Category Archives: Ben Jealous

Ben Jealous, Seventh Congressional District

Jealous’s Latest Float Vaporizes

Ben Jealous had invited speculation that he’d run for mayor of Baltimore but pulled out as the race picked up. In the wake of Rep. Elijah Cummings’s sad passing, history has repeated itself at a faster pace around the open seat:

Jealous said in a text that his attention is “on running the kids to baseball and rowing practices, keeping door open to run for governor.”

Weird how the kids don’t need to attend practice in gubernatorial election years. Of course, it’s no stranger than the Democrat who got blown away with just 43.5% in a stellar Democratic year thinking that he should run again. That’s a lower share than received by any Democratic nominee in the last 50 years.

Regardless, Jealous would have been an odd successor to Cummings. While Jealous is a Juul consultant , Cummings broke ground in the fight against big tobacco:

In the Maryland House of Delegates, where Mr. Cummings served from 1983 to 1996, he championed a ban on alcohol and tobacco ads on inner-city billboards in Baltimore — the first prohibition of its kind in a major U.S. city.

The 1980s were the glory days when you could still smoke on airplanes and Joe Camel marketed smoking as cool to kids. Ben Jealous’s client, Juul, has been accused of similarly targeting teenagers.

The sales campaigns for Juuls — now hugely popular with teenagers across the nation — are at the heart of a federal investigation into whether the company intentionally marketed its devices to youth. The attorney general of Massachusetts, also investigating the company, contends that Juul has been luring teenagers to try the product and has introduced many to nicotine.

“From our perspective, this is not about getting adults to stop smoking,” the Massachusetts attorney general, Maura Healey, said in an interview. “This is about getting kids to start vaping, and make money and have them as customers for life.”

Elijah Cummings took the battle for kids against big tobacco to Annapolis. “Progressive” Ben Jealous just took the money.

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2022 Governor's Race, Ben Jealous

Progressive Juuling with Ben Jealous

After Gov. Larry Hogan trounced him at the polls in 2018, Ben Jealous moved fast from his job as a venture capitalist to combining it with new work as a corporate consultant for Juul. Jealous’s hiring appears part of a larger effort to blackwash the vaping company through strategic donations and hiring connected African-American leaders.

The corporately credulous may believe that Jealous is taking Juul’s money in order to keep kids away from vaping. The FDA called out Juul for illegally claiming that its harmful products are safer than cigarettes. Juul is also being sued for marketing to youth. Montgomery County filed its own lawsuit against Juul last week.

Progressive Maryland (PM) has not only ignored Jealous’s ties to a truly awful corporation but also embraced him since he started working for Juul.

PM brought Jealous in to speak on mass incarceration at a September event. During his campaign, Jealous oddly used statistics from Georgia rather than Maryland on this topic. He also made no mention of significant reforms made thanks to General Assembly Democrats. Maryland Matters coverage of the PM event similarly quotes Jealous on the issue from a national rather than a state perspective.

Jealous used Progressive Maryland’s platform to tout a potential 2022 gubernatorial bid. This comes shortly after he dropped a floated bid for mayor of Baltimore because he wants to spend more time with his 7- and 13-year old kids. “I’ve really got to focus on running my daughter to rowing practice in South Baltimore and running my son to baseball practice in Roland Park.”

Jealous nonetheless felt okay with running for governor two years ago and already is making soundings for a 2022 run, so it seems more likely that other reasons came into play. Hogan criticized Jealous for his recent residence in Maryland—the 2018 primary was the very first in which he voted in Maryland. His Baltimore residency is of even more recent vintage.

Running for mayor might also have entailed needing to explain all that addictive Juul money. Taking big bucks from a company that is being sued for getting kids hooked on vaping instead of phonics may go down well at Progressive Maryland. A harder sell to the electorate.

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2018 Governor's Race, Ben Jealous, Susie Turnbull

National Insider Ben Jealous on the Outside in Maryland

Ben Jealous is the latest in a long line of national political figures with little to no experience running for office who try to parachute into Maryland politics and find the landing rocky.

Republicans often tried this strategy in the past due to the dearth of local talent. Barbara Mikulski easily dispatched Linda Chavez to win her Senate seat in 1986. Paul Sarbanes defeated Alan Keyes with little trouble in 1988 and Mikulski trounced him in 1992.

More recently, Democrat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend lost to Bob Ehrlich. While Townsend had developed Maryland roots, her strong links to the Kennedys undermined perception of her as a local. Moreover, her only successful previous run for office was as lieutenant governor on Parris Glendenning’s ticket.

Though many Marylanders hail from elsewhere, especially in the DC area, Maryland identity remains strong. Candidates perceived as having stronger national than local ties don’t do well.

The relatively unknown Jealous smartly likes to tout his Maryland roots. His bio page on the campaign web page states he “has lived in Maryland throughout his career as a civil rights leader and businessman.”

Unfortunately, it’s a four Pinocchio. Jealous only began voting here in 2012. He was touted as a candidate for mayor of Oakland (California not Maryland) in 2008, and voted in California in 2006 and 2008. Even when Jealous headed the Baltimore-based NAACP, he lived in DC, where he voted from 2000 to 2004, and in 2010 to 2011.

His running mate, Susie Turnbull, has been active in Maryland much longer, including as head of the Maryland Democratic Party. Like Jealous, she has not run previously for local office. Instead, she was Vice Chair of the DNC and worked for Members of Congress.

It didn’t help when Jealous began his campaign by talking about removing Larry Hogan from “the White House” and Turnbull spoke about when she moved to “Washington” and meant Maryland.

Jealous’s primary campaign had far more backing from national than local Democratic officials. He touted endorsements from Sens. Bernie Sanders, Corey Booker and Kamala Harris, LA Mayor Eric Garcetti, and New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio.

Meanwhile, he did not tout a single endorsement by a local official during the primary on the endorsement page on his web site. Jealous’s primary campaign benefited heavily from an independent expenditure campaign by one-percenter Californians.

As the Democratic nominee, Jealous now has the backing of most elected Democrats, though many expect him to lose and are not heavily invested in his campaign. Jealous’s tendency during the primary campaign to make Sanders-like attacks on the Annapolis Democratic establishment yet simultaneously take credit for so much of their work, understandably grated and hasn’t been forgotten. Comptroller Peter Franchot and Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett have not endorsed him.

Jealous has felt lots of love from the national political establishment and from ultra-progressives. Not so much from Maryland officials or Maryland general elections voters.

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