By Adam Pagnucco.
County Executive candidate David Blair has responded to criticism of his campaign with the ad below.
Tag Archives: County Executive
What Will Term Limits Voters Do?
By Adam Pagnucco.
MoCo Democrats are not monolithic. There are several segments of them. There are the 40,000 or so Super Democrats, the ones who vote in every mid-term primary. Then there are the sixty percent of MoCo Dems who are women. There are the voters who live in the Democratic Crescent – the area from Takoma Park over to Bethesda and Cabin John – who disproportionately turn out to vote. And of course there are people over age 60, who account for a majority of regular voters. Candidates are aware of all of these groups and target their communications to them. But there’s one group – potentially a big one – which few people are talking about.
Term limits voters.
In the 2016 general election, 70% of voters approved term limits. We know that a majority of the Democrats who voted in that election supported term limits because of simple mathematics. In that election, 62% of the voters were Democrats. If all 38% of the voters who were Republicans, third party members or independents voted yes, then the other 32% must have come from the Dems. Divide 32% by 62% and you get 52% of Dems voting for term limits. If a few of the non-Dems voted no, the Dem percentage goes up.
The other thing we know about term limits voters is where they live. Every part of the county voted for term limits except Takoma Park. In most Downcounty areas, term limits support ranged from 60% to 70%. Upcounty areas were more supportive with term limits getting 80% or more of the vote in Clarksburg, Damascus, Derwood, Laytonsville, North Potomac and Poolesville. Upcounty areas have greater concentrations of Republicans than elsewhere. We ran a correlation coefficient between Republican voter percentage and term limits vote percentage at the precinct level and it worked out to 0.6 – meaning that partisan status was associated with most, but not all, of term limits variability. In other words, other things were at work too.
That’s about all we know about term limits voters from public data. There’s a whole lot we don’t know, including:
How many people who voted for term limits in that general election are going to be voting in this mid-term primary?
We have said it before and we will say it again: MoCo Dem primary voters are not the same people as MoCo general election voters. Just because a majority of presidential general election Dems voted for term limits does not mean that a majority of this year’s mid-term primary Dems will have voted for them. In fact, we bet it will be a lot less purely because the 40,000 or so Super Dems will be somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of this year’s electorate and we are skeptical that they disproportionately voted for term limits. That said, the number of term limits voters this year won’t be zero – they are definitely out there. Even if you split the difference and assume that a quarter of this year’s Dem primary voters supported term limits, that’s a big enough chunk to swing an election.
Why did people vote for term limits?
This is another question to which there is no answer outside of polling. We tend to agree with former Council Member Steve Silverman, who told Bethesda Magazine, “It was a combination of interests that created the perfect storm that led to the passage of term limits.” In other words, there were many factors that drove those votes: anger with the nine percent property tax hike, concerns over land use, unhappiness with traffic and cost of living or maybe a simple desire for change, however nebulous that might be. While we believe that the Dem primary electorate is indeed different from the general electorate of two years ago, we don’t believe those concerns have gone away.
Who will they support this time?
That’s an easier question. Whatever the reason, it’s hard to interpret the vote for term limits as anything other than a call for change of some kind. The current Democratic field for Executive contains three term-limited Council Members and three people who are not term-limited Council Members. That’s a little simplistic – Marc Elrich is running as a progressive change candidate despite his 31-year history of elected office. But since Takoma Park is Elrich’s home base and that is the only area in the county which voted against term limits, we are hesitant to believe that many term limits supporters are Elrich voters. Rather, we believe they will lean to the three outsiders – Delegate Bill Frick (D-16), former Rockville Mayor Rose Krasnow and businessman David Blair. And of those three, Blair has by far the most resources with which to communicate with them.
Speaking of Blair, we found his recent exchange with Washington Post reporter Jennifer Barrios fascinating.
When asked about his political base, David Blair considers the question then poses one of his own.
“My political base,” he says after a pause. “So does that mean who’s going to come out and support me?”…
“The people that tend to gravitate to me are the ones that believe Montgomery County is a great place to live but we’re slipping,” Blair said. “And there’s a level of frustration, and it could be related to transportation, schools, social services and this — why can’t a county with this level of wealth pay for the services that we need? — and a recognition that a healthy community needs a vibrant, growing business community.”
