DeRay Mckesson (@deray) files to run for Baltimore mayor https://t.co/ErdsZSpmyG by @lukebroadwater pic.twitter.com/HPhF3MicQd
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) February 4, 2016
Wesley Lowrey, in the Washington Post, “DeRay Mckesson, Black Lives Matter activist, launches last-minute bid to become mayor of Baltimore”:
… The activist waited until the final hour before the 9 p.m., Feb. 3, filing deadline to launch the surprise, long-shot bid, which begins just 83 days before voters head to the polls. Because Democrats far outnumber Republicans in the city, Baltimore’s April 26 primary is expected to determine who replaces Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the once-rising star in national Democratic politics who announced last year that she would not seek reelection.
“Baltimore is at a moment,” Mckesson, who becomes the first of the prominent post-Ferguson activists to seek public office, said in a phone interview on Wednesday night. “I’m running to usher Baltimore into a new era where our government is accountable to its people and aggressively innovative in how it identifies and solves problems.”
Mckesson, 30, joins a crowded field that includes former mayor Sheila Dixon, who is leading in the polls, state Sen. Catherine Pugh, and city councilmen Carl Stokes and Nick Mosby as well as 10 other Democratic candidates…
===========
… [O]n a brisk Saturday afternoon in January, a paper sign was taped to the building’s thick glass front door: “DeRay’s meeting: third floor.”The four-hour policy meeting — attended by a Washington Post reporter on the condition that details of the gathering would not be reported until after Mckesson made his final decision on whether he would enter the race — was a free-for-all, in which a dozen participants reviewed data on education, housing, and criminal justice.
In attendance were Johnetta Elzie and Samuel Sinyangwe, two activists who, with Mckesson, run Campaign Zero (the fourth partner, Brittany Packnett, joined the meeting via conference call); Donnie O’Callaghan, an education policy analyst and Mckesson’s best friend, and several city officials who knew Mckesson from his time working for the school district and his prior nonprofit and community organizing work.
While Mckesson is best known publicly for his advocacy around criminal justice and policing policy, the bulk of the meeting was spent discussing a host of other issues: education, housing and public health…
Much more detail, and useful links to other long profiles of Mckesson, at the link.
OzarkHillbilly
OT: We have a roads and bridges crises here in the great state of Misery. Every election there is a new funding proposal* to fix the widening gap in what is needed and what the lowest gas tax in the country** brings in. So what are we going to do about it?
Republican governance at it’s finest.
*the latest was a hike in the sales tax. i voted against it because why should people who don’t even drive pay for it? yes they benefit but the trucking industry benefits a hell of a lot more.
**IIRC-might be wrong
Patricia Kayden
Good luck to DeRay. Hopefully he’ll highlight important issues even if he doesn’t win.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yup, you’re wrong, but close. OK has lower taxes on both gas and diesel, Joisy has lower taxes on gas.
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: It don’t happen often, just ask my wife.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: The wrong part or the close part?
Schlemazel
@OzarkHillbilly:
When pols here on the frozen tundra suggest raising gas taxes we are always reminded that or neighbor Wisconsin has lower gas taxes and it would be sooooo hard on boarder gas stations (plus UNFAIR!!!). But I get to WI a couple times a year and I never see their gas prices lower than ours. Last time was the last week of December and prices around the Milwaukee area were 30 cents higher than here, from there to the Western boarder they were in the same range as those in Eastern MN.
OzarkHillbilly
She has this saying: “You’re right, Tom.”
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Beltway is trying to pressure ¿Jeb? to drop out, but he’s won’t have it, mainly because he’s pissed at Lil’ Marco and wants to deny him the nomination.
Keith G
Every time I have seen DeRay Mckesson do an interview, I have seen a very intelligent, focused and charismatically gregarious young man. It would be really cool if he can put together a winning coalition that helps him win and govern a troubled city in a difficult time.
satby
@Patricia Kayden: We need more like him to start running for office at every level in this country. Good luck to him indeed.
BillinGlendaleCA
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: …and he’d have to explain to mom why he lost. Would you want to face Barbara Bush with that news?
