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May 17, 2022

The Chestertown Spy

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Point of View Op-Ed

Commentary: Numbers That Tell Political Stories in the 1st District by Josh Kurtz

September 21, 2021 by Maryland Matters Leave a Comment

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Now that the General Assembly’s redistricting commission has begun meeting, even as Republican Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr.’s redistricting commission continues to hold sessions, it feels a little like the varsity team has finally taken the field. With all due respect to the other redistricting commissioners.

Hogan will attempt to get as much political mileage as he can from the Maryland Citizens Redistricting Commission he assembled earlier this year, and whatever maps the commission proposes for Congress and the state legislature will undergird Hogan’s bully pulpit when he argues, yet again, that partisanship needs to be taken out of the redistricting process.

The Hogan commission itself has been a bit of a masquerade — both the notion that its work product would result in maps that actually get due consideration in the General Assembly, along with the fiction that this has really been a non-partisan effort, when one of the co-chairs, Walter Olson, a senior fellow with the right-wing Cato Institute, has been calling most of the shots. It’s the legislature’s commission that’s going to produce the congressional and legislative boundaries that get adopted — unless and until the maps get taken to court.

With the Democrats firmly in control of the process for now, the big question is whether they will attempt to draw an 8-0 Democratic congressional map, potentially sending Republican Rep. Andrew P. Harris into political oblivion, or whether they will keep it at 7-1 but generate a cleaner-looking product.

The draft map that the Hogan/Olson commission circulated earlier this month appeared to have five solid Democratic districts, two Republican districts, and one that theoretically could be up for grabs. That more or less accurately reflects the state’s political makeup.

But when has that ever been a consideration during redistricting — here or in the other states where one political party controls the process? And why should Maryland Democrats “disarm” when Republicans aren’t going to do so in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania? It may be the right thing to do but it isn’t the smart thing to do in the current national political environment.

According to sources on Capitol Hill and here in the Free State, no less an eminence than U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has been brandishing a proposed Maryland map that shows Democrats with eight seats and Republicans with zero. She is touting it to her Maryland colleagues, urging them to embrace the idea, fully aware that are very few states where Democrats can take advantage of redistricting. In fact, national political analysts say that Republicans could take over control of the U.S. House in 2023 on redistricting gains alone — never mind whatever seats they’ll invariably pick up in the midterm elections.

Drawing an 8-0 Maryland map in favor of the Democrats, believe it or not, isn’t that difficult as a cartographic and statistical exercise. The resistance comes from the Democratic members of Congress themselves, who are often reluctant to give up safe territory even if doing so would help the partisan cause.

A quick look at the 2020 election results suggests that each of the seven Democratic House incumbents from Maryland have plenty of safe territory to sacrifice: Rep. Anthony G. Brown, whose 4th District includes Prince George’s and Anne Arundel counties, won by 59 points last November; Rep. Kweisi Mfume, whose 7th District is anchored in Baltimore City but also takes in territory in Howard and Baltimore counties, won by 43 points; Rep. John P. Sarbanes, whose hideous-looking 3rd District touches five jurisdictions, won by 39 points.

Those bulging margins were followed by Rep. Steny H. Hoyer’s 38-point victory in the 5th District, which covers the three Southern Maryland counties plus Prince George’s and a piece of Anne Arundel; Rep. Jamie B. Raskin’s 36-point win in the 8th District, which is based in Montgomery but also takes in Frederick and Carroll counties; and Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger’s 35-point victory in the 2nd District, which touches Baltimore City and Baltimore and Harford counties.

Even in what’s seen as the closest thing to a competitive district in the state, the 6th — the district Democrats specifically carved out in Montgomery County and Western Maryland after the 2010 Census to pick up an extra seat — Rep. David J. Trone won by 16 points last year.

Imagine if each of these guys, minus Trone, said, “I’d be willing to shave 20 points off my victory margin.” How much easier would it then be for Democrats to put Harris’ seat in danger? Harris won reelection, by the way, by 27 points last year.

