You knew it would happen; it was like waiting for the other shoe to drop. When would Democrats whip out the race card in this year’s gubernatorial race?
It turns out we didn’t have to wait long. In the first debate between former Gov. Robert Ehrlich and incumbent Gov. Martin O’Malley, it was O’Malley himself who brought up race. And he did it in such a way that maybe now people will understand why I’ve given him the nickname “Martin O’Shameless.”
“I’m tired of people putting down the achievements of poor children and children of color,” O’Shameless huffed. Then he accused Ehrlich of talking “in very coded language about the kids who aren’t succeeding.”
Why, shades of the 1998 Maryland gubernatorial race, when Democrats with about as much shame as their 2010 leader accused Republican gubernatorial candidate Ellen Sauerbrey of being a racist. The charge was so scandalous, so untrue, that even other Democrats had to call their fellow party members on it.
True, that number amounted to only three, but at least we can find comfort in the knowledge that there exists at least a trio of Democrats in the state — former state Sen. Clarence Mitchell III, former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke and former Prince George’s County Executive Wayne Curry — who have some integrity.
Whether that trio steps forward to call O’Shameless on his demagoguery remains to be seen, but clearly someone should. O’Shameless used not-so-very-coded language to call Ehrlich a racist. And astute political observers will note that O’Shameless did it for one reason: to pander to black voters, specifically in Prince George’s County and O’Shameless’ home base of Baltimore.
O’Shameless knows it was a massive Baltimore black voter turnout that gave him enough votes to unseat Ehrlich in 2006. Black Baltimore Democrats went for O’Shameless knowing full well his arrest policies had a disproportionate impact on young African American men, that he rudely disrespected, with profanity, departing Baltimore State’s Attorney Patricia Jessamy, and that he admitted to being asleep at the switch when school system honchos ran up a still-unaccounted-for $58 million deficit.
The phrase “sappier than a Baltimore Democrat” isn’t a common part of the lexicon yet, but it should be. A special state prosecutor was investigating former Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon before she was elected. Several news stories mentioned that she had ethics problems when she was president of the Baltimore City Council. In the Democratic primary, no fewer than three of her opponents mentioned these things.
So Baltimore Democrats went to the polls knowing that there was a good chance Dixon might be indicted, and they voted for her anyway.
That’s what’s so egregiously shameless about O’Shameless’ race-baiting demagoguery.
He should know, better than anyone, that he doesn’t have to pander to Baltimore’s black voters to get their votes. He’s already got ’em.
That’s why he was being utterly ridiculous in his fake dudgeon about those who supposedly “put down the achievements of poor children and children of color.”
Earth to O’Shameless: that “putting down” is simply an acknowledgement that an educational achievement gap exists between blacks and whites. Darn near everybody who’s talked about education — except O’Shameless, of course — black, white, Democrat and Republican has said the gap exists. That’s one of the reasons that bipartisan piece of legislation known as the No Child Left Behind Act was passed — to help close the achievement gap.
Here’s a harsh truth O’Shameless will have trouble accepting: Many black students in urban areas do struggle with achievement. And which party controls those cities, and has for decades?
Deep down, O’Shameless knows the answer.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