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
New PPP National Poll — Feb 3rd. (Change from Dec 18 poll in parenthesis)
Trump……..25% (-9)
Cruz……….21% (+3)
Rubio………21% (+8)
Carson…….11% (+5)
Rest in single digits.
amk
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
There you go. What double digit margins?
Trump, the loser meme, is winning.
Keith G
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Possibly. And it might also be about the over 100 million dollars in non-refundable donations. About half that cash is gone and the doners might want to see a little more attempted ROI before the candidate walks away.
More than likely there also is a bit of pressure to try to pull something out of the JEB! train wreck so that loser stench does not cover the next generation of Bush.
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: If he didn’t want to tell mom that he’s really just a Chihuahua, he should have stayed on the porch.
Mustang Bobby
Jeb is so unpopular he has to beg to get the clap.
Baud
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: If Cruz wins New Hampshire, I wonder if it’s over.
OzarkHillbilly
Marco Rubio gave a speech criticizing Obama for implying the ‘US discriminates against Muslims’. while just down the road a NH GOP Rep was saying Giving Public Assistance To Muslims Is ‘Treason’!
You couldn’t make this sh!t up.
bin Lurkin'
Smart move announcing at the last moment, now McKesson will control his own narrative better than he would have otherwise, don’t give potential opposition time to think.
Also pretty good evidence he’s not looking for self-aggrandizement, he will be a serious threat to the establishment in Baltimore.
OzarkHillbilly
Jesus was a guest on Jimmy Kimmel.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I think THAT would be peak wingnut.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: Did he endorse Cruz?
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: If he can win New Hampshire, then he might be able to beat Trump in South Carolina, which is a religious state. At that point, it might be Cruz against the establishment candidate, which looks like it’ll be Rubio.
MomSense
Deray McKesson will be a great mayor.
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: It was a wonderful speech. The photos of the President with the attendees were moving. So much appreciation and mutual respect. I hope Ellison regrets his blurb on the Press book.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Is there any talk about doing what they’ve done in satby’s area — retropaving asphalt roads to gravel roads to save money?
Between this and Flint water, how can it not be obvious that Small Government is a failure?
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: Endorse him? Hell, he sounded just like him!
debbie
@Baud:
I can’t imagine the GOP establishment ever putting up with Cruz. You can already see them falling behind the Big Booted Boy.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Yeah, they call it “focusing our funds”. This past summer tho, they repaved my little 2 lanes which go from a wide spot in the road to nowhere at all. Some politically connected somebody lives out here and I’m pretty sure I know who it is.
amk
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Didn’t keith whine just a few days back how the kenyan let down the progressives that they all had to pen multiple books about it?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I doubt Cruz will win New Hampshire; “Boy Wonder” Marco(stay thirsty my friend), maybe. New Hampshire doesn’t like to follow the lead of Iowa.
MomSense
@debbie:
Repubkicans always talk about government budgets as if they are like families sitting at the kitchen table deciding how to tighten their belts. They never say we are letting the roads go back to gravel and the bridges rot and fall down just like families who let their roofs collapse rather than spend any money to protect their biggest investment.
David *Rafael* Koch
NY Times’s moving Front Page
Baud
@debbie:
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I would definitely prefer Trump to Cruz. I don’t know about Rubio vs. Cruz.
BillinGlendaleCA
@David *Rafael* Koch: Of course the Kenyan would speak out for Muslims, he’s one of them. Silly David Koch.
Patricia Kayden
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: The Sleeping Surgeon is hanging tough. How he beats Jeb!, Kasich and Christie is beyond me. They must be livid about that.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden: I though he dropped out.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
I’ve been told by the sanest Republican I know that her political co-religionists are convinced that Trump is only in it to keep ¿Jeb? from getting the nomination. They think Trump will drop out when Jeb does.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: You’d prefer to run against tRump? Cruz would be easier to run against, and Marco “Boy Wonder” is the next Dan Quayle.
Baud
@David *Rafael* Koch: Fox News has the same picture except the caption is “Call to Jihad?”
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Who? Carson, he’s still there; though it’s hard to tell if he’s awake.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: No, I was playing which clown would I most like to see president before I hang myself.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: I was kidding. Playing off Cruz’s remarks.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Better than their first draft, Allah Akbar!!!
