{"id":10245,"date":"2018-04-30T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-04-30T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=10245"},"modified":"2018-04-29T17:14:47","modified_gmt":"2018-04-29T21:14:47","slug":"the-executive-contest-is-a-two-candidate-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=10245","title":{"rendered":"The Executive Contest is a Two-Candidate Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Washington Post recently published an article<\/a> declaring that the contest to succeed County Executive Ike Leggett was seen as \u201canybody\u2019s race.\u201d\u00a0 Pshaw!\u00a0 One of two candidates will win it.\u00a0 One of them is Council Member Marc Elrich, who finished first in the last two Council At-Large primaries and is nearly sweeping progressive endorsements<\/a>.\u00a0 The other is\u2026<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know yet.\u00a0 And we don\u2019t know if we ever will.<\/p>\n

During the 2016 Congressional District 8 race, your author called up one of the smartest people in state politics we know.\u00a0 This fellow lives outside MoCo but he tracks all parts of the state and has sources everywhere.\u00a0 When we asked him who was going to win, he said, \u201cWhen I talk to the various campaigns, all of them say they\u2019re gonna be the last one at the end along with Jamie Raskin.\u00a0 When I hear that over and over, when I see that they all think that Jamie is the man to beat, that leads me to think Jamie will win.\u201d\u00a0 That dynamic is going on now in the Executive race.<\/p>\n

Elrich\u2019s long-time message combining opposition to development with far-left progressivism has earned him an overlapping base of land-use voters, liberals and Downcounty residents, especially in and near Takoma Park, where he served 19 years on the City Council.\u00a0 In the 2014 Council At-Large race, Elrich finished first in every council district except 2 (where he finished second to Nancy Floreen) and first or second in every local area in the county except Damascus and Laytonsville.\u00a0 He finished first in 138 of 251 precincts.\u00a0 In the 2010 Council At-Large race, Elrich finished first in all five council districts and in every local area in the county except Cabin John, Damascus, Darnestown and Laytonsville.\u00a0 He finished first in 166 of 243 precincts.\u00a0 No other MoCo politician running for county office in this cycle has a base of this kind.<\/p>\n

How did he assemble it?\u00a0 For many years, Elrich has been assisting residents who oppose master plans all over the county.\u00a0 And whether they won or lost, those development opponents came away from the fight with Elrich as their hero.\u00a0 Here is an illustration: an email sent out by the East Bethesda Citizens Association on 6\/2\/16, on the eve of the council\u2019s consideration of the Downtown Bethesda Master Plan, describing their meeting with Elrich and calling for action:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A year later, Elrich cast the lone vote against that master plan<\/a>\u00a0as he has with several other plans<\/a>.\u00a0 This plan\u2019s opponents have now been incorporated into Elrich\u2019s base \u2013 assuming they were not part of it already.<\/p>\n

While other candidates struggle to attract volunteers, Elrich\u2019s volunteer base is well established.\u00a0 In 2014, the campaigns of Elrich and his ally, Beth Daly, posted poll coverage sign-ups on Signupgenius.com<\/a>.\u00a0 They were able to recruit coverage on 67 precincts, many on more than one shift, with particular strength in the voter-rich areas of Silver Spring, Takoma Park and Leisure World.\u00a0 No one other than the Apple Ballot could touch this.\u00a0 Now that he is running for the county\u2019s highest office, how many precincts will Elrich be able to cover?<\/p>\n

Among the influencers and highly informed activists, this election is rapidly becoming defined by whether you\u2019re with Elrich or not.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t believe us, check out the Council District 1 candidates.\u00a0 They\u2019re an interesting group that collectively spans the differences of opinions in the county district containing the most Democrats.\u00a0 Bethesda Magazine reporter Andrew Metcalf asked them during a recent debate for whom each was going to vote in the Executive election<\/a>.\u00a0 After significant prodding, here\u2019s how the candidates responded:<\/p>\n

