)
- Owens denied being behind posters that compared Yassky to rats or roaches
- State Senator Carl Andrews "deflected" questions about his close relationship with disgraced Brooklyn Democratic leader Clarence Norman, who had to step down after being convicted of corruption

The four told the Daily News editorial board the US "should pull out of Iraq," Wal-Mart's corporate citizenship was problematic and that they "opposed a guest-worker program for undocumented immigrants." And don't know if you're in the 11th District? Take a look at this map from GovTrack.