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Dems Support Repub Steele In Maryland Senate Race
They’re mad as hell and they’re not going to be undervalued anymore…or something like that.
Read more about this turnaround here.
15 Responses to “Dems Support Repub Steele In Maryland Senate Race”
steele is a partisan hack…and these african american dems are shameless…
Wayne Curry? The same Wayne Curry who was supposed to be Ehrlichs running mate for Lt. Governor of Maryland? That Wayne Curry? You really can’t classify that as Dems supporting Steele.
Steele’s rabidly anti-gay, he’s not likely to get many votes from Jews or LGBT folk.
He’s been afraid the entire time to admit he’s a Republican, and stood up GW at a fundraiser. He even had “Steele Democrat” bumper stickers made up. He is running strong in our state, but its because black politicians probably wanted the Democrats to back Mfume instead of Cardin. Its a shame they don’t realize that he’s a conservative Republican who is anti-gay, pro-life , pro-Iraq (will be loyal to the President), was recruited to run by Cheney and Rove, and will vote against embryonic stem cell research. As Lt Gov. he accomplished little on his own- seemed more like a token appointment by Ehrlich.
Politicians like Curry need to put the way Republicans have run congress ahead of racial considerations.
Kim,
Isn’t that rather condescending to say that this group of black voters doesn’t know where Steele stands on the issues? Why do you assume they don’t know that and are being somehow misled? Seems like a bit of the Democratic party arrogance that Curry is obviously fed up with:
C Stanley,
In isolation, your remark makes sense. It is a common refrain among black voters and politicians that the Democratic Party only comes calling at election time. Periodically, a black politician or civic leader comes out for the Republican, declaring that they won’t be taken for granted anymore. And then no black voters follow suit. In fact, this happens quite regularly. Wayne Curry was a major PG County figure in the 1990s, but his time has past. He still has a constituency, but it is less strong than before.
Also, note that much of his grievance has to do with PG County and not African Americans per se. You have to realize that part of Steele’s appeal to people like Curry is that he’s a PG County guy, so he’ll funnel more money there. There’s a big divide among Maryland Democrats – especially black Democrats – between Baltimore and PG. For this reason, I bet Curry would have backed Steele over Mfume too, since Mfume is from Baltimore. Or at the very least, Curry would have done nothing to support Mfume.
Nobody’s being “misled” here. Curry’s got his agenda. Steele has his. And Cardin has his. I bet, come Election Day, a huge majority of blacks in PG see the (R) after Steele’s name, remember that this is a Senate race, and vote for Cardin. (Note that Ehrlich won in 2002 not just because he got some of the black vote but because he destroyed Townsend elsewhere. White moderates voted for Ehrlich too.)
CS- Like many other races around the country, his ads are very misleading.
Some Maryland blacks are looking at their own narrower goals for political gain, and putting it above what would work for the nation. They have wanted to have a black candidate on the national ballots and have a grudge against the Democratic party. In that atmosphere, they may overlook Steele’s stand on the issues-especially since his ads never even mention that he’s a Republican. In the debate on “Meet the Press” he was forced to admit it. Russert asked if he was a Bush Republican or a Reagan Republican. Well, it turns out he’s a Lincoln Republican! Now Lincoln’s been dead for 140 years- so there aren’t too many of them around anymore!
heh. too bad steele is gonna treat his new found supporters the same way they claim to have been treated previously…
forgive the glibness (glibosity?) but, uh, that’s probably because it’s possible for anyone to know where steele stands on the issues…
i of course meant *not* possible. man that stinks when you screw up a gag…
Sounds like a warning shot for MD State Democrats to me. Hell, it’s win-win for these guys. God knows, I would expect the GOP to show some love for them if Steele wins, for a whole bunch of reasons. And even if he doesn’t win, at least now they might begin to see some complaints addressed by local Democrats.
Generally smart politically, it seems to me. However, I’d hate to see them jumping from the pan into the fire.
Since he is hiding who he really is now, how are we to expect that he will represent all of Marylanders later? He claims independence of thought, that he will fight the established political powers in Washington for what is best for Maryland.
But I have two problems with that. First, most Marylanders are pro-choice, pro-embryonic stem cell research, and tolerant towards gays. Steele is not. Also, he’s had 4 years to prove his “independence” from a governor with whom he had significant policy differences, among them the minimum wage, death penalty and embryonic stem cell research. Steele never voiced those differences in any meaningful way, obviously feeling that it was more important to be a team player. So loyalty trumped conviction. We already have too many Senators just like that in Washington now!
Kim,
Obviously I don’t know much about the local issues at play. Can you elaborate on the policies where you feel he differed from the governor but failed to act? What should he have done differently in your opinion, to prove his independence?
At least spoken out in public, if he felt strongly.He made promises to the black community that he would try to get policy on death penalty cases changed- there was a concern that it was applied unevenly to capital cases with black defendents, but he waited 3 1/2 years, and then just conducted a study. The study, of course was inconclusive- meaning more study was required. On the minimum wage increase- we never heard a peep from him. It was passed by the legislature, vetoed by the governor and overridden by the legislature. He is against embryonic stem cell research, which was passed by the legislature and signed by Ehrlich.
Why? The same person who claims to be so independent, and who would stand on principle against his party said “He’s my boss. I know my place.”
But in debate with opponent Cardin he said “Listen to me, Mr. Cardin. I think for myself.
He’s run ads without identifying himself as a Republican- even though he was recruited to run by Rove, was head of the state-wide RNC before being picked by Ehrlich. He gave a keynote speech in 2004 at the Repub. convention, nominating Bush. Now there’s a fierce independent for you!
He’s complained about oreo cookies being thrown at him- which has not been substantiated, but played the race card when Steny Hoyer- used the word “slavishly”.His ads accused Cardin of taking special interest money, but he has taken a lot of it himself.
So, I don’t trust him, and don’t think he would be good for Maryland.
Did you hear him on meet the press? My wife and I started cracking up when he said he wanted people to be able to adopt embryos. Yes, embryos. I just about fell out of my chair.
WEVS1:
Why is that funny? People do adopt embryos that are discarded by other couples after IVF.