2018 Primary Endorsements: Part One -- Madaleno for Governor, Elrich for County Executive

Every two years, a lot of people ask me for my voting recommendations.  I chalk that up mostly to the fact that I immerse myself more in politics and school matters than most people, so I have more information than many of my friends have the time to absorb.

There are so many races in this year’s primary that I thought it easier to post this on my blog, so I may simply pass it along the link or links.

With a major exception at the top of the ballot – the Governor’s race – it has been hard to choose among a number of very good candidates, so in some cases I will lay out my sense of the pros and cons.  My analysis may really get into the weeds, so I will not feel hurt if you skip those parts (not that I would have anyway of knowing). 

This blogpost addresses the races for Governor of Maryland and Montgomery County Executive. I hope to address other races in the next couple of days.

GOVERNOR: RICHARD MADALENO  

I have no doubt that Rich Madaleno, of all the candidates, would make the best Governor.  I was excited when he announced.  While all the other candidates have their strengths, I am convinced that, as Congressman Jamie Raskin explains in his video endorsing Rich, “In Maryland, good ain’t good enough.  We need the best.”  

I have already posted a couple of blogs explaining why I am voting for Rich.  I will not further repeat my affirmative case for Rich being the best candidate to be Governor – I set it forth in the blog posts, which may be found here and here.  

   

But as the Campaign has unfolded, I have also become convinced that Rich is the Democrat most likely to win the race against the politically-crafty and well-funded Republican incumbent, Larry Hogan.  Why?  Because the two other most prominent candidates, Rushern Baker and Ben Jealous, are less likely to be able to unite the coalition of voters who have elected Democrats state-wide in recent years.  

Baker, an estimable public servant, has seriously alienated the Prince George’s County teachers’ union to the point where the union’s delegation to the state teachers’ union convention last year walked out on him.  It may well be that Baker has the better of the arguments he has had with the union, but that is not the point.  This Fall must be an “all hands on deck” electoral struggle, and if any segment of the coalition sits on its hands, we could well lose the gubernatorial race. Likewise, while Jealous has been endorsed by Bernie Sanders, the most prominent progressives in the Maryland – most notably, Jamie Raskin -- have not coalesced behind him.  I fear that lingering tensions between those who strongly backed Hilary Clinton in the 2016 primary and those who strongly backed Bernie could carry over to the general election.  Again, I would strongly urge that everyone get behind whoever the Democrats nominate, but the reality is that we do have these internal divisions, and we desperately need unity. 

Rich Madaleno, on the other hand, is the progressive, activist, experienced candidate who has not engendered antipathy anywhere in the base.  As the Baltimore Sun recently noted in its endorsement of Jealous, “We have long admired state Sen. Richard Madaleno’s intellect and skills at working the levers of power in Annapolis.”  And as the Washington Post noted in its endorsement of Baker, both Ben Jealous and Rich Madaleno, “a longtime legislator known for his expertise on Maryland’s budget, . . . are serious and substantive candidates.”  What neither the Sun nor the Post grapple with is the danger of lack of unity that could emerge with the nomination of either Jealous or Baker – a danger which would not be present in the nomination of the universally-admired Rich Madaleno, and his running mate Luwanda Jenkins.   

So on all counts, I strongly believe that we should nominate Rich Madaleno to be our next Governor.

COUNTY EXECUTIVE: MARC ELRICH

This has been a tough one, and has gotten tougher with the Post’s endorsement of previously unknown businessman David Blair – and his influx of money into the Campaign. 

 I have been comforted knowing that Ike Leggett has been our County Executive for the last dozen years.  A man of great experience, skill, wisdom, and temperament, he rightly engenders confidence even on those occasions when he makes a decision with which I may not entirely agree.  Because reasonable people may differ on particulars of policy, and I invariably recognize that he might be right and I might be wrong.   So I see this race to succeed him through that lens.

Initially, I was not terribly concerned about who might win, because all the active Montgomery County Democrats are generally on the same page.  I figured my job as a citizen member of a hiring committee of a few hundred thousand members (the Democratic Primary voters) was to figure out who would come closest to Ike’s virtues, and be prepared to move us forward. As I attended campaign forums and did more research, I saw differences in the styles and backgrounds of the candidates, and eventually narrowed my choices down to Roger Berliner and Marc Elrich.  I would be comfortable with either one, although on the issues immediately before us, I tend to agree more with Marc than with Roger, who, while not a slave to business entreaties, seems to me to be overly open to ideas I find unwise, like some of the road projects and the termination of the Department of Liquor Control, which provides significant revenue to the County and whose efficiency, under the Leggett Administration, has been improving.  On the other hand, I see the virtue in having a County Executive like Ike Leggett who is not perceived by large elements of the business community as hostile.

So I see the merits of both Marc and Roger, and, before the Blair onslaught, I might not have weighed in.  But David Blair has changed the calculus. 

At the first forum I attended, Blair seemed to have only a surface understanding of the issues facing the County.  As I tried to learn more about him, I found out that he was an extremely wealthy businessman who had NO history of community involvement, no history of financially supporting Democratic candidates (or even voting in Democratic primaries), and who feigned ignorance of when he had switched party affiliation from the Republican to the Democratic Party.  See here.  Yet, the Washington Post (which, for the highest offices, almost always tries, on economic grounds, to find the most conservative candidate it can stomach) endorsed him, and then the torrent of television and mail ads began, paid for by Blair’s seemingly bottomless resources.  His position papers are mainstream and not terribly controversial, but I would not hire him to be County Executive because we have no way of knowing how much he really knows about governing and how he would deal with tough issues.  Blair is running the slickest campaign money can buy.  This is the antithesis of a grass roots candidacy; it is totally top down, from the Post, business interests, and Blair’s own wealth.  Even the young man who came to our house to canvass admitted he had no idea why Blair should be elected, but that he, the canvasser, was being paid.  See here. (In my canvassing for Rich Madaleno, I visited a house in which a college-age fellow was wearing a Blair for County Executive shirt.  He told me he only used it for working out, had decided not to canvass for Blair, and told me that Blair was paying $15 per hour.  I fear that many of those supporting Blair do not know much about him, other than that he is a “fresh face.”   Well, as Roger Berliner’s controversial TV ad notes, we know where that can lead us (Roger now runs a version without the visual morph of Blair’s face into Trump’s).  I am not willing to take the leap of faith that the Post and Blair wish us to take, particularly when there are clearly well-qualified alternatives. 

I have not seen any recent polling, so I do not know who has the best chance of defeating Blair. While business interests seek to portray Marc Elrich as mindlessly anti-business because he will not roll over to their every request, Marc’s record over many years on the County Council shows that he is a practical problem solver.  Marc’s TV ad really does encapsulate his career. While I like Roger, I think Marc would be the better choice.  The range and depth of his endorsements by so many community organizations  suggests that he is best positioned to defeat the unknown and untested David Blair.