Meeting over cocktails at Annapolis’ Westin Hotel earlier this month following the day’s legislative session, the incumbents in District 18 – Sen. Richard Madaleno and Delegates Al Carr, Ana Sol Gutierrez and Jeff Waldstreicher – reached an informal alliance in advance of the June 24 primary.
Besides publicly endorsing one another, the four agreed to share the cost of joint mailings to Democratic voters in the district, which extends from east Bethesda through Chevy Chase to Silver Spring, and includes much of Kensington and Wheaton. A dozen or more pieces of mail boosting the incumbents are envisioned beginning in early May.
“We are unquestionably running shoulder to shoulder as a team,” Waldstreicher declared afterward.
To be sure, Madaleno, Carr, Gutierrez and Waldstreicher also ran as a team four years ago. What made the recent pact noteworthy was that it was reached just weeks after the “District 18 Democratic Team Slate” – the political committee on which the four had mounted a joint effort in 2010 – was quietly shut down, amid concerns from Gutierrez about the cost of the last campaign.
“I’ve always believed one should not be spending a lot of money in campaigns,” Gutierrez said this week. “I truly am a believer that the biggest amount of money does not win an election – it’s doing the homework and reaching out [to voters].”
But the move to quickly replace the now-defunct slate committee with at least an informal alliance – a decision on whether to create a new formal slate committee will be made later – comes as the three incumbent delegates are facing a well-funded challenge from former congressional aide/lobbyist Rick Kessler.
Kessler, a vice chair of the District 18 Democratic Caucus, outraised all of the incumbents last year, collecting $84,000. In early January, he reported having $68,000 in cash on hand — behind Waldstreicher, who reported almost $114,000, but well ahead of both Carr (who in January lent his campaign more than $29,000) and Gutierrez.
Kessler is not the only obstacle confronting the District 18 team of incumbents this year: Madaleno has drawn a challenge from former County Council aide Dana Beyer, who ran competitive bids for delegate in 2006 and 2010. In the current contest for delegate, Kessler is but one of four non-incumbent candidates. The others: Natali Fani-Gonzalez, a former lobbyist for CASA of Maryland, an immigrant rights group; attorney Elizabeth Matory; and former congressional aide Emily Shetty, a member of the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee.
All four challengers were initially attracted by the prospect that the 72-year old Gutierrez might retire. And all four had committed to the race by the time that Gutierrez, the county’s longest-serving Hispanic-American elected official, decided to run again after months of indecision.
But it is Kessler, relying on a donor base drawn from a quarter-century of contacts on Capitol Hill and the D.C. lobbying community, who has attracted the most attention among the field of challengers.
“I don’t want to put too much emphasis on fundraising, because…I’ve seen where people raise a lot of money and lose because they get caught up in the mechanics — and not the actual contact with voters,” said Kessler, who has been campaigning door-to-door for a couple of months.
But he acknowledged that “my goal has always been to raise at least $150,000 to $200,000,” which would put his campaign in the top tier of spending among recent state legislative races in the county. “I won’t be short of money for what I need to get the job done,” Kessler said.
Matory, a distant second to Kessler among the challengers in the latest fundraising reports, has been relying on an eclectic group of endorsements to boost her bid. Matory, who is African-American, this week picked up the endorsement of former Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder, the first African-American elected to head a state since Reconstruction. Closer to home, she has the backing of Kensington Mayor Peter Fosselman, former Montgomery County Democratic Chair Stanton Gildenhorn, and Silver Spring developer Bruce Lee.
The endorsements of two influential advocacy groups – the Montgomery County Education Association and the Maryland Sierra Club – have gone to the three incumbent delegates. But the state League of Conservation Voters (LCV) recently opted to endorse Kessler along with Carr, Gutierrez and Waldstreicher.
“We determined the incumbents are all very strong votes on the environment – we also determined that Rick Kessler was running on the environment, and looks to be a credible candidate,” said Karla Raettig, the state LCV’s executive director, who acknowledged it was “unusual” to endorse four candidates for three available seats.
While some attributed the move to Kessler’s wife, Cindy Schwartz, being a former executive director of the state LCV, Raettig declared: “Frankly, that was seen as a negative. The board was very cognizant of being seen as endorsing a candidate simply because they were related to someone who had had my position.”
Notwithstanding his campaign’s emphasis on clean energy proposals, District 18 sources see Kessler as possibly vulnerable to criticism for a lobbying practice that has included several clients with controversial environmental records – including Chevron Corp. and several major electric utilities.
In turn, Kessler cited the support of former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson – a Montgomery County resident who recently sponsored a fundraiser for Kessler – along with several top officials of national environmental groups.
“They know who I am and what I’ve done,” he said. “And not only do they feel comfortable supporting me, but they feel comfortable coming out publicly for me.”
For Kessler, the good news may be that dealing with such criticism is an indication he is making political inroads.
“I think this is just a sign of people being scared,” he declared.
