Contributor Opinion by Richard Arkin: Kagan Goes Negative

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This Contributor Opinion is by Richard Arkin.

I believe that many District 17 voters are having a difficult time choosing between incumbent State Sen. Jennie Forehand and her challenger, former Del. Cheryl Kagan. Both are center-left liberals with almost identical positions on the issues.

THE CANDIDATES

Sen. Forehand is a gentle, intelligent, competent, and well-respected 30-year veteran of the legislature who knows state and local issues well, has friendly relations with legislators on both sides of the aisle, has a reputation for getting things done, and has consistently delivered the goods for her district. Jennie’s supportiveness to her constituents, her friendly, civil, and cooperative bearing, and her genuine interest in ordinary people and their problems, have generated feelings of affection and loyalty among many district voters.

Kagan is a hard-charging,aggressive, attractive, and poised candidate who revels in public policy concerns and loves nitty-gritty politics. Cheryl, who has a background in advocacy, community organizing, and non-profit organization administration, served two terms in the House of Delegates more than a decade ago, and then surprised legislators and other observers by opting not to run for a third term. Cheryl is very bright, a fast-learner, and quick on her feet, and her incredible energy and attention to detail has won her many supporters.

THE CAMPAIGNS

Cheryl began her insurgent’s campaign over a year ago by raising a large amount of campaign cash from contributors in Maryland and around the country. Jennie has worked more quietly and has raised almost as much money as Cheryl, primarily from Maryland contributors. Cheryl has run an impressive, well-planned, professional, text book campaign. In contrast, Jennie’s campaign has been more low-key and traditional, eschewing the latest flashy campaign techiques.

Voters in this district who were hoping for an issues-oriented campaign have been disappointed, however. Jennie’s campaign literature has focused on her admirable record, the projects she’s brought to District 17, and her legislative victories in both the Senate and House of Delegates. Her literature also gives the reader an insight into her generally liberal approach to state and local issues, but does not paint a sharp picture of what she would like to accomplish in her next term, if she is re-elected.

Cheryl, in contrast, focuses on her education and background, while claiming credit for just about everything good that’s happened in the district and state, but really does not focus much on her voting record or what she accomplished in her terms in the House of Delegates. She talks about national and statewide issues, but says very little about the local issues that concern District 17 voters. She also does not paint a sharp picture of what she would like to accomplish in the Senate, should she be elected.

CHERYL GOES FOR THE JUGULAR

Until recently, the campaign, like most District 17 campaigns, has been relatively civil, marked by a flurry of positive advertisements from both Jennie and Cheryl. But this changed less than two weeks ago when Cheryl launched a series of negative attack ads against Jennie. Compare-and-contrast ads can be very useful to voters in comparing candidates records and views, but Cheryl decided instead, in the best “Swiftboat” tradition, to go for the jugular.

Cheryl started off her attack campaign with a clever-but-misleading mailer that totally mischaracterized one of Jennie’s less important concerns as being her “top issue,” asserting that Jennie was “missing in action” on unspecified Democratic issues, and falsely claiming that Jennie deserted Gov. Martin O’Malley in one of O’Malley’s “top priorities” by failing to vote when a death penalty bill “came up for a vote.” The mailer had impressive-looking footnotes, but these footnotes, when examined, did not support Cheryl’s allegations (a pattern she has since repeated).

The reality is that Jennie had supported and voted several times during the legislative process for O’Malley’s bill, which eventually passed with Jennie’s vote and which sharply limited imposition of the death penalty. Now Cheryl’s website claims that she really meant that Jennie missed “the key vote [that] was on an amendment sponsored by Sen. [James] Brochin.”

The key amendment votes actually were on an amendment offered by Sen. Robert Zirkin and a later amendment (the one that finally ended up as the final legislative language) by Sen. Brochin, which Jennie voted for.

Cheryl followed up with a broadside (repleat with footnotes that didn’t support any allegations) in which she claimed that Jennie cast “the deciding vote” on a “devastating tax on computer services” that “drove local firms…out of business.” At Gov. O’Malley’s request, Jennie voted for the Governor’s comprehensive tax bill at the November 2011 Special Session. The bill, which included a sales tax on computer services, was enacted and its passage prevented a total shutdown of Maryland government, which would have really been devastating for our economy. By voting “aye,” Jennie preserved, under somewhat arcane parliamentary rules, her right vote later to repeal the the computer services levy. Jennie was, infact, the leader of the successful effort two months later that repealed the computer services tax. The tax on computer services computer tax never went into effect, so it could not rationally have had any effect on any local firm.