Our appointed General Assembly

When Cheryl S. Landis is sworn in as the next delegate from District 23B in Prince George’s County sometime this fall, she’ll become the 33rd member of the House of Delegates who was originally appointed to their seat. This is about one-quarter of the 141-member chamber.

And the numbers are certain to grow, with Del. Michael E. Malone (R-Anne Arundel) set to resign soon to take a judgeship, and Del. Erek L. Barron (D-Prince George’s) awaiting U.S. Senate confirmation to become Maryland’s U.S. attorney. Their slots will have to be filled as well.

The numbers aren’t any better in the Senate: In all, 12 of the 47 senators were originally appointed to their seats — five since the 2018 election alone. Add to that two senators who first entered the legislature as appointees to the House.

For those who need reminding, legislative vacancies in Maryland are filled by the governor, usually after receiving a recommendation from the relevant Democratic or Republican central committees in a departed lawmaker’s county. For Landis, it was probably pretty easy to get the recommendation: She’s the chair of the Prince George’s Democratic Central Committee. Several other appointees got their starts in politics serving on a central committee, which greased the skids for their appointment to the legislature.

Some lawmakers have tried to change the system, introducing legislation to require special elections to fill House and Senate vacancies in the first two years of the legislative term. The bill has passed the Senate in the past two years, and unanimously last year, but has stalled in the House.

It’s time to pass that bill. Is this the people’s legislature, or is it the province of political bosses and insiders?

In the meantime, we’d probably all better pay closer attention to central committee elections.

Josh Kurtz, founding editor of Maryland Matters, has been writing about state and local politics since 1995.

Filed Under: Op-Ed Tagged With: appointees, census, commentary, josh kurtz, Maryland, partisanship, politics, redistricting

Will Frosh Seek a Third Term as AG? What Happens if He Doesn’t?

August 30, 2021 by Maryland Matters Leave a Comment

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Political professionals in Maryland have focused intensely on the races for governor and — to a lesser extent — comptroller during the still-young 2022 campaign.

There has been almost no discussion about who will serve as the state’s attorney general for the next four years.

But that will change in a hurry if incumbent Brian E. Frosh (D) decides not to seek a third term as the state’s top lawyer.

Frosh will turn 75 in October, and he did not attend the Maryland Association of Counties summer conference in Ocean City earlier this month or a recent Democratic Attorneys General Association gathering that was held online.

The absences have fueled widespread speculation that the Montgomery County Democrat will not run for re-election. The $205,092 Frosh reported in his campaign account as of mid-January isn’t a lot for a veteran statewide officeholder, either.

“He ain’t running,” one insider predicted confidently.

But others who have spoken with Frosh recently came away with the distinct opposite impression.

Frosh himself would only say that he is planning to announce his decision soon.

Interviews with more than a dozen well-connected Democrats over the last 10 days offer some insight into how events might unfold. Many of the people Maryland Matters spoke with were granted anonymity to discuss the state of play candidly.

If Frosh runs again, he will be considered a prohibitive favorite to win another four years as attorney general, though a Democratic primary challenge — particularly from a younger person of color — cannot be ruled out.

James F. Shalleck, a former federal prosecutor and Republican activist who recently stepped down as head of the Montgomery County Board of Elections, filed papers with the state on Wednesday to run for attorney general. It’s possible that a Frosh retirement will prompt other Republicans to look at the race.

Whomever the Republican nominee ends up being, he or she will face long odds.

Frosh has prevailed in every election he has competed in since 1986, when he won his first of two terms representing the Bethesda area in the House of Delegates. He went on to serve for 20 years in the Senate, including a dozen years as chairman of the Judicial Proceedings Committee.

If Frosh opts not to seek a third term, the Democratic primary battle to replace him could get interesting very quickly — though many leading Democrats and party strategists predict that state Sen. William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery) would be an early favorite.

Smith is relatively new to Annapolis, having been elected in 2014 to the House of Delegates and once to the Senate. (He was appointed to the Senate in 2016 following then-Sen. Jamie B. Raskin’s election to the U.S. House.)