Those people sound like term limits voters and they have the makings of a political base. Marc Elrich knows exactly who his base is: progressives, development opponents and people who live in and around Takoma Park. Elrich’s messaging smartly concentrates on those voter segments. His troops’ ability to get out those votes is a major reason why he might be the next Executive.
Term limits voters won’t be a majority of the Democratic mid-term primary electorate. But they might be large enough in numbers to rival the size of Elrich’s base. If Blair can organize them – and if there are enough of them – we might be staying up late on election night.
Berliner: Anybody But Blair
By Adam Pagnucco.
This is the fourth straight mailer sent by Council Member Roger Berliner, who is running for Executive, against David Blair. Berliner’s grounds for criticizing Blair are that he is a former Republican, has no experience in government service and is self-funding most of his campaign, all of which are true. In this particular mailer, Berliner says, “My other Democratic opponents have a history of involvement in local issues and have earned the right to be considered. I hope you choose me, but they each have experience as Democrats worth evaluating. I respectfully urge you to not consider David Blair.”
Berliner has officially joined the Anybody But Blair camp. We reprint the mailer below.
Evaluating the Allegations Against Blair
By Adam Pagnucco.
Businessman David Blair is the only candidate in the County Executive race to be targeted by both negative mail and two negative TV ads. The combined expenditures for these mailers and TV ads now total over a half million dollars, making Blair the only Executive candidate to take fire on that financial scale.
How do we evaluate these attacks?
First, your author has a background in evaluating evidence of corporate conduct. For sixteen years, I was a strategic researcher in the labor movement. One of my jobs was to investigate companies who were targets of union organizing campaigns. I performed dozens of these investigations and it was painstaking, tedious work. The basic descriptives of the company – its business lines, affiliates, history, executives, finances, work locations, project experience, client lists, political contributions and so on – were a necessary predicate for researching its safety, labor, environmental, legal and media records. Some of the dossiers I compiled were over a hundred pages and required months of travel to assemble. I had three primary tasks: gather the information, determine its utility and craft it into communication pieces that were truthful, relevant and avoided the risk of defamation litigation. Over the years, I uncovered extraordinarily bad behavior on the part of employers including but not limited to sexual harassment, racial discrimination, threatening deportation to block union organizing campaigns, environmental destruction, bid rigging, intentionally exposing employees to lethal working conditions to save money and a LOT more. That research background gives me a standard of comparison for some of the allegations against Blair and it is partially through that prism that I write today’s post.
Here are the main allegations against Blair.
He is a former Republican with a spotty voting record.
This is true and Blair has admitted to it. Blair is one of two former Republicans running for office in MoCo this year. The other is Council District 1 candidate Meredith Wellington, who was a Republican member of the Planning Board as recently as 2007, four years after Blair became a Democrat. Those who would pass judgment on Blair for this should hold Wellington to the same standard assuming that either is to be judged at all.
He is a self-funder who has not held political office.
This is also true. Blair is one of MANY self-funding Democrats who have run for office, including Senators Dianne Feinstein, Richard Blumenthal, Herb Kohl and Jon Corzine and House members John Delaney, Jane Harman and Jared Polis. Then there is party-hopping, self-funding former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who now spends millions to promote gun control and plans to spend $80 million to elect Democratic House candidates, acts for which he is praised by the left. And liberal self-funder Ned Lamont, who famously challenged Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman from the left in 2006, was just endorsed by the Democratic Party for Governor. All of these politicians self-financed millions in their races so if Blair is to be criticized, so must all the rest. In any event, only one self-funder above the $200,000 level has won office from MoCo in the last twelve years. Our county’s history demonstrates that money can never substitute for a real agenda that connects with voters.
One of his former companies settled a class action over disability insurance.
There was indeed a settlement and there is a website documenting the lawsuit. The complaint alleges a variety of violations related to disability insurance sold by one of Blair’s companies that was endorsed by former actor Christopher Reeve. But Blair himself did not settle the case: he sold the company in 2012 and the suit was settled five years later. That means one or more of the successor entities and/or co-defendants made the decision to settle, and if Blair thought the suit was without merit, he did not get to decide whether to fight it at trial. Finally, a settlement does not equate to a trial verdict in determining the truth of a complaint – indeed, the whole point of a settlement is to avoid trial and a finding of fact either way. The Blair campaign commented on the suit here.
“Blair’s company jacked prescription drug prices.”
