What a difference four fortnights make for Franchot

Friday, Nov. 10, 2006

Peter Franchot on primary election night: Even his own mother didn’t believe he could win a three-way race for Maryland comptroller (‘‘Oh, Petey, I’m so sorry,” his 84-year-old mother said when he told her he was running). Only four reporters attended his after-party and, watching TV with his wife that night, Franchot’s name was not even on the screen. ‘‘Is it possible that no one has voted for me?” he asked her.

Peter Franchot on general election night: Great food, 150 new friends, lots of media roaming the room in the Silver Spring Crowne Plaza Hotel and a secure victory. Even his volunteers doffed T-shirts and donned dresses and ties. They’re part of the establishment now.

— Letitia Linn,Capital News Service

The last word

Franchot couldn’t hide a broad smile when he stepped onto the stage Tuesday night to ‘‘Beautiful Day” by Irish rock band U2. He spent the past four years giving Gov. Bob Ehrlich a hard time, and Ehrlich returned the favor by supporting his opponents in the primary.

On Tuesday, Franchot’s victory gave the Takoma Park delegate the last word.

‘‘I want Bob Ehrlich to hear this all the way to Annapolis. Is Peter Franchot going to be a great comptroller?” the comptroller-elect asked the crowd gathered at his victory party in downtown Silver Spring.

‘‘Yes!” they obliged.

— Letitia Linn, CNS

Numbers, please

CNN’s exit polls show Democratic U.S. Rep. Ben Cardin not only defeated Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele in the race for U.S. Senate, he crushed him in demographic after demographic.

Steele managed to pull a majority of the vote from whites. And the people who approve of the war in Iraq — all 36 percent of us — went heavily for the lieutenant governor.

But in nearly every other category, Cardin bested Steele. More women preferred Cardin. More African Americans preferred Cardin. Every age group preferred Cardin.

People who earn $76,000 to $100,000 a year went for Steele. Make more, make less, you probably preferred Cardin.

Anyone with any level of education preferred Cardin, with the exception of those with just a high school diploma, who favored Steele 52 percent of the time.

Folks who belonged to a union — and even folks whodidn’t — favored Cardin.

Steele did gain the support of 94 percent of Republicans, but in a state that is 2-to-1 Democratic, that wasn’t much help. If you called yourself liberal or moderate, you favored Cardin. Conservatives went for Steele 63 percent of the time.

Steele got majorities of the people who called themselves Protestant and Catholic, but Cardin handily won the support of people saying they were Jewish or worshipped some other religion or no religion at all.

Married people split 50-50 on the candidates, but Cardin won 64 percent of singles.

People who thought the Maryland economy was excellent voted for Steele 80 percent of the time. People who thought it was just good or not so good picked Cardin more than half the time.

People who somewhat or strongly approve of President Bush went for Steele overwhelmingly. Folks who somewhat or strongly disapprove of the president — and that was 60 percent of those polled — went for Cardin.

— Douglas Tallman

And in the governor’s race ...

The polls in the governor’s contest were more divided.

Men went for Ehrlich. Women went for Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley.

Whites went for Ehrlich. Non-whites went for O’Malley.

The parties helped define the outcome. Ehrlich won 93 percent of Republicans and 15 percent of Democrats. O’Malley captured 85 percent of the Democratic vote but just 7 percent of the Republicans. Independents gave a 54-to-44 edge to Ehrlich.

Union families favored O’Malley. Non-union families gave Ehrlich 50 percent and O’Malley 49.

President Bush provided a bright line separating Ehrlich’s supporters from O’Malley’s. The folks who approve of the president’s job — and 39 percent of voters did — went for Ehrlich 86 percent of the time. The folks who disapprove went for O’Malley 79 percent of the time.

The war in Iraq provided a similar breakdown. Ehrlich was in the 80s among people who want to maintain troop levels or send more troops to Iraq. The people who want to withdraw some or all the troops overwhelmingly went for O’Malley.

— Douglas Tallman

At the Cardin party

‘‘Ben!” shrieked Myrna Cardin in the direction of her husband, who was pressing flesh on the other side of the banquet room in Baltimore. ‘‘Ben is a sen-a-tor!” And so he is.

