{"id":8462,"date":"2017-09-07T07:00:06","date_gmt":"2017-09-07T11:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=8462"},"modified":"2017-09-06T22:55:05","modified_gmt":"2017-09-07T02:55:05","slug":"first-impressions-part-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=8462","title":{"rendered":"First Impressions, Part Three"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Danielle Meitiv, Silver Spring<\/strong><\/p>\n

Danielle Meitiv is from Queens.\u00a0 You can hear it in her voice.\u00a0 But she is also quintessentially MoCo.\u00a0 Our county is full of people who moved here from somewhere else and are principally concerned with national or international issues.\u00a0 Some keep up with local issues and vote regularly, but many others have little idea who their state or county elected officials are.\u00a0 Meitiv was once in the former group.\u00a0 But then she had a Great Awakening.<\/p>\n

We are of course referring to Meitiv\u2019s international fame as the Free Range Mom<\/a>, during which she battled \u2013 and defeated \u2013 MoCo\u2019s Child Protective Services (CPS).\u00a0 Nearly everyone in the county has heard the story of how CPS detained Meitiv\u2019s children for walking alone in public and how her family fought back.\u00a0 For Meitiv, the incident drove home the importance of local government and the unequal resources possessed by residents who have to deal with its bad side.\u00a0 It left a permanent mark on a person who was once little different from so many other MoCo voters.<\/p>\n

In many ways, Meitiv is a conventional county liberal.\u00a0 The issues she brings up \u2013 BRT, walkable neighborhoods, the Purple Line, civil rights, climate change \u2013 are mostly the same as the other at-large candidates.\u00a0 But Meitiv adds something else: her calls for greater transparency and responsiveness by county government based on her own searing experience with CPS.\u00a0 Few voters have gone through what she did, but virtually everyone has a story to tell of unresponsive bureaucracy and\/or unresponsive elected officials.\u00a0 That plus Meitiv\u2019s appealing combination of passion and intelligence make her relatable and brings potential to her run for office.<\/p>\n

Chris Wilhelm, Chevy Chase<\/strong><\/p>\n

MoCo has a reputation as the most progressive county in Maryland.\u00a0 But Chris Wilhelm doesn\u2019t think we are progressive enough.\u00a0 He writes on his website<\/a>, \u201cYes, the biggest threat to our progressive priorities is coming from the current occupant of the White House and Republicans in Congress.\u00a0 But too many leaders in our County and Party act in ways that go against the progressive agenda that residents are demanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilhelm sees many local issues as reflections of national issues.\u00a0 Senator Bernie Sanders, whom Wilhelm admires, made free college a key element of his platform.\u00a0 Wilhelm thinks the state and the county should do everything they can to make Montgomery College free for county residents.\u00a0 After all, if deep-red Garrett County is doing it<\/a>, why can\u2019t we?\u00a0 He supports Roger Berliner\u2019s fossil fuel divestment bill because he sees it as a way for MoCo to contribute to a nationwide movement towards clean energy.\u00a0 He deplores corporate welfare for big companies and favors local support for small businesses both across the country and here at home.\u00a0 And his demand that all county candidates enroll in public financing<\/a> is rooted in a belief that corporate campaign money is a problem both nationally and locally.<\/p>\n

Wilhelm has two advantages over his competitors.\u00a0 First, he is an ESOL teacher in MCPS.\u00a0 He can speak in very detailed, compelling terms about the school system \u2013 always a huge issue in local races \u2013 and the things it can do to improve.\u00a0 Second, he has more campaign experience than most of his rivals, having worked in the field for Barack Obama (2008) and David Moon (2014).\u00a0 The principles of how to run an effective campaign are not new to him.<\/p>\n

Chris Wilhelm is clearly positioning himself in the most liberal part of the field.\u00a0 If you want a serious, thoughtful progressive who will help move the council to the left, you should give him a close look.<\/p>\n

We will conclude in Part Four.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. Danielle Meitiv, Silver Spring Danielle Meitiv is from Queens.\u00a0 You can hear it in her voice.\u00a0 But she is also quintessentially MoCo.\u00a0 Our county is full of people who moved here from somewhere else and are principally concerned with national or international issues.\u00a0 Some keep up with local issues and vote regularly, … Continue reading First Impressions, Part Three<\/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":[151,209],"tags":[1545,2015,1933,2014],"class_list":["post-8462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-council-at-large","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-chris-wilhelm","tag-council-at-large","tag-danielle-meitiv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2cu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8462","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=8462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8463,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8462\/revisions\/8463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}