It was an unlikely “October surprise.” A coalition of black Democrats from Prince George?s County led by former county executive Wayne Curry broke party ranks earlier this week and endorsed Lt. Gov. Michael Steele for the U.S. Senate. So do we.
Steele, the first black man elected to any statewide office in Maryland and the only black lieutenant governor in the nation, has spent the last four years disproving a scurrilous 2002 Baltimore Sun editorial that claimed he “brings little to the ticket but the color of his skin.”
Steele has repeatedly challenged his critics to show him ? and black voters ? how his ascendancy to the second highest statewide office in Maryland has come at their expense.
They haven?t been able to because Steele has been hard at work empowering minority-owned businesses and trying to improve the chronically dysfunctional public schools that still keep minority youngsters from achieving their full potential.
Steele understands that entrepreneurship and education are the keys to sustainable wealth and full citizenship for African-Americans, not government handouts.
The former chairman of the Prince George?s Republican Party who still lives in Largo, Steele also successfully led the opposition to a 1996 Curry-led attempt to raise property taxes in the county. It lost in a landslide, saving black homeowners literally millions of dollars.
It?s to Curry?s great credit that he has now so graciously endorsed his former rival, as have five Democratic members of the Prince George?s County Council, rap music mogul Russell Simmons and boxing promoter Don King.
When Howard Dean refused to criticize Democrats last year for making crude racial comments about Steele just because he hadan “R” after his name, former NAACP president Kweisi Mfume, and Democratic Congressmen Al Wynn and Elijah Cummings courageously stepped up to defend him. That wouldn?t have happened if Steele, a former seminarian with degrees from Johns Hopkins and Georgetown Law, hadn?t already earned his community?s deep respect.
Other Maryland Democrats, including Steele?s opponent for the Senate, Rep. Benjamin Cardin, headed for the nearest exit.
Attempts to portray Steele as nothing more than a Republican lackey beg credulity.
“We?ve got problems in both parties,” Steele has said.
He blasted the Bush administration?s “monumental failure” during Hurricane Katrina. That doesn?t sound like a candidate afraid to speak truth to power.
Nor has he been reluctant to build “bridges of Steele” to Marylanders of all political persuasions who have been ill-served by the Democrats? decades-long monopoly. As Major Riddick, former top aide to Democrat Gov. Parris Glendening put it: “They show us a pie, but we never get a slice.”
Cardin, a former speaker of the Maryland House, has done a yeoman?s job in his 10 terms in Congress and has served his constituents well. But Steele, a grandson of sharecroppers and now a role model for generations, has demonstrated an extraordinary level of political courage and integrity.
Those are traits that will serve him ? and all Marylanders ? well in the U.S. Senate.
Part of the Baltimore Examiner’s 2006 Election Coverage