Despite his relative youth and junior status, Smith, 39, was appointed chairman of the Judicial Proceedings Committee — Frosh’s former perch — in late 2019, and helped shepherd the police reform legislative package through the General Assembly earlier this year.

A lawyer by training, the Silver Spring native attended the National Intelligence University and has served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve since 2009. He deployed to Afghanistan for six months in 2019, causing him to miss the end of that year’s General Assembly session.

Smith would be the first person of color to serve as attorney general in Maryland history. Although he lacks a statewide network, he is well-liked in Annapolis and he could attract significant support from a range of Democratic establishment figures.

At least one potential rival said they would not run for attorney general if Smith enters the race.

Smith, who has already begun canvassing his district in advance of his re-election bid, reported $122,083 in his campaign account in mid-January. He declined to discuss next year’s campaign.

Should Frosh choose to retire, Smith almost certainly won’t be the only Democrat who would seek to replace him in 2022 if he decides to run for the seat, though none would probably start with Smith’s level of institutional support. A survey of Democratic politicians, strategists and party stalwarts produces a list of several other possible candidates if Frosh retires — including two who have sought the office before:

Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Aisha N. Braveboy (D) — She ran for attorney general in 2014, coming in third in the Democratic primary, with 20% of the vote. An ambitious attorney and former state delegate in her first term as county prosecutor, she is considered more likely to want to run for Prince George’s County executive whenever there is a vacancy. But she might eye the AG slot again if she can see a path to victory. She had $74,945 in her campaign war chest in mid-January.

Rep. Anthony G. Brown (D) — An intriguing potential candidate whose name has surfaced repeatedly in recent days, the former lieutenant governor would enter the race a top-tier candidate. An aide declined to make Brown available for an interview, saying he was focused on Capitol Hill matters. But even with a very safe seat, Brown is thought to be restless in Congress, and may envision himself in an executive role again before long. Brown had less than $2,000 left in his state campaign account in mid-January and reported more than $1.4 million in his federal campaign account. But only $6,000 can be directly transferred from the federal war chest to the state fund.

Del. Jon Cardin (D-Baltimore County) — Cardin was the runner-up to Frosh in the 2014 primary and says that while the job of attorney general still interests him, he hasn’t given much thought to the idea that there will be a vacancy. If Frosh decides to retire, Cardin says he will give the race a look. Cardin reported $31,778 in the bank as of mid-January.

Del. Luke H. Clippinger (D-Baltimore City) — The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, whose day job is working as a prosecutor in Anne Arundel County, says the job of attorney general interests him, but he fully expects Frosh to seek re-election. Clippinger was campaign manager to Tom Perez when Perez ran an aborted campaign for attorney general in 2006. Clippinger reported $105,893 in his campaign account in mid-January.

Montgomery County Councilmember William Jawando (D) — The former Barack Obama aide has already announced his intention to seek a second term on the council, but he’s also keeping his eyes open for other opportunities and has publicly expressed a general interest in the AG’s job in the past. He’s been the leading advocate of police reform on the county council and has also worked to protect struggling tenants during the pandemic. Jawando had $23,062 in his campaign war chest as of mid-January.

Former Congressman Frank M. Kratovil Jr. (D) — Now a Queen Anne’s County District Court judge, Kratovil, who served one term in Congress representing the Eastern Shore, is known to be eager to get back in the political game and would take a hard look at the AG race if there was a vacancy. Kratovil would likely be the most politically moderate candidate in a Democratic primary for AG — which could be beneficial or a hindrance depending on how the rest of the field shakes out. Kratovil has no active campaign finance account.

Montgomery County State’s Attorney John J. McCarthy (D) — McCarthy, the four-term prosecutor would start with one big advantage: Montgomery is home to one-in-six Maryland voters. But even though he’s facing aggressive Democratic primary opposition for the first time in his re-election contest, the 69-year-old attorney is still favored for another term — something he would have to take into consideration before deciding to roll the dice on a statewide bid. McCarthy had $146,297 in the bank in mid-January.

Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby (D) — Mosby in many ways has the most political talent and star power of any of the potential contenders — and also the most political baggage. She’s highly ambitious, and after more than 6 1/2 years in office, she’s no doubt thinking about her next political move. She’s got a loyal following in Baltimore. But she and her husband, Baltimore City Council President Nick J. Mosby (D) have faced plenty of unwanted scrutiny over the past several months for various financial dealings and they reportedly are the target of one or more federal investigations. A Mosby spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment. Mosby, who is up for a third term in 2022, had $68,487 in her campaign account in mid-January.

Here are some other Democrats who are mentioned as possible candidates for attorney general but highly unlikely to run:

Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D) — The popular first-term executive opted not to run for governor next year. Insiders believe she is more likely to run for the U.S. Senate in 2024 if incumbent Benjamin L. Cardin — who turns 78 in October — retires. The county’s former top prosecutor would have been a top-tier candidate for AG the last time the job was vacant, in 2014, and would be again. But she has said publicly she’s committed to remaining county executive.

Del. Vanessa E. Atterbeary (D-Howard) — Atterbeary took the reins on the House’s police reform effort in 2020 and 2021, demonstrating solid leadership skills. But as a favorite of House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County) and with an ever-shifting legislature, she may have committee leadership opportunities coming her way in the next few years.

Sen. Jill P. Carter (D-Baltimore City) — She was a major mover in the police reform debate in the most recent legislative session — an issue she has worked on relentlessly for years. Carter seems most interested in running for Congress again someday, but some supporters will no doubt encourage her to take a look at AG if Frosh retires. On the other hand, she could be in line for the gavel at the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee if Smith is running for another office.

Former Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler (D) — Elected attorney general in 2006 and 2010, the Montgomery County Democrat would be a viable candidate to get his old job back if his second run for governor falters, but those who’ve spoken with him in recent days came away convinced he intends to remain in the race for the top job and maintains he has a legitimate chance to win.

Del. Brooke E. Lierman (D-Baltimore City) — Lierman is a civil rights attorney, so a race for attorney general makes sense on paper. But she’s already immersed in and committed to her campaign for comptroller, which is well underway — and she is the early frontrunner.

Former U.S. Labor Secretary and Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez (D) — Perez ran for AG in 2006, after J. Joseph Curran Jr. (D) announced his retirement, but his candidacy was derailed after the state’s highest court ruled he hadn’t practiced law here for 10 years, as required. He would be Maryland’s first Latino AG if elected, but Perez has told associates he intends to remain in the race for governor.

Former state Sen. Robert L. Zirkin (D-Baltimore County) — Zirkin retired from the state Senate in late 2019, giving up his post as chair of the Judicial Proceedings Committee. But even though he seemed through with politics at the time, he’s only 50, and he may yet have a second political act.

By Bruce DePuyt, Hannah Gaskill, and Josh Kurtz

Filed Under: Maryland News Tagged With: 2022, attorney general, brian e. frosh, campaign, election, Maryland, politics, re-election

To Bloomberg, or Not to Bloomberg: That is the Question Before Maryland Democrats

February 17, 2020 by Maryland Matters

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The name Michael Bloomberg is writ large across Maryland, although many voters might not immediately associate the name with the candidate who’s spread billions of dollars across the state.

They soon will.

Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York and newly launched Democratic candidate for president, is a graduate and benefactor of the Johns Hopkins University, its former board chairman and namesake of its Bloomberg School of Public Health.

One of America’s 10 wealthiest men, Bloomberg, a media and business magnate, has donated $1.8 billion to the Johns Hopkins University for scholarships, and $300 million to the School of Public Health, which was renamed for him.

All totaled, Bloomberg has given $3.3 billion to Hopkins and its affiliates over his lifetime and since his first contribution of $5 in 1964, the largest donation to a university in American history. The Children’s Center at Johns Hopkins is named for his mother, Charlotte D. Bloomberg.

