First, some history.
When I decided to get involved in local politics, shortly
after I moved to Howard County from the brutal streets of Kensington, one of
the first people with whom I met was Jon Weinstein. I reached out to him in May 2013 and in
June, we sat down at La Madeleine where we discussed a range of topics,
including his nascent campaign for County Council. I walked away from that meeting finding him
to be thoughtful, affable, and sincere.
We stayed in touch over the course of the 2014 campaign, and I offered
up my two cents every now and then. I
supported his candidacy via this blog.
Professional, academic, and other obligations conspired to
limit my attendance at local political events over the past couple of years,
although I was always pleased to see Jon when he and I found ourselves at the
same gathering.
When I first made his acquaintance, I was a rather
mainstream liberal. Jon was always to my
right but I thought he profiled well as a moderate D that was a good fit for
the First, a swing District. In fact, Jon
was one of the few success stories coming out of the 2014 General Election in
Maryland. If you took a look at Democratic state legislative, County Executive,
and County Council/County Commission candidates who 1) ran for open seats, 2)
were in competitive or at least semi-competitive districts, and 3) won…there
were about a dozen such successful D campaigns across the state. Jon was one of them.
After he was elected, and as this author moved steadily to
the Left, I became more concerned about certain facets of his term in
office. While one can (and will!) argue over
how much of a County Councilperson’s job is driven by ideological or partisan
considerations as opposed to more nuts-and-bolts non-partisan/technical/no “R-or-D-way-to-fix-a-pothole”
motivations, I thought his positioning re: Kittleman was, optically,
sub-optimal politically. Look, you can
work with someone to find practical solutions to local problems, but I thought
some Democrats might view Jon and Allan as two sides of the same clad coin…which
I believed would create problems for Jon down the road, should he have decided
to run for a County-wide office as a Democrat.
More on that later.
More importantly, Jon cast a couple of bad votes. I am not
going to rehash those issues here and now, but I was disappointed in one
particular vote from back in early 2017.
I regret that I wasn’t posting more actively during that time-span and I
further regret not penning an article on that particular vote (OK, fine, it was
the Sanctuary County issue). At the
time, I seem to recall thinking that Jon was “voting his District” on that
bill. In short, I was trying to
rationalize his stance through some realpolitik
framing. That said, even with his
detailed explanation for said vote, it is clear that he was on the wrong side
of that issue and that any Democrat, particularly a Howard County Democrat,
should have voted the right way on it…no matter what the electoral consequences
might have been.
I didn’t know if Jon would seek re-election and we didn’t
talk about his campaign this cycle. Once he filed, I still supported his
re-election for several reasons (before and after Liz Walsh joined the race). First, I thought he cared about the
District. Second, I thought he was a
dedicated public servant. Third, I
thought he was the best Democratic option to hold the seat. Not knowing much (but enough) about Liz Walsh
back in February, I wrote that “Jon Weinstein bought himself a primary.” Looking at how he fared in the 2014 primary
election and considering his term in office, my initial handicapping had Jon
winning with 60% of the vote. That
number dwindled, but popped up again when I saw the campaign finance filings
(and the disparity in terms of fundraising).
I scribbled my prediction on the back of an envelope somewhere, I think
I ended up at Weinstein 55% - Walsh 45%.
This is why I stay away from prognostication pieces.
After the primary, beyond being stymied in my efforts to do
a 2014 vs. 2018 District One primary election precinct-by-precinct comparison
(OK, I could, but the Board of Elections could make it far easier for me to do
this if they just changed their formatting back to how they used to do it),
this blog hasn’t spent much time on the First.
So let me be
clear: the electorate has spoken and Liz
Walsh has been nominated as the Democratic standard-bearer in the First County Council
District. This is why I am supporting
Liz Walsh and am encouraging all of my friends who reside in that constituency
to vote for her in the General Election. And I would have taken this position even if a
write-in campaign had been mounted, as that would only have served to take
votes away from Walsh (and some from Kathuria, but more Ds than Rs would have
written in Jon’s name). No matter what the intent/motivation for such a
candidacy might have been, the impact would have made this race a toss-up with a
good chance for an R pick-up, and Raj Kathuria is no Liz Walsh, or Jon
Weinstein.
Back to pundit mode…what does this all mean? It means that all good Democrats in the First
should rally behind Walsh. No matter how
you feel about Jon or the campaign that was waged, Ms. Walsh won. It’s time to be a professional about such
things.
And as for Jon? His
political career in this County, as a Democrat, is over. Perhaps he doesn’t care about that political
element of the job. I do believe that
Jon’s County Executive endorsement decision was made out of his sincere
conviction as to what is best for the common good for Howard County. I think he is wrong. Furthermore, I believe that many of Jon’s
people in the First were pro-Jon, but they won’t transfer their CE preferences
to Kittleman because of Jon’s endorsement.
In short, I think his endorsement will have minimal impact on the CE
race.
Maybe Jon runs as an Independent one day, or decides to
leave electoral politics behind entirely.
Who knows. While I am saddened by
certain aspects of his voting record and disappointed (albeit not surprised) by
his CE endorsement, I still believe he is a decent person.
I am not going to say “thanks for your service” at this point as I am, frankly,
more than slightly nettled by the Allan thing at the moment. So no hagiography today. But remember, anyone
can donate to Calvin Ball here: https://votecalvinball.com/
In solidarity.
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