Jealous of Larry

It seems that every time the Democrats find candidates for office who have the answer to their problems, the candidates in question become problems themselves.  And nowhere is that more obvious in 2018 than in Maryland.   

Incumbent Republican Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (left, above) faces former NAACP President Ben Jealous (right, of course) in the 2018 gubernatorial election.  Many Maryland Democrats are enthusiastic about the election and are ready to vote for their candidate, which should their candidate's campaign a huge boost.

The Maryland Democrats I am referring to - one out of three Democrats in the Old Line State - are Hogan voters.

Hogan has appealed so effectively to voters of both parties with a moderate posture (though he's far more conservative than he appears to be) that he's ahead of Jealous in polls by double digits - twenty percentage points, according to one survey.   There are two reasons Jealous is losing.  Here's the first.  Considered one of the most progressive Democratic nominees in this election cycle, Jealous hoped to appeal to Bernie Sanders supporters with his Sandersesque agenda - Medicare for all, living wage, and all that - while espousing his belief in a capitalistic society that encourages entrepreneurship and aspirations.  Right.  Jealous' progressive stands have alienated mainstream Maryland voters, and his support for capitalism - even a small-business-friendly, well-regulated capitalist system - has turned off the socialism-supporting young voters that is Jealous' base.  In short, he satisfies no one.

The second reason?  Jealous has comedian Dave Chappelle, his lifelong friend, campaigning for him.  Chappelle may be the funniest and most relevant black comedian since Richard Pryor.  He also may be the most controversial black comedian since Richard Pryor.  Chappelle may help Jealous with young, hip, urban voters, but he probably doesn't do Jealous any favors in the suburban areas Jealous needs to win.

As I predicted earlier this year, Martin O'Malley (below), the last Democratic governor of Maryland, who may yet be the next President of the United States, is nowhere to be found in his home state campaigning for Jealous.  Why? There are many obviously possible reasons.  First of all, Jealous was not O'Malley's first choice for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.  (O'Malley supported Prince Georges County Executive Rushern Baker.)  Secondly, O'Malley is elsewhere helping state and local Democratic candidates for office and also talking and listening to people in advance of a possible 2020 presidential run; he attended a conference in New Jersey on urban issues earlier this week, in fact, and he was in Colorado campaigning for local Democrats just before that.  A third reason may even be that O'Malley's popularity in his own home state has declined since he left the governor's mansion in 2015, and so he may think he's not welcome back home. 

But the most likely reason of all may be that O'Malley knows that the only way Democrats are going to win back power is to advocate a pragmatic liberal agenda and not a quixotic one like what folks like Sanders and Jealous espouse.  I suspect that O'Malley refused to back Jealous for the Democratic nomination for governor of Maryland for the same reason he opposed Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential bid with a bid of his own.  He knew that Jealous, like Hillary, could . . . not . . . win.

It's a shame that his fellow Marylander, Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez - who backs Clinton centrists over both O'Malley pragmatist liberals and Sanders democratic socialists - doesn't have the same innate ability to see who can win and who can't. 

All Politics Is Local

In case establishment Democrats didn't get the message that their time is up, take a look at what happened in the June 26 primary election in New York's Fourteenth U.S. House District, which encompasses northwestern Queens and the southeastern Bronx (the Whitestone Bridge is the connection between the two parts).  Joseph Crowley, the district's current representative and an Irish urban pol in the old-school tradition of Richard Daley, Tom Pendergast, and the Bronx's own James Farley, just got his Irish butt handed to him in the primary by a political newcomer and self-described democratic socialist named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

She's a supporter of Bernie Sanders who advocates Medicare for all, guaranteed employment, and tuition-free public education. And while not every Democrat will get on board with her agenda, that's not important.  What's important is that voters in her district are on board with Ocasio-Cortez's positions more than they were with those of Crowley, who as Queens County Democratic Committee chairman and as a white guy was a mainstream liberal in a district that is half Hispanic and less than one-fifth non-Hispanic white.  Crowley is someone who has always been accountable the needs of his district, but his constituents (or at least those who voted in the primary) decided that the old way wasn't just working for them anymore.

Although this is already a Democratic district, Ocasio-Cortez's victory in the primary should send a message to Democrats vying to flip Republican House seats in other districts - that is, you have to be able to respond to the concerns of the voters and be more in tune with local issues than with the national party's agenda.  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is right for her district.  In New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill, running to be the first Democrat to be elected to represent my U.S. House district since 1982, is right for my district, even though she's not nearly as liberal as Ocasio-Cortez.  Both women realize that the key to helping their party regain the House is to listen to the voters and focus on what you're for rather than just being against Trump.

In other words, what Martin O'Malley has been saying for months.

O'Malley was pleased with Ocasio-Cortez's June 26 win for all the reasons stated above, even though he had nothing to do with it. Ironically, he came up on the losing end in his home state of Maryland that same day. O'Malley got behind Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker's bid for governor of Maryland but saw former NAACP President Ben Jealous, who's closer to Sanders than O'Malley politically, win the June 26 primary instead.  O'Malley, who's not really part of the establishment but is viewed with suspicion by many progressives for having once been part of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, didn't do himself any favors by supporting a candidate with establishment backing.  Good grief, Baker was backed by Steny Hoyer, the Maryland congressman who is establishment right down to his toenails. 

Quite frankly, I don't know why O'Malley involves himself in primaries when his focus should be on the general elections.  Perhaps he supported Baker because he had the best chance of defeating incumbent Republican Governor Larry Hogan (who's favored to win re-election and would likely win a second term even if the Democratic nominee were Saint Francis of Assisi) in the fall.  Even more perplexing is why O'Malley should involve himself in the politics of his own state.  O'Malley's reputation at home has suffered since he left the governor's office in 2015; Hogan's popularity is partly based on rolling back some of O'Malley's policies.  O'Malley isn't unpopular with everyone in Maryland, but enough Maryland voters hold him in such low regard that the best thing for his political future is to continue his efforts for the Democrats elsewhere.  Conclusion: Martin O'Malley has done a good job with his Win Back Your State PAC so far, but the last state he should help Democrats win back is his own.

And if Ben Jealous is whom Maryland Democrats want, then he's the best candidate for them.