What’s more, while that kind of money might not appear to trickle down to street echelons, the donations help sustain one of Maryland’s most durable institutions and the state’s largest employer. Hopkins has 54,623 employees at its different locations in Maryland, with 40,564 employees in Baltimore City. That’s a broad constituency on which to build.

The School of Public Health alone trains 95% of the public health officers in the world. So name almost any global health crisis or foreign policy hot spot, and Hopkins — and by extension, Bloomberg — is most likely already there or on call.

Bloomberg seems to be the man who has everything — except the presidency. He does not mince words. He is in the race to defeat President Donald J. Trump, a constituent for the 12 years Bloomberg served as mayor of New York.

Which raises the question: What could Bloomberg have on Trump, if anything? Not that it matters, because the oleaginous Trump has been able to wriggle and writhe his way out of almost any tight spot, especially now with the suck-up connivance of Attorney General William Barr and his servile Department of Justice — Barr’s tardy but extraordinary protestation of dubious authenticity notwithstanding.

With polls in hand and billions in the bank, Bloomberg is the talk of Maryland as much as any of the remaining long-term candidates for president. He is viewed as, perhaps, the Democratic party’s last best hope against President Donald J. Trump, while the others – all 24 of them – have nearly talked themselves out of contention or the race. The latest to drop out of the Democratic pack are Andrew Yang, Sen. Michael J. Bennet (D-Colo.) and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, the remaining black candidate to take the fall.

The center is not holding. Democrats appear unable so far to decide who or what they want to represent the moderate flank of the party. Muddled and inconclusive, seven candidates are still standing and without a decisive front-runner.

Electability is still very much a front-of-the-brain issue with voters. It is into that shifting vacuum that Bloomberg hopes to stake his claim and plant his flag as the Democratic nominee.

Bloomberg has skipped the four early caucuses and primaries to move on to the Super Tuesday elections on March 3, when 1,357 delegates are up for grabs in 14 states, American Samoa and Democrats abroad. A total of 1,990 delegates are needed to win the party’s nomination at its Milwaukee convention in July.

Bloomberg hovered over the New Hampshire ballot like a brooding Banquo while the top four — Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and Pete Buttigeig — were all but winnowed to three, though inconclusively, following the first cut in the chaotic Iowa caucuses.

Sanders represents the left wing of Democratic politics while Buttigeig and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) are tugging for the center. But if the resurgent Klobuchar loses out on the top spot, she has certainly won her way to serious consideration for vice president because of her strong showing in New Hampshire following her boffo debate performance.

A crushed Biden also moves on to heavily-unionized (Las Vegas) Nevada and South Carolina, with a black population of 28% (1.5 million) — his last best hope — as a severely damaged candidate on his third try for president. Bloomberg is considered a possible alternative to all of the above.

Without even being on the ballot, Bloomberg was ranked at 15% in New Hampshire polls, no doubt the result of his prodigious spending of $300 million or more on national TV ads, a signal of the power of money in politics and a down payment on still more to come.

Bloomberg has replicated in Maryland the pattern he has established in other states in preparation for the April 28 primary — bunched on the same day with Delaware, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and the crucial swing-state of Pennsylvania.

He has opened a headquarters which is tucked away on a by-passed side street in Northwest Baltimore, Sisson Street, and unfurled an initial list of endorsements headed by Ken Ulman, the former Howard County executive and Bloomberg’s Maryland campaign co-chairman. And he has hired a staff with varying grades of experience.

Bloomberg is staffed up and ready to rumble across the country with what will soon be 3,000 staffers, 150 offices and Spanish language operations in three heavily Hispanic states — California, Texas and Arizona — as well as sophisticated digital and data programs.

And the Bloomberg campaign understands the differences between primary and general elections. Instead of indiscriminately carpet-bombing every state, they are trolling for delegates by congressional districts which is where and how convention delegates are elected and awarded.

In the initial run of candidates, Maryland would have been considered fertile campaign territory for Biden. He’s the state’s next-door neighbor, from Delaware, he’s run in Maryland twice as Barack Obama’s ticket-mate and the state has a 33% black population, the largest outside the deep south. The black percentage of the Maryland Democratic vote is estimated at about the same figure. The bulk of the Democratic vote is clustered in the jurisdictions along the I-95 corridor.

