The high-drama, three-way Democratic race to determine the fate of Comptroller William Donald Schaefer has largely obscured a very low-profile contest among four Republicans to face whichever Democrat wins.
Steven Abrams, a three-term member of the Montgomery County school board, and also served nine years on the Rockville City Council. He has served as a counsel to congressional committees and served as deputy assistant under the U.S. secretary of agriculture. He is currently working in finance and venture capital.
“If there is a character quotient” in a job held by the late Louis Goldstein and now Schaefer, Abrams said, “I?ll keep them entertained.”
He single-handedly pursued the lawsuit that knocked Democratic attorney general candidate Tom Perez off the ballot. Mark Spradley, vice president of a private equity capital firm who lives in Montgomery County, has been in all 24 counties and said “the harder I work, the better my luck is.”
He?s the only candidate to have run cable TV ads. He said the issues that get the most response on the campaign trail are his support for greater financial literacy for the middle class and improving education at all levels. Spradley wants to help teachers and first responders become homeowners by providing reduced-rate financing of home mortgages. He also wants to help families begin saving for college education by having the state put $100 in seed money in private accounts for their children.
To run for comptroller, Anne McCarthy quit her position as dean of the University of Baltimore business school, where she still teaches management. She has run her own company refurbishing inner-cityhomes. McCarthy said voters want the office to emphasize its traditional financial management functions, and not social policy.
If she got the job, she said she would focus on reducing taxes, particularly the state property tax and advocating tax policies that foster economic growth. She believes their needs to be a blue-ribbon panel to look at comprehensive tax reform. Business consultant Gene Zarwell was the Republican candidate for comptroller against Schaefer four years ago. He?s running “to find out where the fraud is” in state government. “That?s not happening right now.”
