You may want to review the original version of my guide, which I published on June 5.
Governor: Rich Madaleno Ben Jealous
US Senate: anyone but Ben Cardin
US Congress CD6: Roger Manno
US Congress CD8: Jamie Raskin (unopposed)
Montgomery County Executive: Marc Elrich
Montgomery County At-Large:
—–Definite (in alpha order): Brandy Brooks, Jill Ortman-Fouse, Will Jawando, Chris Wilhelm
—–Pick two of three: Bill Conway, Seth Grimes, or Jill Ortman-Fouse
MoCo D1: Meredith Wellington
MoCo D3: Ben Shnider
MoCo D5: Tom Hucker
MD Senate D18: Dana Beyer
MD Senate D20: Will Smith (unopposed)
MD Delegates D20: Lorig Charkoudian, David Moon, Jheanelle Wilkins
Moco Democratic Central Committee At-Large:
—–Women: Marie Mapes
—–Men: Justin Chapelle, Edward Fischman, Dave Kunes
With so many dilemmas of riches, new information incoming, and an opportunity to interact directly with candidates, I am revising some of my original recommendations.
Governor. It is without any joy that I am switching my recommended vote from Rich Madaleno to Ben Jealous. I still believe that Madaleno has the most talent and experience in this race, by a considerable margin. Sadly, his campaign just hasn’t caught fire: he has remained around 6% in polls for a good while now. The race is now pretty clearly between Jealous and Rushern Baker. If you agree with me that Baker is too bland and centrist and likely to get creamed by Larry Hogan in the fall, you have to vote tactically. Vote for Ben Jealous to stop Rushern Baker and set up a strong November match-up that Democrats can win.
Montgomery County Council At Large. I have moved from listing Will Jawando as someone definitely to vote against last summer to believing he has the smarts, policy understanding, and progressive philosophy to deserve your vote. I had been concerned in the past about what I thought was a thin history of community service in our county. At a meet-and-greet this week, Jawando disabused me of that notion, rattling off a nice list of his contributions, including a summer reading program for disadvantaged youth. (See also his response about this on the Progressive Neighbors questionnaire – Question 6.) I’m also impressed by the zero rating the pernicious developer group Empower Montgomery (EM) gave him in recent mailings. (See why EM is bad news.) I remain concerned that Jawando’s outsized political ambition will distract him from his job on County Council after a couple of years, but am willing to accept this risk.
So, if I am moving Jawando into my top four in the 33-person at-large race (where you get up to four choices), whom am I “demoting”? This practically breaks my heart, because all the candidates whom I have considered seriously would be fabulous in office.
So: Chris Wilhelm and Brandy Brooks absolutely remain among my top choices. My other finalists have been Bill Conway, Seth Grimes, and Jill Ortman-Fouse.
I have, in effect, demoted Ortman-Fouse into a three-way tie with Conway and Grimes. I still think Jill Ortman-Fouse has a good chance of winning, but I am disturbed by the very high ranking given to her by Empower Montgomery. Ortman-Fouse shared with me the questionnaire she submitted to EM and I don’t see any obvious reasons for concern. But I am bothered by her willingness to accept their support without comment (and have asked her to renounce it and denounce them). Just the same, Ortman-Fouse remains on my list.
I also still think highly of Bill Conway whom I think is well positioned to win. I am concerned that Grimes is not as well positioned to win at the other two, based on my observation that he has trouble “sealing the deal” when he meets informally with progressives. So, I’ll be flipping a coin between Conway, Grimes, and Ortman-Fouse until I actually cast my vote.
Another nuance revision from two weeks ago is that I strongly urge voters to reject Evan Glass. My opposition to Glass has increased because of Nancy Floreen’s endorsement and the high score he got from EM (in addition to his WaPo endorsement I already wrote about). There remains no doubt which side Glass is on in MoCo’s major cleavage: the role of the development industry in our politics.
D20 Delegate. I have not changed any of my endorsements: Lorig Charkoudian, David Moon, and Jheanelle Wilkins. The only revision here is that I was gentle to Darian Unger two weeks ago. It is now apparent that Unger’s love affair with himself has fueled a highly unethical campaign. Voters should not only reject Unger’s style of politics, but should send him a strong message to return to community service and give up the quest for public office. (See my two recent posts about Unger: here and here.)
Democratic Central Committee. This body is not widely known or understood. Most of the time, these folks organize fundraisers, phone-banks, and door-to-door canvassing. But, under Maryland law – and in an affront to democracy – this is the body that appoints candidates to fill openings in public offices. (An example is that when Jamie Raskin won his Congressional seat in 2016, the CC appointed then Del. Will Smith to fill Raskin’s seat and Jheanelle Wilkins to fill Smith’s seat.)
In fact, a HUGE number of Maryland senators and delegates have been appointed by party committees. Therefore, it is important to vote only for reformist progressives as CC members: progressive because thats the type of appointments we want them to make; reformist, because we want them to work to change Maryland law to replace appointments with special elections.
Here are my recommendations for DCC for Montgomery County at-large (the D20 races are unopposed). Note that the party split the races by gender this year.
- Women (select up to four): Marie Mapes (only)
- Men (select up to four): Justin Chapelle, Edward Fischman, Dave Kunes (only)
Candidates whom I am not endorsing here are not necessarily bad: I just don’t know anything about them. For the same reason, I am not making endorsements in other races, such as school board, judges, and other offices.
©2018 Keith Berner
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