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Policy-wise, Rubio and Cruz are actually pretty similar–except that Rubio would be more of a neocon hawk. But Rubio is probably harder to beat.
Patricia Kayden
@OzarkHillbilly: Republicans are in their own little world where they are tolerant and compassionate and the other side are lazy bigots. When your Party’s top candidates advocate only taking in Christian refugees, you have a problem.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/11/return-of-republican-islamophobia.html
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, and Cruz would have more difficulty working with people to get bad things done.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Cruz might have more difficulty working with Congress than Obama.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: A new era of bipartisanship!
Matt McIrvin
@debbie: It’s the usual cycle of modern governance: when government services break down because they’re underfunded, it’s because government doesn’t work, so we should stop throwing our money away and cut funding some more.
debbie
@Baud:
I think Cruz will show Rubio to be the inept child he is. I’m still confident Cruz will never be accepted as mainstream (which he doesn’t want, but would be required to become the candidate of choice).
@MomSense:
Someone needs to point out very loudly how the GOP’s policies of cost cutting run counter to their vision of America as the Exceptional Leader of the Free World.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
You left off, “And then bitch about those people getting all of our tax money.”
debbie
@Matt McIrvin:
Food stamps are one thing, but infrastructure is far more basic to this country’s economic machine. My hope is that the GOP has overreached for the last time.
BillinGlendaleCA
@debbie: Just look at our airports, case closed.
msdc
@bin Lurkin’:
Waiting to file until 83 days before the primary, when you have never held elected office before, when you haven’t even lived in the city for years, is not a smart move.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
The committee issued a subpoena Tuesday to Earley to testify Wednesday but his lawyer refused service. At the House hearing Wednesday, committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said the committee has directed U.S. marshals to “hunt down” former Flint Emergency Manager Darnell Earley to serve him his subpoena.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Trump’s lead in New Hampshire is huge. I have trouble believing he’ll lose it all in one week. The first UMass Lowell poll after Iowa shows Trump still with a comfortable lead there:
http://www.uml.edu/Research/public-opinion/polls/default.aspx
Similarly, Hillary is modestly up there but she’s not going to win NH; it’s still Sanders in a blowout.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
That was supposed to be in quote tags, dammit.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Here in Misery, they’re just getting started.
geg6
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
He should be directing some US Marshals to Snyder’s office. Until he does, the whole thing’s a sham. Just like every other investigation by that committee since Nancy SMASH gave up the gavel.
Baud
Did everyone go hang themselves in anticipation of a Rubio or Cruz presidency?
Hillary Rettig
Happy about McKesson – hope for 1000 more like him!
I agree with Baud! – Trump over Cruz any day. Really says something about the latter than even his fellow assholes can’t stand him.
Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim
@msdc: I agree with you. If you want to knock down Sheila Dixon, and it’s still her race to lose, you need to raise support. And less than 3 months may not be enough time to be anything other than yet another Not-Dixon.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly:
I voted against that sales tax too. I had the exact same thoughts about it you had, plus I know that several years ago when we directed all the money from license plates and driver’s licenses to MODOT they sold 30 year bonds to finance every item they could on their big wish list, which is why they ran out of money so fast. They need some accountants to budget for them, because evidently engineers don’t have an understanding of how to do that. The state legislature needs to raise the gas tax so that semi trucks pay their fair share for road maintenance. Crap, I paid $1.33 per gallon the last time I filled up, do you think anyone would notice an extra nickel right now?
Uncle Cosmo
Per Wiki, here is the list of candidates that DeRay faces off against:
Cindy Walsh, academic and government reform activist.
Gersham Cupid, student and minister
Richard Black, Accountant
Mack Clifton, former Member of the Texas State Guard and minister
Sheila Dixon, former Mayor of Baltimore
Elizabeth Embry, Chief of Criminal Division, States Attorney
Mike Maraziti, business owner
Connor Meek
Nick J. Mosby, Baltimore City Councilmember for the 7th District
Collins Ottona
Catherine E. Pugh, State Senator and former Baltimore City Councilmember for the 4th District
Carl Stokes, Baltimore City Councilmember for the 12th District
David Warnock, businessman
Calvin Allen Young
Patrick Gutierrez, former reporter, businessman
Dixon, Stokes & Pugh are presumed to be the frontrunners due to their longstanding political connections. But none of them inspires any particular confidence outside their circles of family, friends & cronies.
