Hip-hop king Russell Simmons said he came to Maryland in the last election to campaign against Republican Michael Steele running for lieutenant governor, but Thursday night, Simmons crossed the party barrier to endorse Steele for U.S. Senate.
After a sit-down with Steele a while back, Simmons said he realized the lieutenant governor wants to give people education and opportunity. “He wants to fight poverty and ignorance,” Simmons said. “His commitment is real. His integrity is intact.”
Steele said that it was important to find “those things we have in common ? changing the game so that it benefits everyone.”
“Creating legacy wealth” for all minority groups is “the definition of the 21st-century civil rights movements,” Steele said.
Steele broke with Gov. Robert Ehrlich and many Republicans when he said, “we need to raise the minimum wage. ? We have to lift every boat.”
He also proposed cutting taxes for small and minority businesses to help them get started, and proposed a new Marshall plan to help rebuilt the Gulf Coast, similar to the Marshall plan for Europe after World War II.
But this would be a “Thurgood Marshall plan,” named after the Marylander who was a civil rights activist and the first black on the Supreme Court.