At Tuesday night’s campaign party at the American Visionary Art Museum, Cardin’s wife of almost 42 years bounced among clusters of family, friends and supporters in a maroon crushed-velvet blazer and a black skirt, clutching a wad of tissues.

‘‘A senator!” she gasped, again.

Behind her, an 11-piece jazz band played, appropriately, Les McCann and Eddie Harris’ ‘‘Compared to What,” a 1960s antiwar riff — ‘‘The President, he’s got his war⁄ Folks don’t know just what it’s for⁄ Nobody gives us rhyme or reason” —that could have doubled as the soundtrack to the Dems’ 2006 campaign.

Meanwhile, high-profile Dems from around the state cycled in and out of the shuffle. Prince George’s County Exec Jack Johnson swept in briefly after midnight, wearing a Washington Redskins jacket, his bodyguard in tow. His majority African-American county bucked all prognostications about race, buoying Cardin with 76 percent of the vote.

Cardin’s campaign trotted out Sens. Barbara Mikulski and Paul Sarbanes, congressmen Dutch Ruppersberger and Elijah Cummings, and Attorney General-elect Doug Gansler, who peeled away from his own party in MoCo to share the stage briefly with Cardin. The group split as soon as Cardin finished his speech. Fifteen minutes later, they were propping up O’Malley at his party down the road.

Cardin’s handlers kept him penned up until around 11 p.m. With less than 50 percent of the precincts reporting, and with just 2 percentage points on Steele, Cardin declared victory: ‘‘On the words of [Jackie Gleason], ‘How sweet it is!’”

— Joe Palazzolo, CNS

A family affair

Every election is a Rosenberg reunion. The 56-year-old Del. Sandy Rosenberg greets voters at one Northwest Baltimore precinct, his brothers at two other polling stations, and their father at yet another.

This is how it was this week as well. To make this family ritual possible, Benedict Rosenberg, an 86-year-old insurance executive, postponed his departure for his winter digs in Palm Beach. Brother Bruce, 52, also adjusted his travel plans: He will return to a teaching job in Romania once the election results are ratified.

‘‘It’s a very archaic ritual,” Bruce said of the family’s effort, which brings them and another brother, Stewart, 58, together on both primary and general election days. (The Rosenberg brothers’ mother, Babette, 82, was absent this year because of an illness.)

Bruce’s teaching job is in Transylvania, the home to Count Dracula, who impaled his enemies, or so it is said.

Can anything politically useful be learned from Count Dracula? Bruce was asked?

‘‘No comment,” he said.

See, politics runs in the family.

— Antero Pietila

The shuffling begins

We hear Senate prez Mike Miller has already started shuffling leadership posts.

It’s no surprise that Joan Carter Conway of Baltimore is likely to take over Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee. Stepping into her vice chairman role will be Roy Dyson.

We also hear Lisa Gladden, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, is the likely successor to Leo Green as vice chairwoman of Judicial Proceedings.

There will be more movement, as Miller has to tap a president pro tem to replace ousted Ida Ruben.

— Alan Brody

Children are our future

If there wasn’t already enough crisis surrounding Maryland’s elections, here’s one more problem to add to the list.

Aging election judges will need to be replaced with younger, more computer-savvy poll workers. The solution, said a pair of St. Mary’s College political science professors, is on campus.

College faculty and students can fill the impending void, said Michael Cain and Zach Messitte, who were among more than two dozen profs around the state to participate in the ‘‘Professors at the Polls” initiative.

Election judges are 72 years old, on average, while university pedagogues are generally younger and have the technical know-how necessary to operate the state’s electronic voting system.

— Alan Brody

Webb connection

Folks around the nation know about the white-knuckle election that former Navy secretary (and Naval Academy grad) James Webb has endured in his bid to unseat Virginia’s U.S. Sen. George Allen.

Not as many know that Webb’s eldest child, Amy Webb Hogan, had two parents in tight races Tuesday.

Hogan’s mother, Anne Arundel County Councilwoman Barbara Samorajczyk, a lawyer, outpaced Annapolis jeweler Ron George by more than 500 votes in the race for one of three seats representing District 30 in the House of Delegates.