This is a key claim in Progressive Maryland’s TV ad and it is based on one 2012 opinion article in the Daily Kos. Now let’s reflect on the nature of the Daily Kos. It’s a liberal opinion blog that allows content submissions from thousands of people without the editorial standards of traditional journalistic organizations like the New York Times or the Washington Post. The site’s terms of use state:
We are an Internet Service Provider, e.g., We are Not Responsible For and Do Not Necessarily Hold the Opinions Expressed by Our Content Contributors.
It should go without saying that with hundreds of thousands of registered users, and tens of thousands of diarist/bloggers, there is great diversity in thoughts and opinions. So just because you read it on the site doesn’t mean “the site” said it or thinks it. That would make for a very schizophrenic site.
The Daily Kos itself does not represent its content as fact-based. Accordingly, without further investigation, an opinion article of this kind does not automatically deserve the presumption of truth.
A still shot from Progressive Maryland’s ad.
As a corporate researcher and a political writer, your author is acquainted with the standards of defamation when applied to public figures. Briefly put, a public figure (like a celebrity or politician) can only win a defamation judgment against a defendant if the defendant knowingly made a false statement or made a statement with “reckless disregard for the truth.”
This came up all the time in my work for the labor movement as fortifying our communications against defamation suits was a very high priority. For everything we said about a targeted employer, I had reams of paperwork (usually court records) to back it up. I am confident that my union’s attorneys would have blocked me from using something like the Daily Kos article unless I had interviewed the author and acquired documents to back up his or her statements. And even then, our attorneys probably would have still blocked it as unverified by a traditional media organization, government entity or court.
Finally, the way in which Progressive Maryland’s ad characterizes the settlement and the Daily Kos post is very problematic. The ad said, “Blair’s company jacked prescription drug prices and another company sold virtually worthless disability claims.” It would be truthful to say that Blair’s companies were accused of these things. But allegations from settled claims that were not decided in court and an opinion blog post should not be characterized as objective facts. It’s these kinds of loose standards that make people so skeptical of political ads.
David Blair is equivalent to Donald Trump.
This one has been made in both negative TV ads and by Blair critics too numerous to count.
Another still shot from Progressive Maryland’s ad.
Equating Blair to Trump fundamentally misjudges the nature of Trump. If Trump’s sole failings were his wealth and inexperience, he would be no different from all the many other self-funders who run for office. The real reason why Trump is the Anti-Christ of progressive politics is that he is a vicious racist, misogynist and xenophobe whose narcissism is matched only by his greed and stupidity. He is literally separating children from their parents and jamming them into detention centers. And that’s just a start! Saying that Blair is the same as Trump is over the top.
Trump is holding immigrant children in cages like this one. David Blair is not Donald Trump.
Our judgment on Blair is that he has his liabilities, especially being a former Republican and desiring high office without prior elected experience. It’s understandable that voters might choose to oppose him on those grounds alone. But critiques of his business record pale in comparison to the dozens of investigations your author conducted in the labor movement. And his critics’ claims that he is equivalent to Trump are out of bounds. Furthermore, we give him credit for highlighting economic competitiveness as one of his core themes as it aligns with our many concerns on that issue.
Whatever its outcome, we eagerly await the end of this increasingly brutal campaign.
Campaign Finance Reports: County Executive, June 2018
By Adam Pagnucco.
The June campaign finance reports are in and they will be the last ones available prior to the primary. Today, we’ll look at the County Executive race. A note on methodology. First, we calculate total raised and total spent across the entire cycle and not just over the course of one report period. Second, we separate self-funding from funds raised from others. Self-funding includes money from spouses. Third, for publicly financed candidates, we include public matching fund distributions that have been requested but not deposited in raised money and in the column entitled “Cash Balance With Requested Public Contributions.” That gives you a better idea of the true financial position of publicly financed campaigns.
Below is our fundraising summary for the County Executive candidates. The numbers for Robin Ficker presume he has qualified for public matching funds but we have not heard definitively whether he has.
It’s official: David Blair has broken Steve Silverman’s 2006 spending record of $2 million in an Executive race. (Sorry Steve but you knew it wouldn’t last forever!) Blair’s $3 million in spending, mostly self-financed, exceeds the $2.1 million combined total so far reported by the other candidates.
