Before Democratic primary voters decided their fate in the Senate race, this summer Sen. Barbara Mikulski told Rep. Ben Cardin and ex-Rep. Kweisi Mfume that she wanted both of them at a unity rally this month to help whichever nominee win the general election.
At a boisterous rally in front of 1,500 at the University of Maryland, College Park Wednesday morning, the two men lived up to the deal. Mfume and Cardin hugged and shook hands, and Mfume offered a warm endorsement speech.
“Ben Cardin would tell you that I?d be a great senator,” Mfume said, “but Ben is the nominee and nominee we support. He?s going to make a damn good senator.”
But Mfume was also somewhat critical of his own party, saying the 2006 ticket looked too much like the 1956 ticket, and the party needed to nominate more women and minorities for statewide races. He also gave some advice for the Nov. 7 election.
“We?ve got to spend less time demonizing Michael Steele,” the Republican lieutenant governor who is Cardin?s opponent, Mfume said. “People who like Michael Steele will like him no matter what we say.”
Instead, Cardin and the party need to press Steele on the important issues such as the Iraq war and health care, Mfume said.
Cardin promised to do that.
The real draw Mikulski had enlisted for the event was Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, one of the most popular of the Democrats? national figures. “When she says jump, you say ?how high??” Obama said. “She stands tall in the Senate.”
Obama praised Mfume, who he said was something of a role model for him in politics. Mfume was well-spoken, “smart and smooth” and “his name is as hard to pronounce as mine,” Obama said, giving him some hope in his career.
The stage was shared by dozens of elected officials and nominees, black, white and Asian, including four congressmen, who didn?t even get a chance to speak.
Obama praised Mikulski and retiring Sen. Paul Sarbanes as one of the most respected state delegations in the Senate and said Cardin was someone who could replace Sarbanes and “not miss a beat.”
Mikulski noted that there would be at least $1 million spent by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, since after a tough primary “guess what, at the end, you?re broke.”