Samorajczyk — who has remarried and has made a name for herself as an environmental advocate willing to buck the majority — did not join Webb on the stump as did his second ex-wife, Jo Ann K. Webb, a lobbyist who lives in Falls Church, Va.

— Margie Hyslop

Partying like its 1999!

Indian Spring Country Club in Silver Spring was a happening place for the MoCo Dems on election night.

In addition to County Executive-elect Ike Leggett, the place was rotten with candidates, county employees, and party leaders. Making appearances were council members Marilyn Praisner, George Leventhal and Phil Andrews. Council newbies Roger Berliner, Duchy Trachtenberg, Marc Elrich and Valerie Ervin were also present and accounted for, as were school board members Judy Docca and Nancy Navarro.

State senator-elect Jaime Raskin and re-elected state senator Jennie Forehand were also there, and delegate-elect Craig

Rice made a late appearance.

And just as quickly as it began, the party ended. Leggett brought the crowd to its feet with a rousing victory speech around 10 p.m., and the close races for Maryland governor and Virginia senator kept the crowd entertained after that. After O’Malley declared victory, the crowd had had enough and the party quickly broke up.

To hammer home the party’s-over point, the country club staff turned out the lights in the great room around 12:30 a.m. When stragglers tried to congregate under the awning outside the building, the staff turned out those lights, too.

In other words, you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

— Janel Davis

Executive-in-chief

In his first move as exec-elect, Leggett convened his transition team the day after the night before to announce, well, not a whole lot.

On his immediate agenda is a series of town hall meetings where MoCo residents can tell him what they want for the next four years, as well as a meeting with his transition team on Tuesday. Heading up that team will be his campaign treasurer Larry Rosenblum and Jennifer Hughes, a former council staffer for Republican Howie Denis.

Leggett has also asked county administrators and department heads to submit an interest letter by Monday if they want to stay on.

He remained close-mouthed on future Cabinet appointments, but did announce that Patrick Lacefield, the County Council spokesman, will head up the county’s public information office.

Lacefield succeeds David Weaver, who’s moving to Franchot’s staff as a senior adviser.

— Janel Davis and Margie Hyslop

Hungry people

‘‘The American people are hungry for change,” Chris Van Hollen told the crowd at Indian Spring on Tuesday.

They were also apparently hungry for salty snacks.

The staff couldn’t keep chips and pretzels coming fast enough for the Dems on Tuesday night.

Almost as soon as the snack containers were refilled, they were emptied, leaving only mounds of spilled salt from the pretzels.

—C. Benjamin Ford

The party’s over

Several MoCo Republicans gathered at Felicita’s restaurant in Rockville Tuesday night, hoping that one of them might pull off an upset.

A mix of candidates and their supporters — about 50 people — attended the party. They clustered around the bar and a big screen TV, which aired Fox News, natch.

The excitement was evident early on. People roared when Ehrlich and Steele took early leads in their races, but the fervor gradually died down as the night wore on.

Tom Reinheimer, a candidate for a County Council seat and the county’s GOP chairman, spent a lot of time pacing and talking on his cell phone, checking in with people at precincts as results came in. He attributed the party’s loss to people voting along party lines and foreign policy issues, not local and state issues.

‘‘I think it’s a big backlash on Iraq,” he said. ‘‘It’s been taken out against all Republicans at all levels.”

He said the County Council will now be even less friendly to business and transportation and that spending will go through the roof. ‘‘I think the people better be prepared to hold onto their wallets.”

—Chris Robinson

Rice is cooking

A buzz started building with each update from the Monty elections board on the smaller screen in Potomac as newcomer Craig Rice crept up on three-term Del. Jean Cryor in District 15.

By 10:15 p.m., Rice was down 65 votes. Half an hour later, the margin was trimmed to five, setting off a wave of excited whispers throughout a Potomac neighborhood clubhouse where Rice gathered with supporters. By 11:30 — 24 of 35 precincts in — Rice had 11,874 votes to Cryor’s 11,609.

Rice and his wife finally made it to Indian Spring, where the county’s Dems were painting the town blue, around midnight — after dropping off his children at home — winning a hero’s welcome from many of the few dozen who had stuck around, showering him with hugs and congratulations.

