NAACP candidate forum (8-3 version)

Last night (or tonight, as I begin this exhaustive post on Thursday night) we had most of the people seeking a position in the Maryland General Assembly gather to tell us that they are for better education, more opportunities for the minority community, improved health insurance, affordable housing, and a chicken in every pot. Okay, I made the last one up. But I’m sure that the thought simply didn’t occur to them in the few minutes they actually stood at the podium otherwise that may have been promised as well. (Now a chicken in every pot IS something which would likely benefit the Eastern Shore!)

The forum was pretty simple to break down. It started out with 3 of the 5 candidates for the Senate seats in Districts 37 and 38 getting one set of questions then 15 of the 18 hopefuls for their associated House of Delegates seats getting a different set. With a time restriction on the use of the hall, it led to only a few questions to each group – five for the wannabe Senators and four for the prospective Delegates. So each person only got 6 to 8 minutes to speak. (It’s why I’m trying to link to as many of their websites as I can.)

As mentioned, just 3 of the 5 Senator candidates made it to the forum, all from District 37. (District 38 Senator J. Lowell Stoltzfus is in the enviable position of being unopposed in either the primary or general elections.) At the moment, only 2 are on the ballot with Moonyene Jackson-Amis attempting to secure a ballot spot via petition as an independent. In fact, she was soliciting some of the 1,000 signatures necessary at the event. Something tells me that Richard Colburn would have signed her petition and Hilary Spence maybe not so.

Attendance amongst the House of Delegates crowd was better, just 3 of them missing the event. Gold stars go to District 37A and 38B who had all of their candidates present.

I’m going to start with the Senators, who fielded questions that dealt with issues of illegal immigration, affirmative action, slot machines in Maryland, and health insurance. As always, this goes in the order of opening statement.

Hilary Spence told the assembled that she was focusing her campaign on just a few issues that she had heard the most from her door-to-door visits about the district: health insurance (claiming it was the number one priority for voters she spoke with), fully funding K-12 education and making college affordable, and growth affecting the Eastern Shore. She even wanted to fully fund education for children of illegal immigrants, also favoring a path for them to get citizenship. On the slots question, Spence chided the supporters, claiming that there was “no place for government to raise revenue on the backs of gamblers.” But on the other hand she did favor another regressive tax of sorts, advocating the “Health Care for All” measure that would add $1.00 to the cigarette tax to help insure 50,000 of the estimated 800,000 (her numbers) Free Staters without health coverage, as well as looking at adopting a Massachusetts-style plan for Maryland.

Citing his 12 years of experience in Annapolis representing Maryland’s largest district geographically, Rich Colburn spoke about measures adopted and rejected during his time in the General Assembly. This was particular evident on the slots question, as he supported placing the item on the ballot as a referendum and co-sponsored one bill addressing problem gamblers. His view of health insurance for the uninsured was intriguing, as he tied in the issue of tort reform with streamlining coverage, and cited his opposition of 2005’s 2 percent HMO tax, which he said was simply passed on to the consumers. Colburn also showed an interest in the health insurance bill Massachusetts adopted.

Claiming that hers was a “tough race” because of the petition drive she’s doing to get on the ballot, Moonyene Jackson-Amis got herself into the debate by perseverance – she wasn’t on the original list but found out about the event in time to participate, albeit a few minutes late. A onetime Republican in New Jersey, Jackson-Amis is running this race as an independent. It’s apparent that she’s spent time as an advocate for the underprivileged because that theme ran through many of her answers. One example is not penalizing the children brought along by illegal immigrants, but establishing a “queue” for services. (However, she was in favor of penalizing employers who were “complicit” in the illegal immigration problem.) Another is calling any legislation that would roll back affirmative action a “travesty.” She wanted “livable wages” so people could afford health insurance and claimed to have helped some constituents who were illegally denied medical care. But I thought her best moment was, despite working with a church group that opposed the slots in Maryland, calling them “hypocritical” because some of them derived a portion of their revenue from wagering. Like Colburn, she favored a statewide referendum on the issue.

That took care of the Maryland Senate candidates. However, we still have 15 House of Delegates candidates to sift through. They dealt with just four questions, which dealt with licenses for high school dropouts, items most critical to African-American businesses, being accessible, and how their election would benefit the minority community. Unfortunately, these questions ended up getting many of the same answers. This makes for fairly short descriptions because, as noted at the start, everyone wants to achieve the best results.

In this case, rather than go simply in the order of their opening statements I’m going to add district affiliation in as well. So I’ll start with the District 37A hopefuls in order of their opening statements, District 37B, and so on.

