Observations and Omissions

Scenes from the Columbia Democratic Club endorsement meeting (and beyond).

1)    Who was the Democratic state legislative candidate with the MAGA cap skulking about the parking garage?  They never made it inside the Roger Carter Community Center (thanks to S. MacCune for the eagle-eyed sighting and tip)!

2)    When I was recently called regarding a political survey, I pressed the interviewer for the name of the firm fielding the poll.  I heard it as “SSI,” which is the acronym for Survey Sampling International, which is a known brand in the survey research space. Over the years, I have retained SSI’s services to obtain listed telephone samples for various opinion research studies.  That said, I am wondering if the telephone interviewer actually said, “SSSI,” which stands for Scientific Systems and Software International.  Who runs that company?  The website shows two members of the leadership team, both with the last name of Siddiqui, one being Nayab…the husband of Dr. Janet Siddiqui, candidate for Howard County Council (4^th District).  The survey itself was well-crafted, not flawless, but good enough to be of professional quality.  That is one mark in the “probably SSI” column.  However, the interviewer was not so skilled, flubbing some names (most notably the pronunciation of “Deb Jung”).  Then the Mrs. received a call, I believe later on that same day, asking if she would participate in a survey, it sounded like the same interviewer.  I would think that SSI would know that we resided in the same household, and standard political polling best practices would dictate interviewing no more than one respondent at the same address as part of the same survey.  So perhaps it wasn’t SSI.

Now, I heard reports that folks in other Council Districts were being called to participate in a survey around the same time.  Why would SSSI, if it was that firm dialing voters, be engaged in data collection outside of the 4^th?  If it was them, with whom were they sharing the findings?  Granted, perhaps it was SSI and not SSSI, I suppose we shall learn soon enough by looking through campaign finance filings.

3)    One concluding item, how many Board of Education candidates showed up yesterday?  Two, perhaps three?  I heard Sabina Taj’s excellent remarks…and I saw Anita Pandey outside of the building when her name was called (there is something to be said about the immense role of luck in political campaigns).  My point is this…yes I know it is a non-partisan race.  But guess what, Tex?  In order to win, these BoE candidates can’t rely on just the votes of unaffiliated voters.  They need the votes of those who affiliate with political parties.  And there were, at any given moment, around 100 very likely voters…elected officials, community activists, all-around-influencers… all congregated in one spot…and several BoE candidates opted to not swing by and make the rounds?  In all fairness, perhaps some thought their time better spent elsewhere, say….knocking on doors on a gorgeous Saturday.  I get that.  Or, in certain cases, perhaps some deemed a Columbia Democratic Club event to be poorly aligned with their own partisan beliefs/inclinations.  So, the questions should be asked: who wasn’t in the room and why? 

In solidarity.

  

A Win for Krish Vignarajah

Momentum is a precious commodity in American politics, worth far more than Bitcoin. In the Maryland Democratic gubernatorial primary, Krish Vignarajah’s campaign seems both well-equipped and well-positioned to harness the grassroots energy needed to move up in the polls and secure the nomination.

Today, Krish Vignarajah won the endorsement of the Columbia Democratic Club. 

Her campaign reminds me of then-State Senator Russ Feingold’s come-from-way-behind primary win in the 1992 Democratic U.S. Senate primary in Wisconsin.  Matched up against two heavy establishment favorites who spent lavishly on attack ads against one another, Feingold began his self-described underdog campaign in a distant third place.  And he remained there, mostly in single digits…for quite a while.  In fact, a survey that ran in the Milwaukee Journal on August 16 had Feingold with 10% of the vote, compared to 42% for then-U.S. Representative Jim Moody and 40% for Milwaukee business-owner Joe Checota.  So he was at least 30 points behind the two front-runners with a ballot test only double the survey’s margin of error (5 percent).

Did I mention that this poll was released 24 days before the date of the primary election?

By using humor in a year that favored “outsiders” while the Establishment candidates viciously tore into each other, Feingold not only won, he won big…with 69.72% of the vote compared to 14.12% for Moody and 13.57% for Checota.

My point is this: in a crowded Democratic field, with the Establishment candidates (Baker, Kamenetz) jockeying for supremacy in that lane…with the progressives demonstrating either the likely presence of an electoral ceiling (Jealous) or failing to yet show the ability to expand their geographic base (why is Madaleno’s initial TV spend in Montgomery County, shouldn’t he be a known entity there at this point?), there is plenty of room to maneuver.

The Democratic candidate who can assemble a coalition with women, young voters, seniors, people of color, rural/suburban/urban white voters, and progressives of all genders and sexual orientations can and will emerge as the Party’s nominee and standard-bearer against Governor Hogan in the General Election. I believe that Krish Vignarajah, in part based on her strong performances at grassroots Democratic Party meetings throughout Maryland, can and will emerge as that candidate. 

The momentum is starting.

In solidarity.

The Whole Enchilada

I had the opportunity to read through the Teachers for Tomorrow (T4T) program audit report.

For those unfamiliar with the program, a useful summary can be found in the Overview section of the Meeting Agenda Item page (page 1).  A link to the full report can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sgMTQM6j78N0AcXwiRtdRqsY48Mou6I9/view

Under the program, HCPSS “partners with McDaniel College to help low-income students from Howard County pursue degrees in fields of their choice with minors in education.”  Sounds promising so far, right?  Alas, it was poorly-thought out, as no “feasible and sustainable funding model” has (to date) been developed.  The report details the efforts made to do so (teaser: how many times will one read about Bill Gates and Ed Norton in the same HCPSS memorandum?).

So now, HCPSS finds itself in a position of “implementing the audit recommendation to dissolve the T4T Corporation,” the entity created to carry out the programming.  This dissolution, of course, will cost taxpayer dollars.

The report does not name names, but this blog does.  Who created this entity?  That would be former Superintendent Renee Foose. So, we are still…quite literally…paying for her mistakes.

What about oversight?  Who was minding the store in July 2015 when the former Superintendent announced the launch of the T4T program?  That would be former Chair of the Howard County Board of Education, Janet Siddiqui.   Yes, the same Dr. Siddiqui who is now asking County Council District 4 voters for their support in the upcoming Democratic Primary Election.

This audit report is yet another reminder that Dr. Siddiqui, while holding public office, exercised poor judgment.  With powers of discernment that are demonstrably lacking, she cannot be trusted to fulfill the duties of the position.  She doesn’t deserve election to the County Council.

Stay tuned, as more will follow.