Next, Cheryl accused Jennie of taking $16,000 in campaign contributions by “special interests” for opposing “common sense lead paint restrictions.” Bills about lead paint and other potentially toxic substances are often grist for the propagandist’s mill because they sound so good, but this bill did no more than alter “some existing requirements on property owners to satisfy certain lead risk reduction standards relating to certain changes in occupancy in certain properties.”

It is not clear that the minor changes this bill made were an improvement or actually weakened consumer protections. In any event, Cheryl’s footnote supposedly supporting her claims of special interest money did nothing more than cite the Election Board summary of Jennie’s last three dozen campaign disclosure reports from 1994 to date, each running as much as 150 pages or more. Cheryl just tossed a boatload of documents at the voters without any explanation of who the supposed “special interdsts” might have been or how much, if any, they contributed.

JENNIE RESPONDS

Cheryl Kagan’s rat-a-tat-tat volley of attack ads on Jennie Forehand loosed the dogs of [political] war.

In response to Cheryl’s flood of attack ads, Jennie sent out a negative mailer this week questioning Chery’s acceptance of some $2,000 in lobbyist gifts at a time when a number of lobbyist and influence peddling scandals had sullied Maryland’s reputation. Jennie pointed out that Cheryl had taken “more gifts from lobbyists than any other delegate in Maryland” and that Cheryl “was one of only four legislayors in the entire House of Delegates to vote against” a strong ethics reform bill. She added that the reform was supported by the Washington Post because it included necessary “strong new rules” to clean up ethics and prevent lobbyist corruption in the Maryland General Assembly. Jennie wrapped up by saying that the Associated Press had reported that Cheryl “was ‘at the top of the list of legislators named by lobbyists as recipients of food, drinks, and gifts.’”

Cheryl’s website reply did not dispute the facts in Forehand’s mailer, but instead gave the excuse that she had been “dating a lobbyist” and had fully disclosed the many gifts of financial value that her lobbyist boyfriend had given her. Cheryl explained that she had “dated a guy who happened to be a lobbyist” and that his gifts to her had “made her the #1 gift recipient in the House for one year, ” adding that of three “legislator/lobbyist couples,” she and “her then-boyfriend” were the only ones to disclose everything.

As Cheryl certainly knows, it is not a violation of law in Maryland for a legislator to date a lobbyist, as long as all gifts from the lobbyist to the legislator that are of financial value are disclosed. But disclosure is not a cure-all, by any means. The problem is that the mere existence of a legislator-lobbyist boyfriend or legislator-lobbyist girlfriend relationship creates an appearance of conflict-of-interest that is essentially impossible for the legislator to escape. This is especially true in state politics.

So, for example, when it was learned this year that Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan (D) had been dating lobbyist Shanna Wycoff, the appearance of impropriety led to a huge scandal. Similarly, last year’s revelation of a romantic relationship between California Assembly Rep. Michael D. Duvall (R) and lobbyist girlfriend Heidi DeJong Barsuglia led to a scandal.

And the story goes on. Take, for example, the romantic relationship between Tennessee Rep. Philip Pinion (D) and his girlfriend, lobbyist Velma Jones, which became a scandal when its existence became public in 2007. And it’s difficult to ignore the huge scandal that erupted in 2005 when a romantic relationship between Georgia Rep. David Graves (R) and girlfriend/lobbyist Julie Windom became public.

IN SUM…

The match-up between Sen. Jennie Forehand and challenger Cheryl Kagan, two well-matched candidates, should have been good for politics in District 17 and Maryland. If it could not have been an issue-oriented campaign or, conversely, a contest between generations, it could at least have been a test-case pitting the familiar against the new, or perhaps the tried-and-true against the shiney-and-clever. But that’s not what’s happening.

Cheryl’s sudden lurch to the negative, truly a departure for this district, obviously threw Jennie off-guard. Jennie clearly did not anticipate a negative campaign by Cheryl and Jennie’s responses, while effective, come late in the campaign. And while either could prevail, negative campaigning, if nothing else, really tends to obscure real issues rather than defining them.

Jennie could still pull this out, but Cheryl’s attack tactics may well win the day for her. But such a win for Cheryl would come at a terrible cost to the community.

Richard Arkin, Gaithersburg

This is a Contributor Opinion. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit such pieces for consideration — the more voices the better. Simply send them to [email protected]. We ask that all such contributions be civil and we reserve the right to edit (in consultation with the author) or reject. Contributor opinions should not be seen as reflecting opinions held by Rockville Central editors, as they are just as frequently at odds with our own views. That’s the whole point!

Please also note that Rockville Central does not endorse candidates in election campaigns. Supporters of all candidates are encouraged to submit opinion pieces for consideration.

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