Like pilgrims coming to a shrine, politicians and their supporters from across Maryland trekked to tiny Crisfield on the lower Eastern Shore on Wednesday for crabs and hand-shaking ? and to feed and be fed by the rumor mill.
Baltimore County Council Member Ken Oliver has been making the jaunt to the annual J. Millard Tawes Crab and Clam Bake ? which sold 6,000 tickets this year ? for several years.
It?s about finding out “who?s running and who?s not” and “having a good time,” Oliver said.
“It?s a good way just to connect with people,” even those who can?t vote for you, said Anne Arundel Sheriff George Johnson, running for county executive this year. It?s also a way “just to let your hair down.”
“It?s an election year and it?s fun,” said Del. Steve DeBoy of Baltimore County, picking a few crabs with his wife, Jenny. The event is also a way to “see some colleagues and see how they?re doing.”
Gov. Robert Ehrlich missed the event this year, attending a pro-Israel rally in Washington and greeting returned American citizens from embattled Lebanon at the airport. But his running mate, Kristen Cox, was on hand for her first Tawes crab feast, working the tents and chatting with new friends such as Marvin Mandel, the former Democratic governor.
On the way into Crisfield, the road was lined with Ehrlich signs, but don?t be fooled by that, said Del. Norman Conway, the Appropriations chairman from nearby Salisbury.
“I think O?Malley will do very well on the Shore,” Conway said. “I think it will be a very different campaign than it was four years ago.”
All three Democrats running for attorney general worked the crowds.
Lobbyist Bruce Bereano dragged candidate Stu Simms into his tent to tell his guests, “he?s got to be elected” attorney general.
The three attorney general candidates professed to be encouraged by a new Baltimore newspaper poll showing them running neck-and-neck, with two-thirds of the voters undecided. “I knew from the start that nothing was going to be handed to us,” Simms said.
