Got Something To Say About District 17? Make Sure We Hear From You By Thursday!
Sep 7, 2010 22:42 - 5 Comments
Photo Credit: Flickr user 'Search Engine People Blog'
Dear Rockville Central readers,
As many of you are aware, the race for the Democratic nomination for State Senate in District 17 has shaped up to be one of the harder-fought battles in recent memory. Many readers have submitted contributor opinions in favor of their candidate, be it Sen. Jennie Forehand or former Del. Cheryl Kagan.
We are delighted at this outpouring.
However, to make sure that Rockville Central can remain a place for exchange over issues and not a mechanism for campaigning, we are going to stop publishing opinion pieces related to the campaign after Friday. After Election Day, we will gladly accept submissions again.
So: If you have a contributor opinion on the District 17 campaign that you would like to submit, please do so (just send it to [email protected]) by Thursday, September 9, at 5:00 pm eastern. We will not publish opinion pieces on the District 17 election that we receive after that.
Richarfd Arkin’s write-up is the best thing I’ve seen yet in the District 17 Senate race. It is well written and covers a lot of ground in the two campaigns. It’s interesting how he describes Ms. Kagan’s bid as an “insurgent’s campaign.” I’d say she is hard-charging. This is in contrast to Jennie’s more gentle, yet effective approach to governing and campaigning. Jennie is a known quantity, Cheryl isn’t. Then there is the ‘boot out out the incumbents’ movement. I hope voters are more informed and vote based on their appraisal of each candidate’s qualifications rather than follow some media hype with misleading slogans.
How can you not support a known commodity such as Jennie. She is not only effective but is also liked by most people in Annapolis. Don’t trade experience in Annapolis for a bunch of campaign BS rhetoric.
I think you might be forgetting the fact that Cheryl was a state delegate for 8 years. She’s a known quantity as well.
Both candidates are indeed known quantities. But take a look at the written record. When you examine the information on file at the Maryland Legislative Information Service website, you will find that Jennie Forehand’s record of success as a legislator is better than the legislative record of Cheryl Kagan by a significant margin. That’s true for both the total of bills sponsored and enacted and for the year-by-year comparisons of bills sponsored and enacted for the time when both legislators were in office.
As I travel the world, the two American values that are most difficult to explain to foreigners are our commitment to the death penalty and our commitment to an open access to guns. The latter is more of a Federal, Constitutional issue (when DC tried to limit gun access, the Supreme Court slapped the effort down), but the former is very much a State issue and it is very hot here in Maryland.
I would love to at least have a choice in this election of a candidate who opposes the death penalty. I am disappointed that neither Ms. Forehand nor Ms. Kagan really does. Each of their positions can be paraphrased as “I oppose the death penalty, except in certain cases,” which is not really the anti-death penalty position.
I invite both of them to examine their positions. There is still time to take a firm anti-death penalty stand before Tuesday. And it would certainly distinguish one from the other in a most serious way.