Moreover, Biden has long-standing friendships within the state’s congressional delegation, especially with former Senate-mates Barbara Mikulski and Paul Sarbanes. Biden spoke at the funeral of Sarbanes’ wife, Christine.

Bloomberg has a throwback problem that’s following him like tin cans tied to a dog’s tail.

It’s an old quote that’s resurfaced, as they often do in campaigns, that sets off alarms and warnings within the black community — the dreaded “stop-and-frisk” — for which Bloomberg has apologized profusely.

“And the way you get guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the walls and frisk them.”

Trump, being Trump, could not resist. He Tweeted, all caps: “WOW, BLOOMBERG IS A TOTAL RACIST.”

But Trump, as usual, has convenient bouts of amnesia. He defended, in fact advocated, stop-and-frisk politics in 2016 and again in 2018.

In his 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump said: “But stop-and-frisk had a tremendous impact on the safety of New York City. Tremendous beyond belief.”

In 2018 remarks to a conference of police chiefs, Trump said: “Stop-and-frisk works and it was meant for problems like Chicago. . .Rudy Giuliani when he was mayor of New York had a very strong program of stop-and-frisk and it went from an unacceptably dangerous city to one of the safest cities in the country and I think the safest big city in the country. So it works.”

Stop-and-frisk, the act as well as the phrase, has special resonance in Baltimore. Martin O’Malley, as mayor of Baltimore in the 1990s imported policing strategies, along with a new police commissioner, from New York and applied stop-and-frisk largely in black areas of the city to the chagrin and outrage of community leaders. The arrest rate went up and the murder rate went down, but to this day nobody can explain how and why.

What goes around comes around. Bloomberg appears in Maryland’s primary election with his name etched on one of Maryland’s showcase institutions for his generosity, and his record on crime-fighting a possible drag in a city with the highest per capita murder rate in the nation. How’s that for political positioning?

By Frank A. DeFilippo
Frank A. DeFilippo is an award-winning political commentator who lives and writes in Baltimore. DeFilippo has been writing about the comic opera of politics for more than 50 years. He reported on the Maryland General Assembly for 10 years before joining the administration of former Gov. Marvin Mandel (D) as press secretary and speechwriter. Between times, he was a White House correspondent during the administration of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, and he has covered six national political conventions. DeFilippo is the author of Hooked, an alleged work of fiction, and an unpublished manuscript, Shiksa: The Rise and Fall of Marvin Mandel.

Filed Under: Archives, Op-Ed, Point of View, Top Story Tagged With: politics

Marylanders Used to be Like Iowans in Access to the Candidates

February 5, 2020 by Maryland Reporter

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I have never been to Iowa. My 45-year career as a journalist based in Maryland has taken me to New Orleans and New York City, to Paris and Beijing, but Des Moines and Davenport – meh.

Nothing against Iowa with its 99 rectangular counties – except this mess with their irregular caucuses.

To an Iowan, Maryland’s counties must look as bizarrely shaped as our state’s gerrymandered congressional districts. But why can’t Iowans just vote like normal people?

There’s real value in seeing the candidates in person. Long ago, that used to happen in Maryland.

In August 1975, less than a month into my first full-time reporting job at the Columbia Flier, a free weekly newspaper, I was standing in the basement of a townhouse there listening to a peanut farmer from Georgia.

Jimmy Carter had just come from a private meeting at the Route 108 home of his lead Maryland supporter, Sen. Jim Clark, Howard County’s lone senator and a farmer as well. The only journalist allowed at that meeting was columnist George Will – yes, he’s been writing that long too.

I recall little about what Carter said but I got a little revelation about campaigning that day when Carter went to a more public event at Howard County’s VoTech high school. At the same point in the same speech he had given at Judy Nieman’s house shortly before, Carter took off his blue blazer, rolled up his shirtsleeves and became once again a man of the people.

