Many political observers will tell you that Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley’s announcement Wednesday night marked the beginning of the 2006 Maryland gubernatorial race. We agree.
In the wake of O’Malley’s decision to declare himself a candidate for governor, and as we await the imminent candidacy of Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan as well as the presumed re-election bid of Gov. Robert Ehrlich, it is important to remind each candidate: As you campaign, don’t ignore the state’s flagship university over the next 400 days.
We hope the heated race of 2002 between Democrat and former Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and then-U.S. Rep. Ehrlich taught gubernatorial candidates a lesson on how not to court the university community’s backing.
During the 2002 campaign, Ehrlich made only a handful of appearances on the campus, to Townsend’s one. A budget crisis that later materialized into drastic funding cuts for this university loomed large over that contest. And aside from the usual excuse of youth disinterest in politics, few student voters felt the importance of that contest because neither candidate addressed the university community in a way that galvanized interest in the elections. Ehrlich, O’Malley and Duncan – even more than a year before any decisive votes are cast – should heed the lessons of 2002 and aggressively court voters among the university’s students, staff and faculty.
We can see some of the logic in limited visits to College Park – the nearby districts have been Democratic strongholds for decades and only a fraction of the studentry votes. But to reject an opportunity to appeal to one of the state’s largest economic engines, one of the largest resources for volunteers and grassroots interest and a community with a wide sphere of influence speaks to a narrow vision.
At the very least, visits by Ehrlich, O’Malley and Duncan could prove to be the catalysts for dialogue that this university only occasionally sees pass through the campus. Any candidate weighing the incentives of a visit to the campus should look no further than the outpouring of interest for and against political figures seen since 2002, with the gubernatorial elections and more recently through visits from former Sen. John Edwards, Howard Dean and Cindy Sheehan.
But, perhaps most importantly, students should demand a seat at the table for the upcoming contests. It is crucial that groups outside of campus political organizations demand candidates to come here and address how their campaigns would affect issues like tuition, higher education funding and decades-old community concerns like safety in College Park. At the very least, we hope these candidates will heed the lessons of 2002.
