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It did not get better from there. “Assume for purposes of discussion that there was widespread drinking at this party,” said Gansler, who insisted he’d stopped by to briefly chat with his son, whom he insisted was definitely not drinking. (Other attendees said Gansler lingered for some time.) “How is that relevant to me? … The question is, do I have any moral authority over other people’s children at beach week in another state? I say no.” But if they’d been juuust inside the state line, then he’d have been right on it?
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After getting absolutely pilloried for his behavior, Gansler finally admitted he’d made a “mistake”, but his comments didn’t get any less weird. “Perhaps I should have assumed there was drinking going on, and I got that wrong,” said Gansler, who’d recorded a PSA the previous year admonishing, “Parents, you’re the leading influence on your teen’s decision not to drink.” That one cuts both ways, huh? “There could be Kool-Aid in the red cups,” Gansler went on, “but there’s probably beer in the red cups.” Probably.
If it were just one really stupid night at one really stupid party, perhaps we’d be inclined to forgive Gansler, and same for Maryland voters. But, naturally, it wasn’t. Just before the “beach week” story broke, Gansler was the subject of a scathing report in the Washington Post detailing how he’d “regularly ordered state troopers assigned to drive him to turn on the lights and sirens on the way to routine appointments, directing them to speed, run red lights and bypass traffic jams by using the shoulder.”
As part of the same pattern of his weird relationship with the law despite being elected to enforce it, Gansler would activate the lights and sirens himself even when troopers refused to. He even ordered officers who failed to placate him out of the driver’s seat so that he could take the wheel of his state-owned SUV. Martin O’Malley, the governor at the time, even reportedly authorized the state police to revoke Gansler’s transportation privileges if need be. Gansler of course denied he’d acted inappropriately, saying he apologized to any troopers who “felt my backseat driving made them uncomfortable.”
During the same race, he accused then-Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, the frontrunner, of relying chiefly on the fact that he was Black to get elected. “I mean, right now his campaign slogan is, ‘Vote for me, I want to be the first African American governor of Maryland,” said Gansler. “That’s a laudable goal, but you need a second sentence: ‘Because here’s what I’ve done, and here’s why I’ve done it.’ “
Despite bringing in lots of money for his campaign, the endless barrage of embarrassing stories took their toll, and Gansler finished a distant second to Brown, who bested him 51-24 and even beat him in Montgomery County, Gansler’s home county. (Del. Heather Mizeur, who ran as the most vocally progressive option but raised far less cash, wound up just a shade behind Gansler with 22%.) The outcome was a relief for Maryland Democrats, who must be just as astonished as we are to see Gansler attempting a comeback.
It’s even possible we could see a rematch of sorts. While Brown, who lost the general election 51-47 to Republican Larry Hogan amid 2014’s GOP wave, has indicated he plans to seek re-election to the House (to which he was elected in 2016), he hasn’t exactly ruled out another gubernatorial bid. The primary will be a very different affair this time, though, as a number of other prominent Democrats are seeking the nod, all of whom, thankfully, are not Doug Gansler.
Senate
● AZ-Sen: The Arizona Republic‘s Yvonne Wingett Sanchez reports that retired Maj. Gen. Michael McGuire, who stepped down as adjutant general of the Arizona National Guard last month, is “expected” to seek the Republican nomination to take on Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly next year. While McGuire hasn’t confirmed his intentions publicly, he indicated an interest in seeking office when he announced his departure from the National Guard in March.
● PA-Sen: Democratic Rep. Susan Wild, who’d been mentioned as a possible Senate candidate but never said she was looking at the race, tells Roll Call she won’t be running. “I love having a district I can know every corner of,” she said in a wide-ranging new interview. “I think it would be incredibly frustrating to represent 67 counties and barely ever get to some of them.”
● WI-Sen: Nonprofit founder Steven Olikara, who recently filed paperwork ahead of a possible Senate bid, says he will “take the summer” to decide whether to join the hunt for the Democratic nomination.
Governors
● FL-Gov: Rep. Kathy Castor, who represents the district right next door to Charlie Crist’s, has endorsed her fellow Democrat in his bid for governor. The move makes Castor the first member of Congress from Florida to take sides in next year’s primary.
● MI-Gov: The RGA is reportedly spending $500,000—an unusually large sum 18 months ahead of Election Day—on a new TV ad attacking Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer over her handling of the COVID crisis. The spot features a woman named Suzette who claims that Whitmer “secretly flew to Florida to visit her father.” She continues, “I wish I had that same chance. But Whitmer closed nursing homes in Michigan, and I couldn’t see him.”
Most misleadingly, she says, “Whitmer ignored her own rules while the rest of us were forced to comply.” Not the case: Whitmer rescinded the restrictions on nursing home visits in early March, before she went to see her chronically ill father later that month. Michigan also does not prohibit out-of-state travel but instead recommends against it unless unavoidable.
● NV-Gov: Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, who’d been considering a bid for governor, announced on Monday that he’d seek the GOP nomination to take on Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak next year. The move makes Lombardo the second notable Republican in the race after North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee, who recently switched parties, though the field could yet grow—and an apparent complication looms.
Last month, the Las Vegas Review-Journal‘s Rory Appleton reported that Republican operatives believed Lombardo would not compete against Rep. Mark Amodei or former Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchison in the primary, but so far, only half of that prophecy has been realized, with Hutchison coming on board to chair Lombardo’s campaign. Amodei, however, recently told the AP that “he’s still weighing whether to run” and had no timeline for making a decision, so evidently this triple entente wasn’t quite as firm as some GOP politicos wanted to believe.
● NY-Gov: Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro has taken himself out of contention for another gubernatorial bid by endorsing Rep. Lee Zeldin for the Republican nomination. Molinaro has also said he’s considering a bid against Democratic Rep. Antonio Delgado in New York’s 19th Congressional District, but he hasn’t given an update on his plans since first going public with his interest in March.
● OH-Gov: The Ohio Association of Public School Employees, which represents more than 34,000 members, has endorsed Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley in her bid for the Democratic nomination for governor. Cleveland.com describes the organization as “one of the most powerful unions in the state” and notes that its executive director, Joe Rugola, gave his backing to Whaley when she first entered the race last month.
House
● CA-49: Oceanside City Councilmember Christopher Rodriguez has announced a bid against Democratic Rep. Mike Levin, making him the second notable Republican in the race after 2020 nominee Brian Maryott. Rodriguez ran for mayor last year but lost a 12-way race to fellow Councilmember Esther Sanchez, a Democrat, by a 29-18 margin.
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