In mid-1975, no one really thought this peanut farmer – also a former nuclear submariner who had gone to the Naval Academy and governor of Georgia – would become president. But a year later, I was in New York City at my first national convention, where he was nominated. Six months later I was at the Capitol seeing him sworn in.

All the others

Over the course of that year, I got to see in person all the Democratic candidates for president. I interviewed Oklahoma Sen. Fred Harris outside his camper in Patapsco State Park. “I was chairman of the Democratic Party, and there is no such thing,” said Harris.

There was a day-long candidates’ forum in early 1976 in Shriver Hall at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. After they spoke to the crowd, the candidates sat down with local reporters at a conference table downstairs.

Gov. Milton Shapp of Pennsylvania was running. “The guzintas [goes-intos] have to equal the guzoutas [goes-out-ofs],” he said. Revenues have to equal spending – the federal budget must be balanced. What a quaint notion, one that Sen. Clark campaigned to put in the U.S. Constitution for decades.

Heck, I walked to see Mo Udall, the Arizona congressman and one of the finer politicians of his day. He was up at the Long Reach Village Center in Columbia near my home. He told a self-deprecating joke I still recall.

Earlier that year, he walked into a barbershop in New Hampshire and said, “Hi, I’m Mo Udall and I’m running for president.” To which the barber responded,
“Yeah, we were laughing about that just the other day.”

Jerry Brown

This nostalgia is about the long-distant time when Maryland was relevant in choosing a nominee for president, and even a young reporter from a small, free weekly tabloid had access to the candidates.As Carter’s support mounted before the Maryland Democratic primary in May, the old-line Democratic leaders in Maryland, including Gov. Marvin Mandel, tried to derail him by backing California Gov. Jerry Brown, then just 38 in his first hitch as governor. He gave a speech at a rally in front of the Clyde’s gazebo at Lake Kittamaqundi in Columbia, site of many political events.

Four years ago, the best I could do was attend a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton at the University of Maryland College Park, cordoned off like the other scribes some distance away. And that year I got to the Hagerstown airport too late to get into the crowded hangar to see Donald Trump live, but the video was probably just as good.

It is good to see candidates face to face and ask them questions, as you can in Iowa, “the heartland,” as they call it. But what about the headlands on the East Coast?

I don’t know if there is a good way to choose a president. Certainly not debates where a bully like Donald Trump can humiliate candidates far more knowledgeable and qualified than him. And certainly not these caucuses in Iowa.

By Len Lazarick

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Filed Under: Archives, Op-Ed, Point of View, Top Story Tagged With: politics

Guest Commentary: Why Buttigieg?

January 15, 2020 by Maryland Matters

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It was June 27, 2019. The spotlights streamed down on 10 presidential candidates standing on the Arsht Center stage in Miami. NBC had brought in an A-List group of moderators and, as the evening began, it was clear they came prepared to lead the candidates through back and forth discourse on the issues one would reasonably expect: health care, the economy, and immigration.

That was how it went for nearly an hour. Then, Rachel Maddow directed a question specifically to Mayor Pete Buttigieg. It was a custom-crafted zinger of the sort that haunts and keeps elected officials up at night. The kind that focuses everyone in the room and draws a bead of sweat even from those who didn’t have to answer. It was the kind of question designed to hold someone accountable for something unpleasant.

Political campaigns reveal character in two fundamental ways. First, in Presentation: the stories candidates tell about themselves and their platforms. Second, in Reaction: how candidates respond to unanticipated circumstances and things over which they have no control. Most do a pretty good job at the former. It’s the latter that separates the good from the great.

