{"id":12406,"date":"2020-03-26T10:53:50","date_gmt":"2020-03-26T14:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=12406"},"modified":"2020-03-26T13:31:41","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T17:31:41","slug":"mocos-most-influential-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=12406","title":{"rendered":"MoCo\u2019s Most Influential, Part One"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

Are you tired of reading about the coronavirus?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you tired of staying locked up in your house?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you tired of having to fight for toilet paper like\nit\u2019s the Zombie Apocalypse (strangely without zombies)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well so am I, so let\u2019s have fun.  This is Part One of a series.  It\u2019s something we have not done since\n2009.  It\u2019s a grand survey, the grandest of\nall on MoCo\u2019s political stage.  And YOU\nget to see the results!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We call this event MoCo\u2019s Most Influential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been writing about state and county politics off\nand on for 14 years and during that time I\u2019ve picked up a lot of sources.  They tell me useful things, like where money\ngets wasted, who blew up his or her own campaign, who really killed that bill\nand \u2013 nowadays \u2013 where toilet paper can be found.  So this time I went back to them with a\nquestion:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who are MoCo\u2019s most influential people in state and\ncounty politics?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the rules I sent to my sources:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1.  You may nominate up to 10 elected officials in government who you believe most influence state or county politics and represent all or part of Montgomery County.  This includes statewide officials and officials who represent other jurisdictions in addition to MoCo (like members of Congress).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.  You may also nominate up to 10 non-elected people who you believe most influence state or county politics in Montgomery County.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s right, there are two lists: elected and non-elected.  You get up to 10 nominations for each of them.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

3.  You don\u2019t have to agree with your nominees, you just have to believe that they are influential.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

4.  You may nominate yourself \u2013 if you judge it necessary!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

5.  You may provide comments justifying your picks but you don\u2019t have to.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

6.  No nominations or comments will be attributed.  No one besides you and me will know how you voted or what you said.  I PROMISE.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

7.  Responses are due in two weeks.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A total of 85 people made nominations.  They come from all over the county, from Damascus down to Takoma Park.  A few live outside the county but have business and\/or political interests here.  Almost half (40) are elected officials, former elected officials or government staffers.  Thirty-two are women.  They are active throughout the county\u2019s many communities \u2013 civil rights, civic activism, progressives, environmentalists, education folks, business leaders and more.  Many of them are household names that would be immediately recognized by every Seventh State reader.  Others operate behind the scenes.  I didn\u2019t get responses from everyone I asked, but on a collective basis, I am confident that these people know this county as well or better than any other respondent pool that could be accessed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any one of these folks could have developed a compelling list of influential people all on their own, and most of them did.  But what makes this exercise interesting is that it sums up their cumulative judgment.  To have a large group of influential and knowledgeable people pick the folks that they truly believe are the most<\/em> influential is quite a thing to behold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let\u2019s do some beholding!  Part Two \u2013 coming to your inbox soon \u2013 will\nget us started.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. Are you tired of reading about the coronavirus? Are you tired of staying locked up in your house? Are you tired of having to fight for toilet paper like it\u2019s the Zombie Apocalypse (strangely without zombies)? Well so am I, so let\u2019s have fun.  This is Part One of a series.  It\u2019s … Continue reading MoCo\u2019s Most Influential, Part One<\/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_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":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[151,2310],"tags":[1545,2309],"class_list":["post-12406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-moco-most-influential","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-moco-most-influential"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-3e6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12406","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=12406"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12415,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12406\/revisions\/12415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}