Rob Garagiola, District 15’s senator, spent much of the night on his cell phone tracking Rice’s results. ‘‘Did we do it?!” he asked Rice rhetorically. ‘‘You worked your ass off, man.”

An exuberant and appreciative Rice acknowledged that timing was a big a part of his upset victory.

‘‘No question that this year I, as well as many others, are benefiting from Democrats being energized,” he said. ‘‘I’m fortunate to be running at a time when people are looking for change.”

—Sebastian Montes

Not as planned

Cryor’s supporters, who gathered at the Hunter’s Inn in Potomac, looked as if they’d seen a ghost when a reporter told them the latest results: Cryor was clinging to her seat by about 60 votes.

Then they, some with tears in their eyes, jumped to her defense. ‘‘She stands for what many of us see as the last bastion of common sense,” offered Karin Curnie of Potomac.

Linda Sillin chimed in. ‘‘She is the woman,” she said. ‘‘She could run for U.S. Senate as far as I’m concerned. Even if she doesn’t win, she’s the ideal in our eyes.”

Cryor’s campaign treasurer Elie Cain, decked out in a red Cryor T-shirt, didn’t think that was likely.

‘‘The plan she was talking about didn’t include not being [in Annapolis] in January,” she said.

—Melissa Chadwick

Got red face?

Chris Pilkerton, a Republican who sought a District 15 seat, also gathered with family and close friends at the Hunter’s Inn.

He expected that it would be tough to get elected in heavily blue MoCo, but an unexpected challenge arose when it came to distinguishing between a man and a woman.

As televised results scrolled across the screen, Pilkerton’s father, Ray Pilkerton, casually asked, ‘‘Who’s this Duchy lady?” referring to Duchy Trachtenberg.

‘‘No, that’ s a man, I think,” Chris Pilkerton replied.

Pilkerton knocked on more than 10,000 doors in his election bid. We guess he didn’t knock on hers.

—Melissa Chadwick

New meaning of slimy

Pilkerton’s parents have an inventive way to keep pre-election sign-stealers at bay: Vaseline.

After having several signs stolen from their Potomac lawn, Pilkerton’s mother, Sally, smeared Vaseline all over them.

The signs stayed on the lawn, and there are no smeared handprints to report.

—Melissa Chadwick

A few words from Ficker

Robin Ficker never lacks for confidence or reasons to complain.

While other voters coming from Monocacy Elementary School near Dickerson spoke of how smooth the voting process went Tuesday, the county executive candidate complained about the line’s length.

‘‘They should have had a couple of more machines in there,” he said after casting his ballot for his independent run.

Asked if he had any thing else to add, Ficker said, ‘‘I’ll probably be holding a press conference as your next county executive this evening.”

Ficker finished last out of three candidates with 9.5 percent of the votes, behind Democratic winner Ike Leggett’s 68 percent and Republican Chuck Floyd’s 22.4 percent.

—C. Benjamin Ford

Air Berliner

Roger Berliner was up — literally — Tuesday night as election results rolled in.

When Berliner and his supporters realized around 11 p.m. that he was more than 10 percent ahead of incumbent Howie Denis in the race for the District 1 Montgomery County Council seat, friends and family gathered to congratulate him.

They shook his hands. Some took photos. One supporter was so excited that his hug lifted Berliner right off the ground.

—Meredith Hooker

A bad break

Republican Mark Fennel’s Montgomery County Council campaign was literally crippled just a few days before the Tuesday elections when he twisted his ankle while putting out campaign signs.

Fennel, who unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Marilyn Praisner for the District 4 seat, inadvertently stepped into a hole in Wheaton. So instead of pressing the flesh and pounding the pavement, Fennel was relegated to sitting and sighing on a bench in the Westfield Mall where he had been deposited by his wife who was on a shopping excursion.

— Janel Davis

New role for Joe

Asked if he was ready to become the official or unofficial legal adviser to the O’Malley administration, retiring Attorney General and grandfather to the little O’Malleys Joe Curran responded, ‘‘I’m the official babysitter.”

— Margie Hyslop