I think the best source for finding intelligent discussions about local politics in Montgomery County is the I Hate Politics podcast, run by Sunil Dasgupta. His recent conversation with long-time local and state journalist Lou Peck is a case in point.
In an in-depth analysis of the Montgomery County Executive Democratic Primary, Peck and Dasgupta note the huge disparity in expenditures favoring businessman David Blair and attacking incumbent Marc Elrich as compared to the much smaller amount available to Elrich, who took the public funding option (and was opposed by deep-pocket developers). They also discuss the possible impact of the Washington Post endorsement of Blair and its particularly virulent attack on Elrich, upon which Blair heavily relied in his advertising campaign.
What was particularly useful was the analysis of Elrich's position on housing -- which was really the substantive flash point in the campaign -- and was at odds with those of Blair and the third-place finisher Hans Riemer, although for different reasons. Indeed, I suspect that the principal reason that Elrich did not run away with the primary was because of differences on "the left" about the best way to deal with housing costs. In a nutshell, Blair's position was to go back to the days when the County essentially relied on developers to make policy on housing, letting the free market take its course; Riemer's was to loosen zoning rules to allow for more housing density, still relying heavily on the market, and Elrich's was to be suspicious of developers and press for more government involvement. See here for the I Hate Politics interview with Marc Elrich. Reasonable people can differ.
My own decision, at the end of the day, was to go with Elrich's perspective and hope that, with new membership on the County Council, he would make more progress in implementing his approach. I was not convinced by Blair's return to the Doug Duncan approach, which I saw as a "leap of faith" with respect to getting the kind of results we need. And I was leery of Riemer's backbone and skills after I saw him get snookered by Gov. Hogan on the I-270/495 toll lanes scam -- a Hogan plan that Elrich opposed and Blair said he had no power to influence.
Peck, however, suggests that Ranked Choice Voting -- an option which the General Assembly declined to provide to Montgomery County -- would not have made a difference. On this point, I disagree. Whatever the results of the recount, it is already clear that Blair and Elrich will each have received about 40% of the vote, with Riemer getting about 20% of the vote. That means that the first choice of 60% of the voters was neither Elrich nor Blair, nor anyone else. So whoever emerges victorious in the recount cannot fully claim to be the consensus choice of the Democratic electorate. Indeed, this is one of the very real problems discussed by Peck and Dasgupta -- that low turnout combined with plurality victories means that a small percentage of the electorate effective makes big decisions for everyone.
Ranked Choice Voting would have solved -- or at least significantly addressed -- this dilemma. If the second choice of a majority of Riemer voters would have gone for Elrich, that would indicate that Elrich would have been the clearer consensus choice of those who voted. But if Blair was the second choice of a majority of Riemer voters, then Blair would be that consensus choice. And this would have been better than a run-off, in which voter participation typically drops significantly.
NOTES ON GOING FORWARD IF ELRICH WINS THE PRIMARY
At this writing, Elrich leads Blair by about 30 votes in the recount. There are still more votes to review, but odds are that Elrich will hold his lead.
Republican candidate Reardon Sullivan relies on analyses of public policy from an arm of the right-wing Family Research Council, so his assertions that if Elrich emerges victorious, he (Sullivan) has a path to victory could bear fruit only if the voters do not pay attention. The days of Republican candidates like James Gleason, Gilbert Gude, and Connie Morella are over for the foreseeable future.
Blair seems like a sensible, albeit ambitious, person, who campaigned as a corporate liberal with the support of a number of present and past elected Democratic officials like Nancy Navarro, Cheryl Kagan, Valerie Ervin, Lily Qi, Brian Feldman, and John Delaney, as well as other people I respect and agree with on big issues. I do not believe he would abandon the principles he has espoused since coming on the political scene and endorse a 21st Century Trump Republican candidate or support an independent candidacy which could open the door to such a Republican. 2022 is not 2018, when Robin Ficker's nomination for County Executive made it easier to avoid a split leading to his election See here In 2018, the final results were Elrich 65%, Floreen 19%, and Ficker 16%. But Reardon Sullivan's lack of a past political footprint could change the dynamic.
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