Marc Elrich has excelled in public financing and has also had the good fortune to see the second-best financed candidate (Roger Berliner) going negative in TV and mail against the best-financed candidate (Blair). Combine that with the attack strategy of Progressive Maryland and Elrich can use his own money to promote himself and let others do the dirty work of bringing Blair down. It couldn’t get any better for Elrich.
Speaking of the attacks on Blair, the scale of them is becoming clear. Berliner has spent $51,048 on mail and $391,234 on TV, all of which had negative messaging about Blair. The Progressive Maryland Liberation Alliance PAC has so far raised $100,000, most of it in union money, to oppose Blair. The combined amount between the two – $542,282 – is likely the most money ever spent on attacking a candidate for County Executive and the race is not over. To our knowledge, none of the other Executive candidates has been targeted by negative TV commercials or negative mail.
The other three Democratic candidates – George Leventhal, Rose Krasnow and Bill Frick – are struggling to compete with limited resources. Leventhal has had money problems for the entire campaign but he is working his heart out. That plus his longevity and diverse base of supporters get him into the mix but he is still a long shot to win.
Rumors have swirled for weeks about labor polling and MCGEO President Gino Renne confirmed them to Bethesda Magazine on Friday. Renne said that Elrich and Blair were “neck and neck” in a number of polls and said, “When you combine all the different polls, it’s a good solid snapshot of what’s going on… I would say it’s statistically insignificant [between Elrich and Blair]. It’s all about who can get their voters to the polls. If the election were today, I’d have to call it a toss-up.”
We have written about Elrich’s base before: it’s a combination of anti-development activists, progressives and people living in and near Takoma Park. But Blair is developing a base too by consolidating those who want a different direction in county government. Frick and Krasnow have a similar message but they don’t have the money to make it stick like Blair does. And so this election is turning into a contest between different visions of change: a move towards greater progressivism or a move away from tax hikes and towards more economic development.
Who knows which side will win?
The County Executive’s Least Known Power
By Adam Pagnucco.
Montgomery County’s Charter lays out the County Executive’s powers and responsibilities. The best known include nominating department heads, drafting recommended operating and capital budgets, vetoing legislation, representing the county in public and in Annapolis and directing the operations of county government. It’s a powerful office. But the least known, and one of the most interesting, powers of the Executive doesn’t appear in the charter and has not been used in more than thirty years. If it is exercised by the next Executive, its use could have a significant impact on the county’s future direction.
Land use is a huge issue in county government. It is largely the province of the County Council and the Planning Board. The board makes many recommendations to the council on master plans, zoning, impact taxes, transportation projects, its own agency budget and numerous other matters. In serving in its advisory capacity, the board’s recommendations are subject to final action by the council. But the board has its own powers too, especially in deciding preliminary plans, site plans and other development applications. Individual projects need to conform to applicable master plans, statutes and regulations but it is the board that decides how and whether they do. That’s an enormous amount of authority resting with the board.
The five Planning Board Members are appointed to staggered terms by the County Council. Because of the board’s power and influence, these appointments are taken very seriously by the council and everyone else with an interest in land use decisions. But here is something that relatively few people have known about until now:
The County Executive can veto Planning Board appointments.
Maryland Land Use Code Ann. § 15-103, which we reprint below, lays out the process by which Planning Board appointments are made.
Note that SEVEN of the nine votes on the County Council are required to override an Executive’s veto of an appointment. Under the county charter, six votes are required to override an Executive veto of a bill or budget item.
The last time we know of an Executive vetoing a Planning Board appointment occurred in 1986. At that time, the council appointed Rosalie Silverberg, a civic activist from Bethesda, to the board. County Executive Charles Gilchrist vetoed the appointment because the other four board members were also from Bethesda and the Executive desired geographic diversity on the board. So the council appointed attorney Nancy Floreen, who then lived in Silver Spring, to the board instead. (That turned out to be a momentous decision as Floreen would later go on to be a hugely influential four-term County Council Member and chair of the council’s Planning, Housing and Economic Development Committee.)
The Executive is not commonly regarded as a major player in county land use decisions as the County Council and the Planning Board have direct authority over them. But a determined Executive would only need three allies on the County Council to exert control over the Planning Board through his or her veto power. Such control would not be absolute; the Executive can only veto whereas the council alone can nominate. But it’s easy to see how Planning Board appointments could be high stakes, political confrontations in such a scenario. And when politics gets involved, well… who knows what could happen?
