Soccer Dad

Black and white in maryland

Michael Steele is playing the race card, because it's the only weapon in his arsenal according to:

Thomas F. Schaller, a political science professor at University of Maryland, Baltimore County who supports Cardin, said he believes Steele is employing the only strategy he has at his disposal.

"This is a Democratic state. Steele is a social conservative who is anti-choice and supports the war. He has to turn the election into a personality contest," Schaller said. "He wants to position himself as a victim of a Democratic Party, race-oriented conspiracy."

Steele said he sees potential for black voters to consider him, in part because he says many African American Democrats resent the party for failing to put a black candidate on the statewide ticket in 2002.

"Democrats say, 'We've got 'em [90 percent to 10 percent], so why bother?' Well, they're going to have to learn. They don't have a lock on those votes," he said.

Democrats might not have a lock, but a poll released yesterday by the Baltimore Sun shows that Steele has begun the 2006 campaign with a deep deficit of support from African Americans.

Lt Gov Steele may be a bit of a social conservative, but he is a Catholic and as such is anti-death penalty. I don't know how that will play with the overall electorate, but it is a positive for the black electorate. I also don't know where he stands on the war; it is not something that he is clearly associated with.

I don't much like Shaller who is a Democratic partisan and the article deserves credit for acknowledging that. However his observation about Steele is interesting because making a racial appeal is precisely the tactic that Mfume is using too. Earlier in the article we read:

At a function for Mfume last night, supporters denounced what they said was an effort by party leaders to anoint Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin as the Democratic nominee in the Senate race. They said Mfume would be an antidote to any Republican effort to drive a wedge between the party and black voters.

"Republicans are trying to say to African Americans that the Democrats are taking your vote for granted," said Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D), who endorsed Mfume last night.

Mfume who, despite a recent poll (more on this later), has to be considered an underdog in the Democratic primary - because he's being trounced in fund raising by Cardin - is running a campaign that says that the white party leadership is taking blacks for granted.

Mfume jumped into the race almost immediately upon Sen Sarbanes announcement to step down after he himself resigned as head of the NAACP, suggesting that he had been given a heads up about the position opening up. But soon after he was dogged by accusations that he had used the NAACP as his own personal dating service.

Though it was likely that the stories of his improprieties at the NAACP (whether true or not) came from rivals within that organization Mfume has been trying to say that someone is trying to keep him down. And that's the narrative given by Blair Lee a columnist for the Gazette newspapers (Lee is a Republican or a supporter of Republicans so he has an agenda here in terms of splitting the Democrats) in the Invisible Candidate:

The fix was in from the start. When Sarbanes announced his retirement in March, Mfume immediately offered his candidacy. ‘‘For six weeks after Paul retired not one Democrat said, ‘This is our man.’ There was no response from the party,” recalls Mfume. Curious, given that Mfume is a past president of the National NAACP, former Maryland congressman, former Baltimore city councilman and represents the Democrat’s core constituency, blacks.

Then, the day after Cardin entered the race, an NAACP ‘‘internal memo” mysteriously surfaced alleging favoritism and sexual harassment by Mfume. The media gave it broad front page play although the allegations were never corroborated and Mfume’s fund-raising ground to a halt. This obvious smear campaign by Mfume’s enemies within the NAACP set up a daily chant by party leaders and media pundits that Mfume was finished and ought to quit.

Yes, these are the same party officials and pundits who blew off Bill Clinton’s and Parris Glendening’s sexual indiscretions because, ‘‘A public official’s private life is none of our business.” But when it comes to Mfume, he’s unfit to hold office!

Welcome to the Maryland Democratic Party’s ‘‘buddy system” where the anointed get a free pass and others need not apply. And, this year, the party establishment has anointed Ben Cardin to succeed Sarbanes just like it anointed Kathleen Kennedy Townsend to succeed Parris Glendening in 2002.

This is undoubtedly the tack that Mfume will take with his campaign. But he runs a risk here of making Steele's job easier. If we have another ten months of Mfume and his supporters saying that the Democrats take blacks for granted it will be very hard for Cardin to turn around (if he wins) and say that isn't the case when he runs against Steele. (There's an interesting irony here: in 1999 Mfume supported Mayor O'Malley over his own cousin for mayor; though O'Malley is white and he was running as mayor of a majority black city.)

It's unfair to say that Steele is simply running a campaign emphasizing his race. It's early yet and he hasn't yet had to define the issues he'll run on. His opponents though have seized upon his race and he's doing his best to deflect those slurs.

The Baltimore Sun just published a poll that it says shows Mfume and Cardin in a dead heat, Mfume Cardin Contest Open. The problem with the poll is that the results show roughly 1/3 of the respondents for Cardin, 1/3 for Mfume and 1/3 undecided. A poll like this is useless. (Even more so than the usual early poll.) If 1/3 are undecided the numbers for Cardin and Mfume mean nothing. Additionally the sample size for the Democratic primary consisted of fewer than 500 voters. Usually sample sizes that small (despite the margin of error claims) are less reliable. (I thought some early polls once Cardin entered the race showed him leading Mfume. But I can't find them right now.)

When Mfume entered the race I assumed that he was going to be coronated by the media. Despite his massive failings (he made a "sacred covenant" with Farrakhan; in the Hoffman-Gladden race in 2002 he campaigned for Gladden arguing that a white person couldn't possibly represent a 70% black district) he is articulate and African American and the media has been quite forgiving of his faults.

This has not happened and I was surprised how much the media played up the NAACP favoritism allegations against him. I can only conclude that they found the allegations convincing. (Though I still have my doubts.) Or maybe when there's a really good rumor they'll go with it regardless of the collateral damage.

But I am bothered by featuring such an inconclusive poll as the basis of a news story. A poll may be a snapshot but this is an awfully blurry picture. The only point in publishing this poll is to boost Mfume's sagging profile a bit. Could it be the work of Joe Trippi, who's working for Mfume. After all wasn't he the one who got the whole media believing that Howard Dean was the man to beat in Democratic presidential primaries last year?

Technorati Tags: Michael Steele, Kweisi Mfume.

Posted by SoccerDad at November 10, 2005 6:47 AM