By doing this, I get to start by talking about Charles Cephas, Sr. If nothing else, he probably had the best cheering section. There were 10 or 12 people identically clad in “elect Charles Cephus” t-shirts who whooped it up after his trips to the podium. So while most others got tepid to lukewarm applause for their remarks, Cephus got a great reception. Cephas opened by speaking of fighting our own “weapons of mass destruction” – particularly homelessness, securing affordable housing, and living wages. Later, speaking of this year’s General Assembly session, he challenged delegates to “just try living on minimum wage” while decrying what he termed as “electric companies mak(ing) millions.” Describing himself as representing those “across the tracks”, he related how he started out as a janitor but rose to beat an incumbent to become a Hurlock city councilman and “champion of the underdog.” He pledged to “fight for you” and convince other delegates by force of argument to agree with his stance on the issues.

Because there’s no Republican in the race, the primary between Cephus and incumbent Rudolph Cane will determine the delegate from District 37A. Much of Cane’s presentation focused on his 20 year record in the House of Delegates, starting as the first minority Delegate from the Eastern Shore and culminating in being the first Eastern Shore delegate to chair the Black Caucus. He told the assembled he had made “strong decisions” on proposed bills that affected the Eastern Shore such as the minimum wage bill and the “Wal-Mart” bill, one he described as a “win-win” because even though it was overturned in federal court, it goaded Wal-Mart into improving its health insurance coverage. Cane also talked about the matters of a “livable wage” and education being a “priority”, pointing with pride to $300,000 in scholarships he’d helped to secure. Cane related the story of how he was told not to waste food as a child because of starving children in China, but turned the phrase to suggest not to waste the books in school because of that child in China possibly taking your job.

Turning to District 37B, first up was James Adkins. Besides having his Ten Questions answers on tap, when he spoke of his prior experience I realized where I knew him from – he was a speaker at the Wicomico County Memorial Day observance. Adkins stated up front that the Eastern Shore faced “tremendous challenges”, particularly education, affordable housing, and health care. He wanted voters to look beyond his term and begin to think about things 20 to 30 years in the future, which showed in his answer to the question on high school dropouts and drivers licenses. On that occasion, he said that taking the licenses away from dropouts doesn’t solve the problem because these kids are “disadvantaged from birth” and the answers really start, among other reasons, with better health care. Maybe a bit short on specifics, he was willing be an advocate and informer for his district, “starting now.” Above all, he urged the General Assembly to “stop treating symptoms” and ask the people how to start solving problems.

Playing up his “20 month listening tour” on occasion, Tim Quinn advocated most strongly that job growth would come from enhancing technical education. But by spending so much time talking to people (Quinn was the first Democrat to file for the seat) he concluded he was the best candidate to be an advocate because he’s taken time to “listen to what the people want” and ask them what he could do to help. Quinn cited a statistic that showed the poverty rate in the district ranged from 8-11% overall but among African-Americans it was 23-29%. The root of that, Quinn claimed, is racism – whereas he wanted to “engage all cultures” when it came to business startup.

Incumbent Jeannie Haddaway spoke of a desire to empower young people, where education would be the basis. Moreover, her overall objective was to maintain the quality of life for those in her district. She pointed to her efforts in getting laptops in schools for her district as a method of getting kids engaged in learning and lessening the dropout rate. Another accomplishment of hers was serving on a task force for minority businesses and working to start a linked deposit program. However, Haddaway also asked to continue her service, saying “how can I help you?” and vowing to remain committed to the community.

The other incumbent, Addie Eckardt, was a late arrival so she only answered the questions on being accessible and how her reelection would help the minority community. She spoke of her pet issues – day care, housing, cultural heritage, and being an advocate for the mentally ill. Most important to her in terms of accessibility was to “keep her ear to the ground.”

Switching gears and districts, 38A challenger Tony Bruce sought a return trip to Annapolis, where he served briefly in the General Assembly in the early 1990’s. As stated up top, he observed that all of the candidates were in favor of the same things so it was important to work together as an Eastern Shore team in Annapolis. He continued the theme with a call for common sense and not “politics as usual.” And citing that “a rising tide raises all ships” he wanted to use state resources wisely to promote a living wage and health care. Most interesting to me was his disdain for the Maryland Lottery; insofar as being against slot machines in the state, to him it seemed all forms of state-sanctioned gambling should be curtailed.

Incumbent Page Elmore is using his retirement to serve his constituents. After 35 years in business he ran for and won the Delegate post. He sought a “level playing field” for those in his district, and bragged that he had the most bills passed of any first-time delegate. With his background, it was obvious that most of his answers centered around using resources available to citizens of Maryland to encourage small business startups, thus creating jobs and opportunity for people of all races. Minority set-asides, he continued, were difficult to fill on the Eastern Shore because of a lack of qualifying contractors and companies.

