MD-SEN 2024: Cardin retiring, Hogan IN

[Kleine Scheiße]

I want to caution everyone here against assuming that because Alsobrooks is black and the majority of Maryland's Dem primary voters are black, that she will win the primary over her white male opponent, Trone.

The last open seat Senate election here back in 2016 also featured a well-known black woman running against a white male Congressman. The latter ended up winning and then winning re-election last year.

Van Hollen won in large part because his Congressional office had a reputation for being more responsive to constituent assistance requests than Edwards'. That, and the fact that Edwards was (and is, to my knowledge) aligned with the Sanders wing of the party, which is not especially powerful in Maryland.

Alsobrooks does not have either of these problems against Trone, and certain negative things about Trone's reputation, both real and imagined, have preceded him in Maryland politics since even before he was elected.

[Kleine Scheiße]

Larry Hogan is a cynic, a grifter, a nihilist of the worst kind, the most corrupt Governor we have had in at least forty years, incompetent, a gladhander, an outspoken enemy of Baltimore, and an arrogant do-nothing. The only thing he has achieved in his entire life is convincing me that perhaps a general election vote for Trone could be worthwhile after all.

Anyone writing him off this early is either delusional or has zero exposure to Maryland politics. This is not Bredesen vs. Blackburn. He is exorbitantly popular, moreso among Democrats and independents than Republicans, and the Maryland Democratic party -- arguably one of the most pathetic in the nation -- has run screaming in terror from him every chance they have had to put an end to this nonsense. I have complete faith in my party to utterly drop the ball on this one.