It was like Baltimore County was the center of Maryland?s political universe Tuesday and the Fourth of July was celebrated nowhere else. Every major statewide politician and scores of lesser wannabes gravitated to the county?s four major parades.
“This is ground zero,” Montgomery County Council member Tom Perez said as he walked in the Arbutus parade in his run for attorney general.
Most of the big names started the day in Dundalk at 8 a.m. “This is one of the great parades,” said Rep. Ben Cardin, a U.S. Senate candidate who began marching in Dundalk almost 30 years ago as speaker of the Maryland House.
“It?s a great neighborhood parade.”
The man who started the mad scramble for an open Senate seat ? attracting 18 Democrats and 10 Republicans ? retiring Sen. Paul Sarbanes rode in a convertible with his wife, Christine, holding signs that simply said, “Thank you for his 30 years in office.”
Attorney General Joseph Curran, retiring after 20 years, picked up the sign theme with a hand-illustrated thank you done by a granddaughter. Behind him in the parades, which invariably placed incumbents at the head of the line, were his daughter and son-in-law, Judge Catherine Curran O?Malley and Mayor Martin O?Malley, riding in the Dundalk parade with their four children.
The couple marched hand-in-hand in the other parades, a rare political appearance for the district court judge.
Dundalk was once solid Ehrlich country, but if the campaign signs were any indicator, O?Malley has made inroads.
Carol Brooks had a huge, bright-green O?Malley sign the width of the lawn of her row house. “I think the Democrats may be coming back a little bit,” Brooks said. “A whole lot.”
As governor, Robert Ehrlich, in a flag-themed shirt, had precedence in the line of march, and in Dundalk he paraded with the whole family ? wife Kendel, young sons Drew and Josh in a stroller, and parents Bob Sr. and Nancy. “I?m prepared to do whatever it takes to win this race,” the governor told a radio reporter.
Lt. Gov. Michael Steele was inseparable from Ehrlich in all four parades, and he was heading to Bel Air?s later in the day.
Ex-NAACP president Kweisi Mfume, a former congressman who is vying for the open Senate seat, was generally much further back with non-incumbent hopefuls. “That?s what happens when you run from behind,” Mfume laughed.
