The Democrats? statewide ticket tried to rally their core supporters, especially black voters, and nationalize the issues of the campaign at historically black Morgan State University Thursday evening, with former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards ? their 2004 vice presidential nominee ? as the star attraction.
Edwards spoke little about the ticket, but a lot about the issues that Rep. Ben Cardin is using as a wedge against Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele in a race that has turned surprisingly close in this heavily Democratic state.
Those include the war in Iraq, which Cardin opposes and Steele continues to support, and universal health care, which the 10-term congressman advocates, but Steele does not favor. But Cardin got a particularly strong embrace from other members of the congressional black caucus, since some black voters are showing continued resentment over Cardin?s defeat of ex-Rep. Kweisi Mfume in September?s primary.
Stephanie Tubbs Jones, the first black woman on the powerful Ways and Means Committee on which Cardin also serves, came in from Cleveland to praise Cardin.
“I bring you good news,” Jones said. “In Ohio, Democrats are winning” and the possible defeat of a Republican incumbent might help give Democrats a chance to retake the Senate.
“The time is right, the time is ripe, the time is now,” Jones said. Voters need to tell President Bush and the Republican Congress that “enough is enough. Ben Cardin is my friend,” Jones said. “I know he is concerned with our families. It?s time for a change.”
Jones urged voters not to be fooled by Steele?s attempt to blur his party affiliation.
Cardin was also embraced by Rep. Al Wynn, a Prince George?s County Democrat who had endorsed Mfume in the primary. “We?re all in this together,” Wynn said. “George Bush and Michael Steele have a different vision of America,” Cardin told the cheering crowd of about 200, most of them supporters of Mayor Martin O?Malley who was on the stage with him. “Our nation is growing apart under George Bush.”
Part of the Baltimore Examiner’s 2006 Election Coverage