The point here is that an Executive’s land use views matter and he or she has the power to make them stick. Whatever your views on the subject, that is worth remembering in the voting booth.
Candidates Take Positions on Controversial Transportation Projects
By Adam Pagnucco.
The Suburban Maryland Transportation Alliance has released questionnaires completed by County Executive and County Council At-Large candidates on transportation issues. While many answers are similar – who doesn’t favor transportation funding? – others illuminate real differences on specific issues. Drawing on the questionnaires, here are four key projects on which the candidates disagree. (Note: unlisted candidates did not complete the questionnaire.)
Question: Do you support funding and building the missing link of the Mid-County Highway (M-83) to better connect Clarksburg and other Upcounty communities?
Executive candidates who said yes
David Blair
Robin Ficker
Rose Krasnow
Executive candidates who said no
Roger Berliner
Marc Elrich
George Leventhal
Council At-Large candidates who said yes
Rosemary Arkoian
Marilyn Balcombe
Robert Dyer
Lorna Phillips Forde
Neil Greenberger
Ashwani Jain
Michele Riley
Council At-Large candidates who said no
Gabe Albornoz
Bill Conway
Hoan Dang
Evan Glass
Seth Grimes
Will Jawando
Jill Ortman-Fouse
Hans Riemer
Question: Do you support the Maryland Traffic Relief Plan to add new express toll lanes on I-270 while keeping the existing lanes free of charge? (Editor’s note: this question contains a link to Governor Hogan’s proposals for I-270 and I-495.)
Executive candidates who said yes
Roger Berliner
Robin Ficker
Rose Krasnow
George Leventhal
Executive candidates who said no
David Blair
Marc Elrich
Council At-Large candidates who said yes
Gabe Albornoz
Rosemary Arkoian
Marilyn Balcombe
Bill Conway
Hoan Dang
Robert Dyer
Lorna Phillips Forde
Neil Greenberger
Jill Ortman-Fouse
Michele Riley
Council At-Large candidates who said no
Seth Grimes
Ashwani Jain
Will Jawando
Other answers
Evan Glass did not answer yes or no. He said, “I am not convinced that toll lanes are the correct solution to this problem.”
Hans Riemer did not answer yes or no. He said, “I support the council’s adopted vision for 270.”
Question: Do you support the Maryland Traffic Relief Plan (see link above) to add new express toll lanes on I-495, keeping the existing lanes free of charge?
Executive candidates who said yes
Roger Berliner
Robin Ficker
Rose Krasnow
George Leventhal
Executive candidates who said no
David Blair
Marc Elrich
Council At-Large candidates who said yes
Gabe Albornoz
Rosemary Arkoian
Hoan Dang
Robert Dyer
Lorna Phillips Forde
Neil Greenberger
Michele Riley
Council At-Large candidates who said no
Bill Conway
Evan Glass
Seth Grimes
Ashwani Jain
Will Jawando
Jill Ortman-Fouse
Hans Riemer
Other answers
Marilyn Balcombe did not answer yes or no. She said, “I don’t think we know all the options for how to expand capacity on 495.”
Question: Do you support studying the concept of a second Potomac River crossing, north of the American Legion Bridge?
Executive candidates who said yes
Robin Ficker
Executive candidates who said no
Roger Berliner
David Blair
Marc Elrich
Rose Krasnow
George Leventhal
Council At-Large candidates who said yes
Gabe Albornoz
Rosemary Arkoian
Marilyn Balcombe
Robert Dyer
Lorna Phillips Forde
Neil Greenberger
Jill Ortman-Fouse
Council At-Large candidates who said no
Bill Conway
Hoan Dang
Evan Glass
Seth Grimes
Ashwani Jain
Will Jawando
Hans Riemer
Michele Riley
Blair Responds to “Lies and Smears”
County Executive candidate David Blair has sent out the following blast email in response to criticism of his campaign over the last week.
*****
Friends,
As Michelle Obama said, “When they go low, we go high.” In the final days of a campaign some candidates start attacking with lies and smears. But our campaign isn’t going to do that.
We’re running a positive campaign focused on the important issues facing Montgomery County: growing our economy, fixing our broken infrastructure, improving our schools and making Montgomery County a place for everybody to live, work, start a business and raise a family.
