The annual dinner of the League of Conservation Voters last Monday night was ostensibly a nonpartisan event to honor Republican Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, among others. But it almost had the flavor of a fundraiser for the Democrat Gilchrest has endorsed as his successor in the 1st Congressional District, Queen’s Anne County State’s Attorney Frank Kratovil.

“I’ve been warned that I can only mention Frank Kratovil’s name five times,” said the keynote speaker, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, an old friend of the Kratovil family who helped bring in national funding for the Kratovil campaign.