Probably the most diverse group of answers came from those seeking office in District 38B. Sonny Bloxom pointed to his 16 years as a Worcester County commissioner where he’d already worked with and became familiar with the concerns facing the district. I found that his best answer was one where he sort of went against the grain by saying that issues that affected the minority community were problems for everyone, not just minorities. But education was his major concern, quoting Frederick Douglass, “it is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

As the youngest candidate in Maryland history, Bill McDermott belied his age by claiming he would bring energy, leadership, and inspiration to the General Assembly. Saying that he lived by twenty principles – ten carried on stone tablets by Moses and ten written by learned men at our founding, McDermott also gave credit to Norm Conway for helping to pass legislation getting broadband to the Eastern Shore. While he knew he didn’t have the life experiences of the other candidates, he did posit on the question of accessibility that, with his being a resident assistant in college, he always had an open door and could do the same as a Delegate. Obviously his pet issue was college tuition, as he again gave a nod to the General Assembly for voting to increase college funding and freezing tuition. He was the one candidate who advocated tax incentives for minority-owned businesses and a task force to study the effects of government on those enterprises.

Former Ocean City mayor Jim Mathias told the gathered that his “number one priority was to work for you.” Speaking in the third person, he said that “Jim Mathias was accessible as mayor of Ocean City.” As a delegate he would be “accessible to small business people”, and that working together we can make a difference. He didn’t carry a lot of specifics with what he said, and I think a part of this is being an appointed delegate with no real record of accomplishment but on the other hand being targeted as part of the Democrat machine in Annapolis. He did deliver his remarks with the polish one would expect from a veteran politician, though. With his appearance and slick delivery, Mathias reminds me a lot of the longtime mayor of Toledo, Carty Finkbeiner (albeit without the controversy.)

Bonnie Luna can be best described as one who has her priorities straight. In her time at the podium, she noted during the “accessibility” question that her priorities, in order, were “God, family, and her job” but she would give her time and talent to her constituents as part of her task. The other part I liked about her words was when she said she would treat all of her district residents equally, as long as they claimed the equality granted to them under the Constitution. The equality theme was also apparent in her answer regarding minority businesses, where she noted that obstacles are the same for everyone, and that there were already plenty of resources available through the government. And Bonnie’s quite quotable, as her goals are to “bring common sense to Annapolis”, place “people before politics”, and “do the right thing.” She pledged to work on bringing civility back to Annapolis and to get past partisan politics. It takes two to tango in that realm, though.

The sole elected incumbent of the two who already occupy the 38B seats, Norm Conway was certainly given praise by opponent Bill McDermott for his legislative accomplishments for the Eastern Shore. Norm touted his experience and leadership as well and informed those who were running for delegate posts that if they weren’t accessible now, they would become so the moment they won the job. But the money quote to me from Delegate Conway was that he “firmly believes in the One Maryland concept.” I just have to put on my editorial hat here and disagree, because to me what’s good for Garrett County may or may not be the best thing for the Eastern Shore and certainly the needs of Baltimore City are different than either. Now if he’s referring to his philosophy of giving all an opportunity to be successful I won’t argue with that but I’m not certain about whether he’s coming at the issue through a philosophy of government or through mandates and legislation. I tend to think the latter, which to me becomes a disagreement on the means to achieve the goal.

In listening to Jack Lord, I thought he also slyly showed that he was running more against the Democrats in charge in Annapolis than his four primary opponents. In referring to the health care issue, he opined that to achieve better health care you need better jobs, thus a pro-business attitude is needed in Maryland. That theme continued when he answered the question on how his election would benefit the minority community, as he said everyone up there wants job creation but he also wanted to “keep the state out of (our) wallet.” Furthermore, in closing he wanted to “put representative back into the quotient” and not just be for big business or big labor.

Finally, we come to Michael James. He portrayed himself as an outsider who wanted to give a “different type” of representation, as he was a political neophyte but, more importantly, was a businessman who had created jobs. He also took a swipe at the perception of Maryland as anti-business when he spoke of minority-owned businesses, saying that the state needs to market its programs better and “(not) drive jobs away.” As he said, having no jobs is equal to having no tax base. And James was the person I adapted the opening from, as he closed by saying that most of them agreed on the problems but the position was about much more than who was effective at winning elections. Obviously you do have to win two elections in order to get to the General Assembly, at least in most cases.

By my count there were about 100 people there, the number actually grew as the evening progressed. It was sort of sad in a way though that a goodly number of the people there were other candidates running for various offices or brought as a show of support. For example, 5 of the 7 running for Sheriff were there and probably another half-dozen or so who were running for County Council. And then you had the Cephus brigade, plus a few others who were associated as campaign staffers or relatives of the people who shared the podium. I know that this will be televised at some point on PAC-14 but there’s not a lot of viewership among the general public there.

As this is the final NAACP forum, I’m unsure what other avenues are available to those who seek to see all of the candidates answer questions. Actually, the questions presented last night were probably the best of the three forums because they dealt least with pet NAACP issues. If this is the last forum, it looks to me like monoblogue will be the one asking the tough questions from here on. (By the way I got a letter today from Rich Colburn, so his Ten Questions answers will be featured on August 19, when I’m back from vacation. That brings the number of responses to seven, and checking my e-mail I should get another next week.) And in a few moments, this post will be superseded by a U.S. Senate response to my Ten Questions that arrived in my e-mail today.

Also, I did get a few more links to campaign sites which I’ll add to monoblogue over the weekend. The campaign is rolling on!