Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Primary Colors...

As you may know from the profile, I live in MD. Today is the day of our primary election. In general these are yawn fests but there are a handful of races I'm checking on:

Comptroller:
Billy Don Shafer vs Janet "Mo Hubbard" Owens.

THFH's pick: Owens by a nice margin. Billy D went "Katherine Harris Crazy" on us. Makes this choice pretty easy.

US Senate:
Bespecticaled Ben Cardin vs Kwaeisi "Big K" Mfume
Ben Cardin will easily win on name recognition due to his extensive TV ads throughout the state.

And just because it's close by:
DC Mayor:
Linda Cropp vs Adrian Fenty

Fenty's had the lead by a wide margin for a couple of weeks. I don't expect this to change.

Well, those are the only ones I care to pick. We shall see how things turn out.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

My dear, you have entirely forgotten about Peter Franchot for Comptroller, who has been declared the winner. He ran a smart, smart campaign and brought it home on his backyard constituents in MoCo. It was totally funny last night on WBAL news to have the anchors quizzing Barry Rascovar on that race only to have him keep repeating that Franchot was going to pull it out, no question. And he was right.

And who would have thought a year ago that we'd even be talking about the race for the freakin' Comptroller?

Nick said...

Yes, I had forgotten about Franchot. He didn't push real hard in Frederick County and as he and Shaefer weren't sparring he slipped under my radar.
This is what happens when the only TV shows you watch are Mythbusters and Football.
Not a whole lot of politicking going on during those commercial spots.
Really, I concentrated on working in "Katherine Harris Crazy" into a blog entry yesterday more than most anything else.

Wacky Neighbor said...

I imagine that this is the most contentious comptroller primary I'll ever see in my lifetime.

As for Schaefer, I think regardless of your feelings towards him it was hard to watch him descend into this lagoon of ridicule the last few weeks. He should have heeded the advice not to run. Instead, his "sh*thole of an Eastern Shore" comment probably isn't one of the top 5 most offensive things he's said in public now.

Nick said...

Yeah, it's kinda sad to watch his entire political career implode like this.
I really expected him to die in office like Goldstein. Really, the guy is a born politician, I don't think he's ready to retire. Unfortunately, he's stuck. What will probably happen is he'll "retire" and move somewhere and become a delegate or councilmember. That or he'll just pull an Agnew and disappear.

Anonymous said...

It was "sh*thouse of an Eastern Shore," WN. Trust me on this one. But yes, you're right, probably not even in the top 5. Although because of that one comment, no one in my family has voted for him since then.

I actually am more concerned about Schaefer's health than anything else. He's always been quirky and loud-mouthed but never so self-destructive. I wonder if this is the beginning signs of dementia or some such. For this reason, I really, really hope he just sticks to being president of his community association or something.

Nick said...

Shaefer has a vindictive streak that people used to write off as quirky. I remember when WN and I were doing our Memorial Stadium paper I read Shaefer's bio. He was THIS close to using the state police to stop the moving vans full of the Colts equipment before they crossed the border.
Personally, that would have been an extremely interesting event in his governorship. He could have become governor for life after that.
Also notice that Baltimore got a football team AFTER he left the governor's office. I think the NFL also had a vindictive streak towards him too.
As for Shaefer becoming President of a CA, probably not. However he apparently is aggressively pursuing information about running for mayor...
of Ocean City. (cue laugh track)
It's on www.wtop.com right now.

Unknown said...

He's an old coot, 'nuff said. Not that I like Janet Owens, she looks too much like my dad's wife. Franchot was probably the best choice.

Nick said...

Yeah, Franchot definitely came off best as the "boring policy wonk who will do his job with quiet competence." His best campaigners were Shaefer and Owens who bickered themselves out of a job.

It's intersting, you've got this Franchot guy who is a "relatively" boring nerd candidate who is going to be the next comptroller. Add to that a charismatic young irishman running for the chief executive office of the state against an established Republican with the odd image problem incident...
Anybody else thinking "Election of 1960" here?

Wacky Neighbor said...

Dan Rodricks had (what I thought) was an interesting column in the Sun about Schaefer after the loss, which was basically how much Schaefer did while he was mayor and how much the last several years (and particularly last several weeks) has tarnished his legacy. Interesting read.

As for Janet Owens, I imagine that some of the campaigning had to hurt her. Plus, I don't know that she was that popular, anyways. It would be erroneous to draw too much from this one election, but other recent statewide elections are showing a trend of a shift in power out of Baltimore and towards the DC metro area.

Lastly, has anyone seen the Michael Steele ad? What is that? Early polls have Cardin ahead by about a 10-point margin.

Nick said...

Yes, I read that column, it was a nice tribute to BD's legacy. And really he did do a lot for Baltimore and he believes in the city.

I've seen the Steele ad too. I'm not sure what the hell is going on there. He's all over the place ideologically. It's schizophrenic.