Most of us City Democrats are undecided & open to anyone with a plausible plan. DeRay will have his chance to be heard.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: It is insanely stupid to not raise the gas tax right now. MODOT needs all their funding to come from dedicated streams that the legislature can’t raid for their newest subsidized industry.
Elizabelle
@debbie: Thank you for spotlighting the Cruz kid recoiling vid. Haven’t watched it yet (visiting my sister in the land of sporadic internet), but bookmarked it.
Somehow just not in a TrusTed mood at the moment.
Good morning all.
Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim
@Uncle Cosmo: McKesson has a lot to say, and is free of the stink of cronyism so often wafting from the city council chamber. But will he be heard? I believe that like I believe it was a good idea to run Anthony Brown for governor right after the insurance exchange failed to work as advertised.
Edit: I can’t even remember his name consistently, which makes it hard to fill in a ballot.
Baud
@Elizabelle: Good morning, EB.
sparrow
@Keith G: I had previously been very interested in a neighbor of mine who is running (Elizabeth Embry, also a political neophyte, but a really good public servant to the city for years), but I might switch to McKesson depending on what kind of ideas he has. Cuz Baltimore NEEDS some freaking new ideas. The old ones suck.
ThresherK
@David *Rafael* Koch: I love the unrealted headline “Republicans Woo Centrist Women”.
I think that voting bloc can fit in a phone booth.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone :)
satby
@MomSense:
Yes they are. And though they don’t want to pay reasonable taxes to keep roads paved and bridges repaired, they will be the first to bitch loudly about the “damn government” not maintaining roads when they blow a tire or bend a tie rod.
Just like the Congressional committee hearing testimony on the Flint water crisis decided it was a failure of “government” at “all levels”. Not failure of a particular ideological policy and the fairly easy to predict outcome, but of “government”.
rikyrah
but but but…I thought politics and elections were ‘ respectability politics’.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Well, we wouldn’t want to politicize it by pointing out that it was the predictable result of Republican governance, would we now?
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: Especially not in a Congressional committee (run by Republicans) hearing that has as its focus an investigation into how the EPA didn’t protect Flint by enforcing the clean water act.
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
Good morning to you!
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Would that be the same underfunded EPA that is supposed to enforce environmental regulations they want to eliminate entirely?
Paul in KY
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Very, very proud that man is my President!!
FEMA Camp Counselor
Good luck to the guy. I’d love for this to be the start of more BLM activists running for office.
Paul in KY
@Patricia Kayden: I hope that is giving Barbara the piles.
Woodrow/asim
Given that I just hit Season 5 of THE WIRE, I’m really fascinated by Mckesson’s run in Baltimore. Will def. keep an eye on that…
Paul in KY
@BillinGlendaleCA: I think the 1st draft was ‘Kill all Infidels!’
Iowa Old Lady
Iowa shocked me by raising the gas tax by 10 cents a few months back.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: the very same, go figure!
@Matt McIrvin: which brings us full circle to :
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@geg6: Yah, but the thought of Earley fleeing subpoena-waving US Marshalls was just so much fun.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
You can see who the serious grifters are.
Baby Doc and the frothy mixture just didn’t
have their heart in it. Now Carson he really
means it. Kasich, Christy et al are running a cabinet position. Bar told JEB! to come home on his shield.
bjacques
@Woodrow/asim: I miss Mayor Carcetti and had a sad when he quit to lead an army in Game of Thrones.
Paula
@rikyrah:
Jesus, I wish I didn’t follow up on the Deray backlash.
It makes me hate the narcissistic mess that is calling itself left-wing politics in this country.
God forbid someone with the talent but also the fortitude to go into mainstream politics actually try to grab onto an opportunity to reach more people.
Paula
@Paula:
Also, “respectability politics” as a pejorative in this sense tends to imply that trying get power already means you’ve sold out. Like, activists are supposed to just be symbolically protesting on the sidelines forever and aye. You kinda need people on the inside, too.