Tuesday's Results In Maryland Weren't Just About Willard Beating Frothy

Tuesday's big winner in Maryland

Maryland also saw a little tryout for the next Senate race, when Barbara Mikulski won't be on the ticket for the first time since 1986. Many envision Mikulski being replaced by not just another woman, but by the first African-American in a state where almost a third of the population is African-American. In the 2010 midterms, when Democrats were being swamped everywhere, Donna Edwards was racking up an impressive win. Not only did she win with the highest percentage of anyone running in the state (84%), she had far more voters turn up to the polls for her than anyone else running for Congress in the state (160,228). Her two supposed rivals for the Senate seat-- Sarbanes and Van Hollen-- didn't do nearly as well. Despite the senatorial bloodline, Sarbanes wound up with 147,448 votes (61%) and then DCCC head Chris Van Hollen took 153,613 votes (74%). Everyone did well. Donna did best. Same thing Tuesday night.

Despite new district lines that were less friendly for Donna, she beat her two primary opponents handily-- with 92% of the vote. 41,120 voters turned up for her. Only 35,557 (85%) came out for Steny Hoyer, dean of the delegation. And the two would-be senators? Sarbanes inspired 31,161 voters (86%) and Van Hollen 33,929 (92%). The only Democrat who actually beat Donna was ally Elijah Cummings (47,818-- 93%), who had Alan Grayson actively campaigning for him.

But the race in Maryland most people were watching most closely was for the Democratic nomination for the freshly gerrymandered-- and now blue-leaning-- 6th CD. The longtime incumbent, Roscoe Bartlett had 7 Republican primary opponents and he scored 16,796 votes (43%). The Democratic race was between 5 people, although only three scored double digits, progressive doctor Milad Pooran (10%), heavily favored state Senator Rob Garagiola (29%) and wealthy businessman John Delaney (54%)-- with 19,581 votes, significantly more than Bartlett. The entire Maryland Democratic Establishment-- and Big Labor-- got behind Garagiola... with one exception: Donna Edwards. She saw the merits in Delaney first as someone who could beat Bartlett but also as someone who was fine on core Democratic values. "I'm not going to have to worry that he's going to vote to defund Planned Parenthood," she told me this morning. He may not be as progressive as Donna, but she says she's spent enough time with him to know that he's good on the issues that are important to working families and that he's a good fit for the people he'll be representing in the 6th CD. President Clinton had also backed Delaney, a huge financial backer of his and Hillary's. Now it'll be interesting to see if Hoyer lets the DCCC get behind Delaney as strongly and rapidly as they got behind his slate of corporate shills who won their primaries in Illinois last month-- and were all put into the coveted Red To Blue Program within hours.

The gerrymander, overseen by Garagiola and his crony Senate President Thomas Mike Miller, was taylor-made to create a district for Garagiola, who was backed by every major union in the state but was outspent by Delaney 3 to 1.

"It's a seat Democrats need to win if they're going to take back the majority," said David Wasserman, who follows House races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. He rates the district as one of just five in the nation where Democrats have a chance to pick up a seat. "After all, they designed it for that purpose."

The competition in the Sixth was a direct result of last year's redistricting, in which Democratic lawmakers in Annapolis turned the former Republican stronghold into a swing district by redrawing its boundaries. Overnight, it became a district in which 57 percent of voters backed President Barack Obama in 2008, compared with 41 percent in the old district.

To accomplish that reversal, mapmakers cut short the district's eastward sprawl into Carroll, Baltimore and Harford counties, instead pushing most of that rural-- and Republican-- territory into the 1st District, which is represented by GOP Rep. Andy Harris. The new 6th District now scoops up heavily Democratic neighborhoods in Western Montgomery County. It also includes Frederick.

...The nomination had long been considered Garagiola's to lose, but Delaney mounted a vigorous challenge that gained momentum in the waning weeks of the race. Garagiola, a 39-year-old Germantown attorney, had support from many state party leaders, including Gov. Martin O'Malley and Rep. Steny H. Hoyer of Southern Maryland, the second-most-powerful House Democrat.

Delaney, a 48-year-old banker who lives about block outside the district, secured the endorsement of former President Bill Clinton-- a beneficiary of Delaney's previous political fundraising-- Prince George's County Rep. Donna F. Edwards and the Washington Post, an especially influential voice in Montgomery County.

Delaney also received an early endorsement from former Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan, who said he backed Delaney because he was "very upset at how our Annapolis leaders basically handpicked our congressional candidate and … said, 'take him.'"

Unlike Garagiola, Delaney's fundraising and personal wealth allowed him to blanket cable television and radio with ads promoting his business credentials and attacking Garagiola. As head of a Chevy Chase-based bank called CapitalSource, Delaney had the means to cut his campaign a $359,000 check in the final days of the race, Federal Election Commission reports show.

Aside from a radio ad paid for by the Service Employees International Union, Garagiola never went on the air.

...Delaney relentlessly attacked Garagiola's work as a federal lobbyist for a powerful Washington firm that also employed Jack Abramoff, who pleaded guilty to providing gifts to elected officials. Delaney's campaign pointed out that Garagiola had failed to note his work for the firm on state disclosure forms from 2001 to 2003.

Garagiola's aides, meanwhile, scoured through Securities and Exchange Commission filings from Delaney's bank, noting that the company was being audited by the IRS and had a stake in other companies that bought tax liens and foreclosed on hundreds of homes. Garagiola also noted that Delaney, a prolific Democratic fundraiser, had given a $2,400 contribution to the Harris campaign in 2010.