Before that debate, I was only marginally aware of Pete Buttigieg. But what I knew seemed solid. There was the resume, including Harvard, the Rhodes Scholarship and time at Oxford. There was the meritorious service in the U.S. Naval Reserve. Productive experience in the private sector. And there was the mayoral service. (Slight digression: Not only does mayoral service offer legitimate executive experience, but I’d argue, it’s an even more immediately-accountable situation than serving as President. Most mayors are accessible to their constituents almost all the time. Mayors don’t get to seclude themselves in the White House. They’re in line at the grocery store, at the next table at the local watering hole, cutting a ribbon at the town center.)So, when Rachel Maddow posed the question, I was generally inclined to like Mayor Pete – and I would’ve given him solid high scores on how he’d presented himself.And then there was Pete’s message and delivery — unifying, remarkably articulate. Even those of us in the political class, for whom oratory is a stock-in-trade, regard Mayor Pete’s skill as extraordinary.

Maddow spoke of festering racial tensions spurred by a recent officer-involved shooting in Buttigieg’s jurisdiction of South Bend, Indiana. She pointed out that, although African Americans comprise 26 percent of the city’s population, only 6 percent of South Bend’s police force at the time was black

“Why has that not improved over your two terms as Mayor?” Maddow asked.

“Because I couldn’t get it done,” Mayor Pete began, “my community is in anguish right now… A black man, Eric Logan, [was] killed by a white officer. I’m not allowed to take sides until the investigation comes back. The officer said he was attacked with a knife, but he didn’t have his body camera on. It’s a mess. And we’re hurting. And I can walk you through all of the things that we have done as a community – all of the steps that we took, from bias training to de-escalation – but it didn’t save the life of Eric Logan. And when I look into his mother’s eyes, I have to face the fact that nothing that I say will bring him back.

“This is an issue that is facing our community and so many communities around the country. And, until we move policing out from the shadow of systemic racism, whatever this particular issue teaches us, we will be left with the bigger problem: the fact that there’s a wall of mistrust, put up one racist act at a time; not just from what’s happened in the past, but from what’s happening in the country in the present. It threatens the well-being of every community. And I am determined to bring about a day when a white person driving a vehicle and a black person driving a vehicle, when they see a police officer approaching, feels the exact same thing; a feeling not of fear, but of safety. I am determined to bring that day about.” (Crowd applauds)

I had to rewind and watch it again. “Because I couldn’t get it done.” Did he just say that? Now he had my attention.

This was probably not Pete Buttigieg’s favorite moment of 2019, but I found it remarkable. I can’t recall seeing anything like it in such a high-stakes presidential debate in recent history. Why? Because Mayor Pete accepted accountability.

There it was. On this debate stage, during the course of several hours of candidate-after-candidate pivoting and launching into poll-tested talking points all specifically designed to channel those bright, streaming stage lights and reflect themselves in the most perfect possible radiance – and after decades of debates just like it: Pete Buttigieg was different.

He didn’t cast blame. South Bend has a police chief, a human resources office, a strong City Council and other layers of oversight of their police department. We heard none of that from Mayor Pete.

He didn’t point to some other jurisdiction, or someone from a different political party and say ‘well, what about them, and how they handled (insert similar situation) poorly?’

He didn’t pivot into a discourse of programs that he’s brought about to help turn South Bend around, although there’s plenty to point to on that score.

And he didn’t make excuses.

Mayor Pete acknowledged an uncomfortable truth. He took responsibility. The buck stopped there. That’s what leadership looks like.

Leaders embrace accountability, even when things don’t work out the way you’d want them to. They reflect. They listen. They learn. And they become better leaders.

(In fact, only a couple weeks later Pete rolled out his “Douglass Plan,” a set of initiatives meant to dismantle historically racist structures and systems, particularly in the areas of health, education and criminal justice. No other candidate has put together anything as thoughtful or comprehensive on the subject.)

That’s the moment when Mayor Pete caught my attention, and everything I’ve seen since has served to underscore these truths about his character.

My fellow Marylanders, we have the opportunity to support a rare and exceptional candidate in Pete Buttigieg. I hope you’ll give him a good look and join me in supporting him in the Democratic Primary here in April, and then for President in November.

— JUD ASHMAN

The writer is the mayor of Gaithersburg. Note: This piece reflects Ashman’s personal viewpoint and is not an official position of the City of Gaithersburg or the Chestertown Spy.

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