And we need your help to spread the word about who I am and what I hope to accomplish for Montgomery County. Can you please share this video with friends, families, neighbors and colleagues?
David Blair is the Un Trump
Best wishes,
David
Campaign Finance Reports: County Executive, May 2018
By Adam Pagnucco.
The May campaign finance reports are in and we will start breaking them down with the County Executive race. A note on methodology. First, we calculate total raised and total spent across the entire cycle and not just over the course of one report period. Second, we separate self-funding from funds raised from others. Self-funding includes money from spouses. Third, for publicly financed candidates, we include public matching fund distributions that have been requested but not deposited in raised money and in the column entitled “Cash Balance With Requested Public Contributions.” That gives you a better idea of the true financial position of publicly financed campaigns.
Below is our fundraising summary for the County Executive candidates.
Council Member Roger Berliner (whom your author supports) is the leader in money raised other than self-funding and also in cash on hand. He is closing in on a million dollars raised for the race, which was roughly Ike Leggett’s total in 2006. He has enough money to be heard in the final month.
Council Member Marc Elrich is the leader among the publicly financed candidates. His total raised of $745,352 is almost five times what he raised in his 2014 council race when public financing was not yet available. Elrich has a long history of vastly outperforming his fundraising because of his large and loyal base of supporters, some of whom have been with him for decades. With more than $400,000 to spend in the final month, he won’t blow anyone out, but he can combine that with a grass-roots field program to finish strong.
Businessman David Blair is going to break Steve Silverman’s fundraising record in 2006 with more than $2 million. The difference is that Silverman raised his money from the business community while Blair is mostly a self-funder. Blair’s self-financing of $1.9 million sends a message that he is deadly serious about winning. He is the strongest of the outsider candidates.
Council Member George Leventhal will get votes because of his longevity, name recognition and sheer hard work in the campaign cycle. (His brilliant Avengers-themed video could get some votes too!) But he doesn’t have enough resources to make a big push at the end.
Former Mayor of Rockville Rose Krasnow is a substantive and knowledgeable candidate who impresses those she meets. But she made two big mistakes in this campaign: getting in late and using public financing. Those mistakes reinforce each other. If she had gotten in early, she might have been able to raise enough in public financing to compete with the totals accumulated by Elrich and Leventhal. Since she did get in late, traditional financing offered a better option to raise money in a hurry. Now she is in the same situation as Leventhal and Bill Frick: struggling to make a final push.
Your author likes Delegate Bill Frick (D-16) a lot personally but he doesn’t have the resources to make his case. We wish Frick had stayed in the House of Delegates and plotted a course to succeed his former district mate, Brian Frosh, as Attorney General. The path not taken will be harder now.
Republican Robin Ficker has applied for public financing, but as of this writing, we don’t know whether he will receive it.
Overall, there are two competing narratives among those who are really focused on this race – admittedly, a minority of the voters. First, there is the view that the county should be more progressive. It should be bolder about closing the achievement gap, do more to help vulnerable residents (including renters), institute tougher environmental protections and push back against the influence of developers and big businesses. People with that perspective are mostly rallying behind Elrich, who is the overwhelming choice of progressive endorsing organizations.
Then there is the narrative advanced by your author’s writings on the county budget and the economy, the Washington Post’s endorsement editorials and the now-famous report by Sage Policy Group: to pay for progressive priorities, the county needs a stronger tax base. That message plays more to the outsider candidates, especially Blair, who put it in a recent mailer. But there’s no reason why Berliner and Leventhal shouldn’t embrace that perspective too.
It’s important to recognize that these views are not mutually exclusive. Not all progressives are skeptical of economic growth. And not all people who would like to see a stronger economy oppose spending the resulting revenue on progressive priorities. But the two messages contain differences in emphasis and differences in potential for attracting blocs of voters. Both of them represent change in some form, implying that running on resume and experience won’t be enough in this cycle – at least not in the Executive contest. Everyone needs to pick a path forward to win.
Next: the Council At-Large race.
What the Post’s Endorsement of Blair Means
By Adam Pagnucco.
The Washington Post’s endorsement of businessman David Blair hit like a grenade this past weekend, blowing up the County Executive race. What does it mean?
First, in reading the language of the Post’s endorsement, we are struck by how closely their views on the challenges facing the county resemble our own. The majority of these opening three paragraphs mirror what we have been writing about the county economy for years.
