In light of Michael Steele's
flip flopping in his "criticism" of Bush (hey...did you hear that Bush is now his
homeboy ?) bringing this race up makes sense. While there are several Maryland Senate threads that have been posted today, the point of mine is to look ahead to the primary.
The only two candidates that have a chance of getting nominated are Ben Cardin and Kweisi Mfume. While both of them are progressives in their ideology and voting records, one will sow up this race for us by September, while the other will have to get emergency funding that could otherwise be poured into other competitive states.
Steele is a wingnut to the first degree. This is evidenced by his
comparison of stem-cell research to the Holocaust.
He also
received support from the people behind the infamous 1988 "Willie Horton" ad.
Unfortunately, this man could possibly become Maryland's new junior Senator if our nominee is Kweisi Mfume.
Why you may ask? Mfume is
woefully behind in fundraising He only has $171,000 cash on hand, compared to Steele, who has $3 million. Cardin, in contrast, has $2.3 million on hand. Mfume in fact, has LESS cash than fringe Democratic candidate Jonathan Rales (who has $235,294.)
If Mfume is nominated, then he will get an infusion of cash from the DSCC. But the DSCC only has so much money that they can give out without straining their resources (we can also help, but we can only go so far, especially in Senate races where costs run into the millions.)
Right now, other candidates need money from the DSCC in other close races. In Missouri, Claire McCaskill is
trailing Jim Talent $7,123,022 to 2,279,311. Likewise, In Montana, Tester is trailing Burns $2,206,690 to $514,907 (but I'm not worried as much about that because the Montana television market isn't as expensive as MD.) Most recently, Kos mentioned how Webb only has
$400,000 COH to Allen's $12 million COH.
Both MD and VA races get money from D.C.-area donars, donars who may end up having to write checks to Mfume that could have gone to Webb in a Cardin-Steele matchup.
Also, in Ohio, DeWine leads Brown $6,635,440 to $3,700,000. In Pennsylvania, Santorum leads Casey in cash $9,439,268 to $5,170,000.
These races are ALL in danger if the DSCC is forced to divert money from them! Yes there are other factors that contribute to the dynamics of these races, but money is a SIGNIFICANT factor! This is also compounded with the fact that the winner of the primary will have
less than two months to campaign. I wish that MD (along with my homestate of NY) would make its primary earlier. September 12th is just not practical from a fundraising and GOTV perspective. If the primary was being held in June, July, or even August then this wouldn't be as bad.
Another problem with Mfume is his baggage. I know that I'll get flamed for bringing it up, but it needs to be said. Mfume has allegations of favoratism and sexual harassment hovering over him from when he was head of the NAACP. This, coupled with the fact that he had five kids out of wedlock (which, by itself, isn't an issue, since he had his kids before he married) will be used against Mfume by the Steele campaign in a narrative. The result will be that many moderate suburbanites in places like Baltimore County and Anne Arundel County (who split tickets) will perceive Mfume (wrongly so, of course) as a Maryland version of Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. While Mfume will do better with black voters in places like heavily African-American and Democratic Prince George's County, his gains will be offset by loses in the whiter and more conservative Baltimore suburbs. While Cardin won't do as well as Mfume in PG, he will do well enough in BaltCo and AA to win state-wide.
Mfume also has anemic poll numbers compared to Cardin. Here are the results of the most recent Rasmussen poll:
MD SENATE
Michael Steele (R) 45%
Kweisi Mfume (D) 44%
Ben Cardin (D) 47%
Michael Steele (R) 41%
...Cardin leads by SIX, while Mfume TRAILS by one.
Here's the most recent Baltimore Sun poll:
MD SENATE
Ben Cardin (D) 47%
Michael Steele (R) 36%
Kweisi Mfume (D) 42%
Michael Steele (R) 40%
(I should also note that it has Cardin leading in the primary of over 32% to 28%, in contrast to the WaPo poll that had Mfume leading. However, both polls have a HUGE chunk of undecideds, with whites being more likely to be undecided than blacks. I hope that this isn't a sign of any racial polarization, as a racially-divisive primary could hand the election to Steele regardless of who's the nominee (think of how the Angelides-Westly primary went for CA-Gov, and how Ahhnold is doing well now.)
I am also aware of a WSJ-Zogby poll showing Mfume ahead of Steele 49%-41%. This poll is an outlier, and given Zogby's poor record in predicting 2002 and 2004 (he showed West Virginia as a battleground state that year, while he made Ohio look like it was crimson red!) I don't trust his polls. Furthermore, there hasn't been a single poll out, other than this one, showing Mfume leading Steele by a wider margain than Cardin is over Steele.
I will support Mfume is he is the nominee, but having a Mfume-Steele matchup puts us in a naturally DEFENSIVE position, both state-wide, and nationally, as our other Senate candidates will see less DSCC money. I ask progressive Marylanders out there: why waste this opportunity to sow up this race and avoid the possibility of a Senator Steele? Why vote for someone who will need money that will be diverted from Claire McCaskill and Jim Webb? Both Cardin and Mfume are progressive in their belief, but only ONE has a chance of making this race safe for us, so we can work on getting that net gain of Senate seats we've been hoping for this year.