There's an election coming in six weeks, but unless you’re a Republican living in the First Congressional District, do you really care?
Then again, if you are a Republican living in the First Congressional District, do you even care?
Judging from the lack of visible evidence locally in the form of signs and high profile fund-raisers, as well as the dearth of media advertising, I'd say the race in which Rep. Wayne Gilchrest is being pursued by not one, but two, state senators, Andrew Harris and E. J. Pipkin, is a tossup.
Seriously, somebody is riding around in — or strategically parking — a pickup truck with a big yellow Harris sign in the back, and there's a Harris sign near the Silver Spring Mining Company on Route 1 as you come into Bel Air and another by the produce stand on Mountain Road, but that's the only evidence of the campaign I see on my daily travels from my home in Fallston to the office and back. No signs for Gilchrest, none for Pipkin. And, where oh where are those great blog sites that rode through the 2006 campaign and then quickly faded? (If I'm missing something there, please respond to the e-mail address above!)
The incumbent congressman's campaign is good about e-mailing everything he's doing or the endorsements he's picking up, the latest from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, to go along with Harford County Executive David R. Craig and former county executive Jim Harkins. Harris, who is backed by former Gov. Bob Ehrlich, a popular figure in Harford, seems to be focusing more on the Eastern Shore, where Gilchrest is no doubt strongest, under the belief he can count on voters in his home turf of Eastern Baltimore and Western Harford counties, whom he represents in Annapolis, to come through for him. As for Pipkin, after a small flurry when he announced his candidacy in late November, including a stopover in Bel Air, the senator from Cecil County has been mostly invisible.
This is a good year for state legislators such as Harris and Pipkin to run, because they don't put their senate seats at risk. And, for Harris, considered along with fellow Harford Sen. Nancy Jacobs, to be among the most conservative members of the Maryland General Assembly, and for Pipken, who's not far to the right behind those two, Gilchrest makes an inviting target. A moderate in a historically conservative district, Gilchrest has never faced serious opposition since he unseated Democrat Roy Dyson in 1990. At the time, Gilchrest was an unknown with long odds who benefited from unflattering press reports about Dyson's relationship with a longtime aide who eventually committed suicide. A Vietnam combat vet, who was teaching school and painting houses at the time of his election, Gilchrest has had a fair to middlin record in the capitol, where he's focused mainly on environmental issues, much to the chagrin of some conservatives, but a hit with many more voters in the Land of Pleasant Living.
Harris seems to be popular in places like Fallston and Fork that are in his senate district and last fall campaign finance reports showed he had outraised the incumbent. Pipkin is an engaging personality, with plenty of personal money to burn from his investment banking days on Wall Street. His last gambit like this, a run against popular Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski in 2004, went nowhere.
Harford County, or parts thereof, has been in and out of the First District since Gilchrest was first elected. Following the Glendening's Revenge redistricting of 2002 that filleted Harford into thirds, leaving the southern tier along Route 40 in the Second District, the middle including Bel Air and Fallston in the First, and the northern tier in the Sixth, it's questionable what, if any, clout this county can have regarding the outcome of any congressional race. Certainly, there's no mysteries regarding the outcomes in the other two congressional districts — where incumbent Democrat "Dutch" Ruppersberger in the Second and incumbent Republican Roscoe Bartlett in Sixth, have what at best would be described as token opposition from both parties. But in this year's Republican primary in the First District, we may have an opportunity to find out on primary day, Feb. 12, if Harford's votes really count.
Or, maybe not, judging from all the interest the campaign has stirred up thus far.
|
