Ballot reshaped in last-minute scramble

New candidates emerge at Monday’s filing deadline

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

Former Bush administration official Ron Miller, who launched his campaign against U.S. Rep. Steny H. Hoyer in January, abruptly withdrew from that race and started a quest to unseat Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr.

As of press time Monday — the last day candidates could file — one new name was added to the docket in Charles County’s races for the state legislature.

Perennial candidate James H. ‘‘Jim” Crawford of Bryantown joined four Democrats and one fellow Republican vying for three House of Delegates’ seats in District 28. Also, Waldorf resident Jay Bala, a Republican, will challenge Sen. Thomas ‘‘Mac” Middleton (D-Charles).

Incumbent Democrats Sally Y. Jameson and Murray D. Levy, along with Middleton, earlier recruited Waldorf businessman Gregory V. Billups to form a slate in the hopes of ousting Republican Del. W. Daniel Mayer. Some local Democrats were angered that the incumbents eschewed Bryans Road resident Peter Murphy, who is also seeking election, despite his longtime party activism.

In two other election districts that include a small chunk of Charles County, the District 29 Senate race, which includes Benedict and Hughesville, pits incumbent Sen. Roy P. Dyson (D-St. Mary’s, Calvert, Charles) against St. Mary’s County commissioners’ President Thomas F. McKay (R). Also, longtime Del. John F. Wood (D-St. Mary’s, Charles) faces competition in a district that encompasses parts of Hughesville. Wood will be opposed in the Democratic primary by Leonardtown resident Clare Calvert Whitbeck and will likely face unopposed Republican Joseph P. DiMarco of Mechanicsville in the November general election.

Locally, Gary Hodge, former executive director of the Tri-County Council for Southern Maryland, filed last week for the open District 4 commissioner seat that is being vacated by Commissioner Robert J. Fuller (D). The Democrat’s entry means each commissioner seat will be contested and all races but District 4 have more than two candidates.

Local Democrats have tried for months to enlist a candidate who could succeed Fuller.

Republican Bruce Wesbury, who is also running for the District 4 seat, said he was surprised that Hodge, who finished last among five candidates in the 2002 Democratic primary for House of Delegates, surfaced as his competition.

‘‘I would say from 2002, he lacked a clear vision,” Wesbury said. ‘‘So what has he done from 2002 to 2006 to make things different?”

Hodge said he was hesitant to dignify Wesbury’s remarks, but noted, ‘‘My 25-year record of service to the people of Charles County and Southern Maryland speaks for itself.”

The Rev. Frederick A. Lancaster of Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in Marbury, a 37-year Bryans Road resident, also filed Monday for District 2 county commissioner for the third time.

The 66-year-old Democrat said his platform remains the same as in previous campaigns: improving education, helping senior citizens and reducing taxes.

‘‘All it’s doing is hurting people on fixed incomes, and something’s got to be done,” he said of the county’s tax rates. ‘‘Taxes are going up, and salaries aren’t going up at the same time.”

Also Monday, Waldorf resident Joe Crawford, who has run for U.S. House of Representatives in 2002 and 2004, filed for District 3 county commissioner.

Crawford, 52, a communications consultant, said he decided to run for the seat once current District 3 Commissioner Allan R. Smith (R) opted to run for commissioners’ president. If elected, Crawford said transportation relief would be a priority.

‘‘There needs to be some kind of upgrade for the Waldorf corridor because the traffic is a nightmare,” he said.

The county’s most crowded, albeit nonpartisan, race is for school board, with 17 citizens seeking to fill seven seats as of press time early Monday evening. Candidates had until 9 p.m. Monday to file with the local elections board.

Because there are more than twice as many candidates as there are open seats, a primary will be held in September to whittle the number of contenders to 14.

Making their campaigns official on Monday were the school board’s newest appointed member Turner Coggins Jr., La Plata lawyer Frank Jenkins and former head of the Charles County school system ethics panel Edward P. Holland. Six of the current board’s seven members are seeking another term, with Cecil Marshall the lone exception.

Other challengers to the current board are: Charles Carrington, Maura Cook, former school board chairman James Gesl, Narain Mathur, Pamela Pedersen, Bill Proper, Kevin Ritter, Ronald ‘‘Rip” Stover and Robert ‘‘Bobbie” Wise.

Coggins was appointed in November to replace former chairwoman Kathy Levanduski, who resigned her position in October. Even as the filing deadline approached, the College of Southern Maryland professor was uncertain whether he would file to retain his seat, but pledged to continue advocating for educators.

‘‘I’m a teacher, so I can understand a lot of what they’re going through,” Coggins said. ‘‘Teaching is one of those professions where you don’t always get the appreciation you deserve. It’s rewarding in the way that money can’t buy the rewards you get for doing it.”

Holland ran for the board in the last election and resigned from his position as chairman of the ethics panel on Monday so he could run again.

He called the current board ‘‘divisive” and said that not all of the members have the best interests of the school system in mind.

‘‘Like some others in the county I have a feeling that [Superintendent] Jim Richmond is going to retire, and I want to make sure that if he does I’m on the board that picks someone like-minded,” Holland said.

Jenkins credits his father, the late Louis Jenkins, a longtime chairman of the Charles County Community College — now CSM — Board of Trustees from 1970 to 1992 with teaching him the value of education.

‘‘My main thing is I think the school board should work with Mr. Richmond to make this the best school system,” he said. ‘‘But looking at how the school board has been interacting with themselves in the past months is embarrassing.”

