In a secretly taped meeting with potential campaign volunteers Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler accused his opponent in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, of running solely on his race. Gansler characterized Brown’s campaign strategy as “Vote for me, I want to be the first African-American governor of Maryland.”
(By the way, if that were Brown’s whole strategy, it’s pretty ill-advised. I mean, by definition, it’s never worked before, right? It seems more likely that Brown will run on his 15 years in state politics, including seven years as lieutenant governor — whether he accomplished much in that time or not — and his military service.)
As you would expect, Brown’s campaign demanded an apology. But as you may or may not have expected, Gansler refused to give one. He did say this, however: “This should not be about race. This should be about our record, where we want to take the state of Maryland to build the best Maryland, whose got the best character, whose got the best leadership qualities.”
Yeah… character. That’s the ticket.
In related news, Gansler has not picked his lieutenant governor, but he promised that “[i]t will be an African-American, and it will be somebody from either Baltimore or Prince George’s.”
