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| The Most Important Senate Race | |
| A Corker of a Race in Tennessee |
| Rising Wage Gap, But No Squeeze | |
| Health Care, Not Social Security, the Third Rail of 2008 | |
| Will Democrats Keep the Faith? | |
| Turning Toward Iran | |
| Can Republicans Count on a House Snapback? |
April 17, 2006
Maryland Dems Smear Steele At Their Peril
By Gregory KaneIf Maryland Democrats were smart, they'd listen to Wayne K. Curry.
That is, if they were smart. But they aren't, so they probably won't.
Curry is the former county executive of Prince George's County, Md., one of the richest counties in the state, if not the country. Curry is also black and a Democrat.
Two weeks ago, Curry warned his fellow party members not to demonize Maryland's Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele.
"Democrats ought to be promoting what they're going to do that's positive," Curry said in a Washington Times story, "instead of trying to knock Steele down."
But Maryland Democrats have a history of trying to "knock down" Republican candidates with the race card. Steele is just their latest target. Surely Curry must remember that nasty business of 1998, when Republican Ellen Sauerbrey ran for governor against then-incumbent Gov. Parris Glendening.
In a classic case of race-based smear tactics gone amok, Democrats ran television ads saying that Sauerbrey opposed three civil rights bills. Each time the ads mentioned civil rights, a black face would appear on the screen.
The record shows that Sauerbrey voted against rewording an open housing law, a second statute requiring Maryland State Police to document crimes against gays and a third that favored more protection from sexual harassment. Most Democrats had no use for such facts. But four of them with a sense of shame did, and told everyone who would listen that Sauerbrey wasn't a racist and that her record was being distorted.
Three of the Democrats were former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, former state Sen. Clarence Mitchell III and Del. Frank Boston. The fourth was Curry.
The candor of these four black Democrats didn't help Sauerbrey. She lost the election. But at least Maryland voters were put on notice about what to expect from Democrats whenever any Republican raised a serious challenge to their hegemony in Maryland.
The straight-out-of-the-toilet politics practiced by Maryland Dems in 1998 prompted me to give them my Golden Commode Award. They won it again in 2002, with that nasty "Oreo cookie" episode during a debate of gubernatorial candidates at historically-black Morgan State University. (That was the incident in which Oreo cookies were either brandished or thrown at Steele. Democratic supporters say it never happened. Republican supporters who say they attended the debate swear it most certainly did.)
This was the same campaign in which Mike Miller, the president of the Maryland state senate, called Steele an Uncle Tom. (Miller apologized for the remark but I gave him a separate, honorary Golden Commode award all his own.) If their tactics against Steele in 2006 are any indication, it looks like the Dems might cop a third straight Golden Commode Award. They can't use the racist argument this time: Steele is black. So the Dems have switched tactics. They concede Steele is black, just not black enough.
In November of last year the Washington Times ran a story in which several black Maryland Democrats claimed Steele "does not share the same political policies and values as most African-Americans," according to a Nov. 4, 2005 article in the Baltimore Sun.
It was the "Oreo cookie" incident all over again, only more refined. The implication was that Steele, while black on the outside, was still as white as Oreo cookie icing on the inside.
What those black Maryland Democrats meant was that Steele doesn't share the same political policies and values of most black Maryland Democrats, who are out of step with large numbers of black Americans on a variety of issues.
Take vouchers and school choice. Some polls show many blacks are for both, but you'd be hard pressed to find a black Maryland Democrat in public office who feels the same way. There are also many blacks who oppose abortion, as Steele does. Add to those blacks who oppose abortion in all instances, those who don't support publicly-funded abortions or abortions for minors without parental consent and you probably have a majority of blacks.
The fact that the overwhelming majority of Maryland's black Democratic leaders oppose the death penalty doesn't support their contention that Steele is not in accord with their policies and values. As a devout Catholic, Steele is opposed to the death penalty too.
Steele and Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich supported a state school board measure to have the state take over 11 failing Baltimore schools earlier this month. Most black Democrats opposed the measure, but two on Baltimore's City Council didn't. Perhaps the most notable is Keiffer Mitchell, the nephew of the same Clarence Mitchell III who challenged the Democrats' 1998 smearing of Ellen Sauerbrey as a racist.
No wonder the Washington Times story about Curry referred to an "emerging black swing voting bloc in Maryland." Democrats need to be aware of that bloc in 2006.
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