Miller vs. Miller

Elsewhere in the state, Ron Miller’s unexpected reversal highlighted the action Monday.

‘‘In looking at the realities of all of the races that are going on right now in this election season and with my intentions for running being to make an impact for the people of Maryland, it became pretty apparent to me that this was the race where [I could] have the greatest impact on the people of Maryland,” the Huntingtown Republican said Monday.

Miller, 46, an African-American who is casting himself as a social and fiscal conservative, said he decided to make the switch after speaking with top Republican Party officials last week, including Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), and is convinced that he can win.

‘‘It’s not an understatement that Mike Miller is one of the most divisive political figures in the state, and I think this past General Assembly session really exposed the obstructionism that is part of his portfolio,” Ron Miller said.

Republicans have accused the state’s longest-serving Senate chief of putting politics ahead of policy in orchestrating numerous Ehrlich vetoes and failing to represent his constituents.

‘‘The people of that district have been long ignored while he played politics,” said Maryland Republican Party spokeswoman Audra Miller.

But Mike Miller, whose district stretches from southeastern Prince George’s County to northern Calvert County, possesses a massive war chest and strong record in past elections, having received at least 68 percent of the vote since the 1986 general election. He served in the House of Delegates for one term before moving to the Senate in 1975.

‘‘I think it’s more of an effort to tie me down. They don’t want me using my campaign resources for Democrats around the state,” the Chesapeake Beach resident said Monday.

Although he has never met his challenger, the Senate president said he is not surprised at the eleventh-hour entry. He also noted that the GOP tried to recruit Prince George’s County Executive Wayne K. Curry to run against him

‘‘They have been looking for a candidate high and low, and they came up with one they already had,” Mike Miller said, adding that his rank enabled him to restore deregulation funding for Calvert and win money for other local projects. ‘‘I have a long record of serving the people in Southern Maryland.”

In addition to losing time on the campaign trail, the challenger faces an uphill fundraising battle. Ron Miller estimated he had raised more than $50,000 for his congressional bid, but campaign finance regulations allow only $4,000 to be transferred to a state account. Mike Miller, meanwhile, reported more than $765,000 in his campaign treasury through January.

Still, the first-time candidate is undeterred.

‘‘People want civility, accountability and cooperation in government, and when you have one person that’s able to stifle debate and dictate to the members of the Senate on a personal and political whim, you don’t have any of those things,” Ron Miller said. ‘‘Any time you take on an entrenched incumbent who has built a power base as he has, it’s going to be a challenge. We don’t have any illusions about that, but my sense is the people of Maryland that I’ve talked to are tired of the shenanigans we’ve seen.”

He added that the campaign against Hoyer (D-Md, 5th), a 13-term incumbent who is House minority whip, was an even greater longshot. (As of Monday afternoon, no other Republicans had filed to challenge Hoyer.)

However, as a longtime political heavyweight, Mike Miller has endeared himself to a lot of voters, which was on display last week when the incumbent District 27 Democrats — Dels. Joseph F. Vallario Jr., James E. Proctor Jr. and Sue Kullen — drew large crowds to two campaign kickoff events.

Recent electoral history has shown that even top-ranking state lawmakers are not invincible. Then-House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr. (D-Allegany), a delegate for almost three decades, lost to political novice Leroy E. Myers in 2002 by fewer than 100 votes.

Audra Miller blasted the Senate president for voting against education initiatives, such as the state’s effort to take over 11 poorly performing Baltimore city schools, and supporting tax increases that hurt small businesses.

‘‘Ron Miller is the man who we believe can bring back integrity, accountability and good government,” she said.

After spending nine years in the U.S. Air Force, Ron Miller worked at the White House for three years under the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Homeland Security Transition Planning Office and the U.S. Small Business Administration. He currently works for a federal technology contractor in Northern Virginia.

There was also other late campaign filing activity in Southern Maryland election districts.

Most notably, Dowell resident Norma Powers started her first political campaign against Del. Anthony J. O’Donnell.

Local Democrats asked Powers, 67, a retired civilian employee at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, to run after she rebuffed an initial request several months ago.

‘‘What I’ve seen happening in politics, both at the national level and the state level, really disturbs me,” she said. ‘‘I don’t like the direction the country is going in; I don’t like the direction the state is going in.”

A self-described political centrist, Powers, who is commodore of the Solomons Island Yacht Club, believes O’Donnell (R-Calvert, St. Mary’s) has not been visible enough in the community during his three terms.

‘‘I just feel like I can do so much more for our citizens than my opponent can,” she said, declining to comment further on O’Donnell. ‘‘I think that as a newcomer to the position, because I don’t have any baggage and I don’t have anybody to please, I can listen to my constituents.”

Echoing a familiar refrain among local politicians, Powers said managing growth, improving roads and public transportation, limiting health care costs and making higher education more affordable top her list of priorities.

‘‘With college costs rising, it’s going to be difficult for people to fulfill their dreams,” she said.

O’Donnell faced tough competition in two of his three campaigns, winning in 2002 by fewer than 500 votes and in 1994 by 32 votes. He said on Monday that he welcomes the challenge.

‘‘You never become complacent, and I feel as if I have a good record to run on, and I look forward to discussing the issues and where the state should go,” said O’Donnell, who reported $65,000 in campaign cash through January.

Staff writers Ian Blyth and Jay Friess contributed to this report.

E-mail Alan Brody at abrody@somdnews.com.