Jay Bryant over at Real Clear Politics thinks that the most important Senate race is happening right on Washington's doorstep. It isn't Virginia, either. It is the Maryland Senate race. Now I noted the surprise endorsement of Michael Steels by a group of influential black politicians in Prince George's County yesterday. I am not all that well versed in Maryland politics, so while I saw the announcement as important, I could not see all that is behind it. It turns out that this is much. much more than it seemed at the time. This is potentially a political earthquake.
Tipping the balance in the Senate is only one of the two reasons Steele's campaign is the most important in the country this year, but before we look at the other reason, let's discuss the importance of yesterday's endorsements.
Prince George's County is a huge, majority-black area east of Washington, D.C. With a total population of just under 850,000, it's the second-largest jurisdiction in the state, with some 225,000 more people than the city of Baltimore. As you would expect given its ethnic makeup, it's a Democratic stronghold. In 2002, the ticket of Governor Bob Ehrlich and Steele won statewide by four percentage points (52-48), but lost in Prince George's by fifty-three percentage points (76-23).
So why a high-powered leadership would group from Prince George's break ranks with their party and support Steele? (And they are high-powered. Their leader is a two-term former County Executive, Wayne Curry, arguably the most popular politician in the county. Five others are members of the County Council. Another, Major Riddick, was the top aide to former Governor Parris Glendening. Also on hand were one of the Democrats' top fundraisers, several prominent businessmen and other community leaders.)
Part of it is that Steele is a Prince Georgian. The county leaders know him, like him and respect him. But that alone wouldn't be nearly enough to cause them to break ranks with their party in a critical election.
What it's really all about is that blacks in Maryland have begun to realize that they've been being snookered by the white-dominated Democratic Party all these years. As Riddick put it, "They've been showing us a pie, but we never get a slice."
Read the whole thing. I suspect Bryant is on to something here. This endorsement is probably enough to push Steele over the top. More than that, it may mean the landscape just changed radically in Maryland politics.