Bill Cook \u2013 would vote for Marc Elrich<\/p>\n

Pete Fosselman \u2013 undecided; wouldn\u2019t vote for Elrich<\/p>\n

Andrew Friedson \u2013 undecided; disinclined to vote for Elrich<\/p>\n

Ana Sol Gutierrez \u2013 torn between Elrich and George Leventhal<\/p>\n

Jim McGee \u2013 would probably vote for Elrich<\/p>\n

Reggie Oldak \u2013 refused to say; would not vote for Elrich<\/p>\n

Dalbin Osorio \u2013 would vote for Elrich<\/p>\n

Meredith Wellington \u2013 undecided<\/p>\n

All of the non-Elrich candidates have potential as well as challenges.\u00a0 Council Members Roger Berliner and George Leventhal are running on their experience and qualifications.\u00a0 (Disclosure: your author respects both but <\/em>supports Berliner<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em>\u00a0 Berliner is trying to get known outside his council district and Leventhal has been severely out-polled by Elrich in the last two elections.\u00a0 Delegate Bill Frick, former Rockville Mayor Rose Krasnow and businessman David Blair are the fresh faces.\u00a0 But they are little-known in most parts of the county and Blair started as a complete unknown.\u00a0 All of these candidates have a long way to go and each of them is in the others\u2019 way.<\/p>\n

To contrast with Elrich effectively, a non-Elrich candidate needs to hit this sweet spot dead-on: \u201cWe live in a great county, but we can be even better.\u00a0 Here are some ways we can improve.\u201d\u00a0 That involves a bit of threading the needle for the two council incumbents.\u00a0 It\u2019s understandable that they might react to critiques of the county\u2019s economic performance<\/a> as criticism of their records, but they should think of it like this: every Executive leaves unfinished business for the next Executive.\u00a0 Ike Leggett inherited his share of problems from Doug Duncan, who in turn inherited some issues from Neal Potter.\u00a0 This is entirely normal, so who is the best choice to lead in the future?\u00a0 As for the non-incumbents, they aggressively point to the need to improve, but they tend not to have many specific proposals to get better because they don\u2019t know the history and operations of county government as well as the two Council Members.\u00a0 To be fair, how could they?\u00a0 If no one hits this sweet spot, that leaves Elrich as the only candidate with a crystal-clear message that is distinct from the others.\u00a0 Those who hear Elrich\u2019s message and agree with it are less likely to peel off to someone else than tentative supporters of the other candidates who might change their preferences between them.<\/p>\n

One more thing: we wouldn\u2019t be surprised if most, if not all, of the non-Elrich candidates have polled.\u00a0 If so, they all probably found similar results.\u00a0 And so they could all tailor their messages in similar ways and maybe even say the exact same things.\u00a0 That would blur the differences between them and make Elrich stand out even more.\u00a0 This may already be happening as Berliner, Blair and Frick all repeatedly mentioned \u201cinnovation\u201d at last Friday\u2019s Executive forum.\u00a0 Was that a coincidence?<\/p>\n

If questioned privately, we bet all of the non-Elrich candidates would grudgingly admit that it\u2019s a problem that five of them are in the race.\u00a0 Each of them wants to be the person who gets to take on Elrich one-on-one.\u00a0 So each of the five is looking at the others and saying, \u201cIf YOU all get out of the way, I can beat Elrich.\u201d\u00a0 But no one is dropping out because they all think they have a shot.\u00a0 The big winner from this is \u2013 you guessed it \u2013 Marc Elrich.<\/p>\n

One non-Elrich candidate needs to emerge from the pack and consolidate everyone that is not in Elrich\u2019s camp.\u00a0 If that happens, Elrich is beatable.\u00a0 But if nothing changes and this election continues down the path it is on, Elrich will win with less than 40% of the vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. The Washington Post recently published an article declaring that the contest to succeed County Executive Ike Leggett was seen as \u201canybody\u2019s race.\u201d\u00a0 Pshaw!\u00a0 One of two candidates will win it.\u00a0 One of them is Council Member Marc Elrich, who finished first in the last two Council At-Large primaries and is nearly sweeping … Continue reading The Executive Contest is a Two-Candidate Race<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,272,492,16,84,46],"tags":[1545,441,1627,1938,1464,1508,1480,2064],"class_list":["post-10245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-bill-frick","category-county-executive","category-george-leventhal","category-marc-elrich","category-roger-berliner","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-bill-frick-2","tag-county-executive","tag-david-blair","tag-george-leventhal","tag-marc-elrich","tag-roger-berliner","tag-rose-krasnow"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2Ff","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10245"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10248,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10245\/revisions\/10248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}