When 18 U.S. Senate candidates showed up on a crowded stage last week, it was the accident of birth and alphabet that allowed Rep. Ben Cardin to speak both first and then last at the two-hour forum, thanking his colleagues “for talking about my candidacy.”
That same accident gives him first billing on Tuesday?s Democratic ballot, but it is not by chance that the 10-term congressman is the target of his four principal challengers. Ex-Rep. Kweisi Mfume was first into the race just days after Sen. Paul Sarbanes announced he would retire. Butit is Cardin that has raised three times more money and garnered more endorsements from newspapers and fellow politicians than all the others combined.
In polls, only Mfume shows a chance to beat Cardin, overcoming the odds as he has repeatedly in a life that started with a single mother in a ghetto and went from a youth misspent on crime and sex into the adult redemption and life of public service, a story he tells so compellingly. His history as a “fighter” for the underdog and his commitment to racial and economic equality is what his few big-name endorsers, such as Reps. Elijah Cummings and ex-Gov. Parris Glendening, say set him apart from Cardin.
Mfume differs with Cardin only on some points of policy ? how far to take their mutual opposition to the Iraq war, for instance ? and on Cardin?s willingness to raise money from corporate political action committees. Both would be fierce opponents of President Bush and Republican leaders in Congress.
Same for history professor Allan Lichtman, a native of Brooklyn, where “you learn to run and you learn to fight,” he said. But his rabble-rousing grass roots campaign with its liberal message has failed to catch fire. Nor has that of businessman Josh Rales, who put out major issue papers and $5 million on TV ads, but has yet to get above double digits on opinion polls.
Former Baltimore County Executive Dennis Rasmussen accuses his opponents of “catchy little phrases” and “bumper-sticker politics,” and said he would govern “from the middle.”
Mfume set a Maryland record in his first race for Baltimore City Council, winning by only three votes. “I?d like to win by about four votes” this time, Mfume said. But only if he gets his African-American base to the polls can he gain the edge on Cardin.