MORE REPUBLICAN WOES... IN OHIO AND MARYLAND

A couple weeks ago we mentioned in passing that the Ohio Republican Party was being traumatized by a death match between a garden variety mainstream conservative (Bob Latta) and a drooling neo-Nazi Club For Growth maniac (Steve Buehrer) seeking to replace the recently deceased Congressman Paul Gillmor in northwest Ohio. Turns out the rubber stamp Latta beat the Club For Growth kook in a down to the wire vicious, party-splitting grudge match and he will now face a Democratic Party firmly united behind Robin Weirauch (December 11). Weirauch ran against Gillmor in 2004 and won just 33% of the vote. Last year, however, she made huge headway and wound up with 43% of the vote. It's still a long shot but not out of reach, especially not if Bush's popularity even in rural parts of Ohio like the 5th CD continues to plummet.

Today's Congressional Quarterly reports that "with all precincts reporting, Latta had 43.7 percent of the vote to 40.1 percent for Buehrer... The Latta-Buehrer race was an often unruly affair in which each candidate accused the other of lying about his opponent’s legislative record and stances on taxes and social issues." Basically they were arguing over which was more of an extremist lunatic, each trying to lay claim to that distinction. After having loudly abandoned the electoral center and having inflicted ghastly political wounds on each other, Democrats are hopeful that Weirauch could pull off an upset in this lilly white, deeply red district that gave Bush a 61% win in 2004.

Around the same time we first started looking into the crazy contest between the 2 mudslinging Ohio Republicans, we also took a look at the bizarre situation in Maryland's 6th CD, where far right rubber stamp Roscoe Bartlett has so confounded moderate voters in his district by voting as though he lived in some kind of Texas backwater that he has made himself vulnerable to a challenge from progressive Democrat Andrew Duck. An excellent diary at Daily Kos today quantifies exactly what I was saying. Bartlett's job approval ratings are now in Bush territory, quite fitting when you see how he has voted over the last 7 years. And although MD-06 is even "redder" than OH-05, a poll shows that if the election were held today, Bartlett would be out hunting for honest work tomorrow.

ROSCOE BARTLETT (R-MD) WILLING TO COMMIT CAREER SUICIDE FOR THE PRINCIPLE OF KEEPING POOR CHILDREN WITHOUT HEALTH CARE

Roscoe with his mentors, Snidely & The Hammer

Maryland is a very blue state. There are 2 Democratic senators, a Democratic governor, and overwhelming Democratic majorities in both houses of the state legislature. Last year Ben Cardin was elected to the Senate with 54% of the vote and Martin O'Malley bested the incumbent wingnut with 53% of the vote. Bush only managed 40% in 2000 and 43% in 2004. Of the 8 congressional seats, the Democrats hold 6 and the Republicans hold 2. There were no close races last year. The closest call for a Democrat was a 65% win for an open seat by John Sarbanes. The closest any Democratic incumbent came to losing his seat-- the only one with less than a 70% victory-- was when moderate Cockeysville Democrat, "Dutch" Ruppersberger managed 65%. If there is a seat likely to change hands in Maryland, it's Roscoe Bartlett's in the sixth district (the entire north and west of the state), which is the most solidly Republican part of Maryland, even more so than the Eastern Shore (MD-01). The Eastern Shore is represented by quasi-moderate Wayne Gilchrest who is being challenged from the extreme right of his own party in a primary. Bartlett already is the extreme right so he has no worries-- in a primary.

But last year progressive Iraq War vet Andrew Duck started building a nice base for himself and he plans to run against Batlett again. Today's NY Times presents MD-06 as a micocosm of the debate on S-CHIP. It's a debate that Bartlett is losing and one that could augur poorly for his chances at political survival.

Gilchrest and all the Democrats voted for the popular S-CHIP bill. Bartlett stands out as "the only member of the Maryland delegation to vote against the bill, and he is coming under intense pressure to switch sides as the House moves toward a vote next week on whether to override President Bush’s veto of the legislation."

“Roscoe just looks mean and petty,” said Amy-Catherine McEwan, a manager at the Frederick County Humane Society. “He looks like Snidely Whiplash, the cartoon villain, taking medicine away from little kids.”

And although there are people in the district who have been brainwashed by years of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly, even many Republicans think Bartlett is wrong on this. “'It’s a good program,' said Edward Wrzesinski Jr., a Republican who manages Frederick Primary Care Associates, a group practice with 24 doctors and eight offices. 'It’s benefiting children.'”

Bartlett says he doesn't care about the criticism he's getting. His voting record paints a picture of a complete and utter rubber stamp hack-- a straight down the line right-wing throwback. He may have to start caring. Editorials from newspapers big and small, and letters to the editors are solidly against him-- and loudly so. Duck is using the issue effectively and other Maryland politicians have chimed in, reminding voters than Bartlett could be the difference between overriding and sustaining Bush's veto.

The Rev. Barbara Kershner Daniel, senior pastor at the Evangelical Reformed United Church of Christ here, is among those trying to persuade Mr. Bartlett to change his vote.

“We are making more and more decisions based on fear and not on logic,” Ms. Kershner Daniel said. “We make decisions about immigration and the war based on fear. People voted against the children’s health bill because they were fearful of what the implications might be, instead of looking at the benefits to families and the whole nation. I refuse to live in fear.”

Mr. Bartlett won re-election last year with 59 percent of the vote, down from 67 percent in 2004.

Jennifer P. Dougherty, a real estate agent and restaurateur, said the issue of health care for children could galvanize independents and other swing voters.

“The war does not divide Roscoe from this district,” said Ms. Dougherty, a Democrat who was the mayor of Frederick from 2002 to 2006. “But S-chip is a Main Street issue. It affects family after family — our family health, our family’s pocketbook, and our grandchildren. All politics is local, and this is a local issue.”