Courting the NAACP
The Maryland U.S. Senate campaign could boil down to the voting preferences of Maryland's the state's large African American population, especially with two prominent black candidates in the running.
But only one of the leading Senate candidates took the opportunity last week to reach out to Maryland's delegation to the NAACP national conference in Washington.
U.S. Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin (D) spoke briefly to the group Monday, his aides said, to convey his support for the Voting Rights Act.
Democrat Kweisi Mfume, who once served as NAACP president, and Republican Michael S. Steele have expressed support for the Voting Rights Act and the NAACP in the past but said they had not been invited to speak at this year's conference, which ran from July.15 to 20 Thursday and had the theme "Valuing Our Votes, Voting Our Values."
Mfume said he had hoped to swing by the Washington Convention Center to see old friends but had campaign events elsewhere and did not want to do anything to upstage his successor, Bruce S. Gordon.
Mfume left the civil rights group two years ago. It remains unclear whether his departure had anything to do with allegations by a female employee that he had promoted colleagues with whom he had romantic relationships, a charge Mfume denied.
William Bowman, president of the NAACP's St. Mary's County NAACP chapter, said he considered it a mistake for any candidate to have passed up the event.
"There's a lot of votes here," Bowman said, strolling the convention floor. "It would have been easy for them to come and speak. All you really have to do is show up."
Matt Mosk
By Phyllis Jordan |
July 23, 2006; 10:11 AM ET
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Posted by: Robin Ficker Independent for Montgomery County Executive | July 23, 2006 11:06 AM
In 1999, when O'Malley was running against 2 African American candidates for Mayor, he sought and received an endorsement from then-NAACP president Mfume, presumably with the understanding that he would repay that endorsment at some point. Now, when Mfume needs him and has asked for the endorsement, O'Malley is saying Kweise WHO???? Obviously O'Malley is holding his endorsement for Cardin along with the rest of the Dem establishment because he is afraid to alienate his Dem African American base. What has O'Malley promised Cardin behind closed doors regarding his endorsement and what has Cardin promised in return to force O'Malley to renig on his promise to Mfume? How does the current NAACP leadership feel about this secret deal?
Posted by: O'Malley and Cardin? | July 24, 2006 3:20 PM
Assuming I was to accept your version of events, I don't see how O'Malley is obligated to return the favor of the 1999 NACCP endorsement by endorsing Kweise personally seven years later. Any return of support was owned by O'Malley to the NAACP and its efforts and programs and not to its now former president.
Secret deal with Cardin? Doubt it. More than likely O'Malley is hanging back on any endorsement for any candidate in the coming primary because it is smart politics not to divide you party.
Posted by: Nothing owed to Mfume. | July 24, 2006 5:07 PM
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It is nice to see the daily posts here about Maryland politics, even if it merely amounts to reproducing articles like the one above from the paper. But what is going on with blog.washingtonpost.com/countyconnections/? That Post blog hasn't written anything about the Montgomery County Executive race, which has an open seat for the first time in twelve years, since June 28. The paper continues to run a series, about 5 so far, of lengthy Sunday features which give the impression that only two people, Leggett and Silverman, out of 950,000 residents, have any interest in the office. The paper has yet to discuss the fact yet that these two look-alikes (you need a microscope to see any difference) have told the organizers of about l8 "debates" that they would not take part if they had to debate me. Of course the paper covers these "debate" spin sessions nevertheless. The article in the paper today includes a criticism of me by the Council Chairman; yet the paper never called me for any comment.I posted some thoughts this morning on the county connections blog mentioned above under the most recent article about Howard County zoning. After all, maybe something is better than nothing. It's difficult to suppress ideas even when the Tour de France is holding most of our attention. Isn't Landis amazing?