These seem like boom times in Montgomery County, the mainly rich suburb that has absorbed roughly 100,000 new residents since 2010 to a population now approaching 1.1 million. Amazon (whose CEO, Jeffrey P. Bezos, owns The Post) has shortlisted the county for its second corporate headquarters; construction cranes tower over Bethesda and Silver Spring; and the public school system, one of the nation’s largest, includes some of the best high schools anywhere.
That’s why it’s easy to overlook some ominous signs of fiscal and economic trouble ahead. A burgeoning population of retirees, immigrants and other less affluent residents has strained local resources and budgets. Those moving into the county tend to be poorer than those leaving. The chasm between economically prosperous pockets (such as the ones dominated by cranes) and stagnant ones is widening. Most worrying, business and job growth are anemic.
That’s the unsettling backdrop for the June 26 Democratic primary, which is likely to determine who will run the county for the next four years. County Executive Isiah Leggett, a deft and capable manager, is retiring after 12 years in the job (and no Republican has won an election in Montgomery since 2002). The central question is which of the candidates for county executive is most capable of juicing a sluggish commercial environment — the only way to broaden the local tax base so it can sustain the county’s excellent schools and progressive services.
The Post framed the election’s central question correctly. And their policy view, clearly established in the language above, will no doubt influence their choices for County Council. That said, they do not share your author’s view that governing experience is useful for addressing these challenges. So be it.
The Post has a pretty good record in top-tier MoCo Democratic primaries. They endorsed Chris Van Hollen (CD-8) in 2002, Ike Leggett (County Executive) in 2006 and 2014 and John Delaney (CD-6) in 2012. They also endorsed Kathleen Matthews (CD-8) in 2016, who finished third.
Even so, the Post is not a king-maker; one of the good things about MoCo politics is that we have no king-makers here. But their endorsement matters, especially when five candidates are vying to be the chief rival for Marc Elrich. Consider what Roger Berliner (your author’s choice), Bill Frick or Rose Krasnow would have said if they had gotten the Post endorsement. If Berliner had received it, he would have told non-Elrich voters, “I am the one who combines the Sierra Club, moderates, District 1 voters and now the Post. I’m the alternative to Elrich.” Frick would have said something similar while substituting realtors for the Sierra Club. If Krasnow had received it, she would have said, “I am the only woman in a primary in which sixty percent of voters will be women and now I have the Post. I’m the alternative to Elrich.” None of these things can be said now. All three lose the opportunity to leverage the Post endorsement to expand outside their geographic bases.
It is sometimes said that Elrich has a ceiling. Some voters will find a decades-long socialist who equates transit-oriented development with ethnic cleansing and favors rent control unappealing. But Blair has a ceiling too. That was expressed by a commenter on Seventh State’s Facebook page who wrote, “I don’t want a businessman political newcomer who is trying to buy the election.” Fair or not, that is a common sentiment among Democratic activists, and those who feel this way are not persuadable on this point. Blair can send them thirty mailers and they won’t budge. How many rank-and-file voters have this view? David Trone, who shares this handicap, received 22% of MoCo’s vote in the 2016 Congressional District 8 race. That’s an imperfect analogy because CD8 omits some relatively moderate areas in MoCo’s Upcounty and Trone was not talking about the unpopular nine percent property tax hike in his campaign. Still, Blair will need more than 22% to win.
Besides Blair, the other big winner from the Post’s endorsement is Elrich. Elrich has been crusading against rival candidates who have been supported by wealthy businessmen for years; now he gets an ACTUAL wealthy businessman as perhaps his chief opponent. Elrich is no doubt rubbing his hands together in glee as his progressive hordes gird for battle against plutocracy. His field coordinator must be dizzy with joy.
Both the Elrich and Blair campaigns need to consider the following question. Which group is larger in the Democratic primary electorate: the people who believe that taxes have gone up but their service quality has not or the people in Elrich’s base? If the former outnumber the latter – not an impossible prospect considering that a majority of Democrats voted for term limits two years ago – then maybe an outsider has a shot. It would be totally unprecedented given that every prior MoCo Executive has had governing experience before assuming office. But Robin Ficker winning a charter amendment vote by forty points was also unprecedented.
Thanks to the Post, a wild election has gotten a little wilder. There are only forty-three days to go before this story reaches its momentous conclusion!