More News

"This city is a jungle."

That slogan, part of a racially tinged 1974 television advertisement, set the stage for the most divisive election in modern Baltimore city history.

Now there's a second incendiary campaign for Baltimore state's attorney in which race is playing a dominant role.

The outcome could affect the fortunes of Gov. Martin O'Malley, former Gov. Bob Ehrlich and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

Should incumbent Patricia Jessamy lose to challenger Gregg Bernstein in the Sept. 14 Democratic primary, it would put a huge dent in O'Malley's plans to draw in heavily Democratic Baltimore on Nov. 2.

Bernstein's surprising challenge could turn the campaign for governor upside-down if he pulls an upset.

A Jessamy loss also could hurt Mayor Rawlings-Blake's chances of winning next year.

Here's the situation. Jessamy has been virtually unopposed since she took office in 1995. She's got a lock on the female African-American vote and has a large following in black churches.

She can be a gracious and effective speaker, but she also can be prickly to deal with. Mayors and police chiefs have found her contentious and unbending — an obstacle to improving the city's overworked criminal justice system.

One of Jessamy's problems is that Baltimore is viewed by its citizens as a dangerous city, even though key crime indicators have dropped dramatically. Crime is the biggest impediment to Baltimore's progress.

Bernstein, a prominent criminal defense attorney, seeks to capitalize on this with sweeping denunciations of Jessamy's performance.

"Murderers, armed robbers, rapists and domestic abusers, arrested by police, are all too often let go without a true fight for justice," he said in one statement. He says he'll be a much tougher prosecutor.

Black leaders, though, are sensitive to the fact that most criminal defendants are black. They fear tougher prosecutions might unfairly target blacks. They also view Bernstein's attacks as an unfair assault on an accomplished black leader.

What inflamed the situation was an impolitic move by the city's popular white police commissioner, Fred Bealefeld, who placed a Bernstein lawn sign in front of his house.

That a high public official, who is supposed to be nonpartisan, would take such a rash step underscores the depth of ill will toward Jessamy within police ranks.

Rawlings-Blake then compounded matters by issuing a ringing defense of her police chief. The growing furor over Bealefeld's action, though, persuaded him to remove the sign and swear off political involvement.

By then, the damage had been done. Bernstein's longshot campaign suddenly was center stage in Baltimore. The challenger is backed by a cadre of well-connected and well-healed lawyers. Nearly all of them are white.

Bernstein is outspending Jessamy by a 4-1 margin, a stunning development that normally would signal deep trouble for the incumbent. But this election won't be decided by money.

Jessamy's supporters are quietly spreading the word that a white candidate is trying to evict one of their own. Veteran political organizer Larry Gibson is heavily involved in this get-out-the-vote effort, as is former Mayor Kurt Schmoke.

Given the fact that Baltimore is majority black, Jessamy should win if she galvanizes her supporters, which Bernstein's attacks seem to have done. Many of Bernstein's ardent backers — policemen, firemen and affluent lawyers — can't vote for him because they live in the suburbs.

Circumstances were quite different in 1974 when Milton Allen, Baltimore's first black state's attorney, was defeated by a white attorney, Bill Swisher, who ran a racist campaign portraying the city as a lawless jungle.

White voters outnumbered blacks that year, and Swisher, with hefty support from Baltimore's old-time bosses, scared the heck out of residents.

Eight years later, with the city's voting makeup changing, Schmoke handily beat Swisher in a campaign that stressed racial harmony over divide-and-conquer politics. That was a prelude to Schmoke's ascension as mayor and the domination of black politicians in Baltimore.

O'Malley succeeded Schmoke as mayor in 1999 and never got along with Jessamy. He once said of her, "She doesn't even have the goddamn guts to get off her ass" and try a corruption case against a police officer. "Maybe she should get the hell out and let somebody else in who's not afraid to do the goddamn job."

He also sent her a letter with drawings of stick figures to show how her office should be run. In one of his parting gestures as mayor, O'Malley raised the state's attorney's salary to $225,000 a year to encourage challengers against Jessamy.

Such insults were not forgotten. But politics makes for strange alliances. O'Malley said nice things about Jessamy last month and even promised stronger words of support.

He'd better deliver. Should Jessamy lose, her black supporters might protest by staying away from the polls in November. On top of that, Jessamy had a good rapport with Ehrlich when he was governor. A disappointed Jessamy could be a nightmare for O'Malley.

Rawling-Blake's situation might turn precarious, too, if Jessamy loses. The prosecutor then might run for mayor herself or support another candidate, such as former Congressman Kweisi Mfume.

So a lot is riding on this local election. A divided Baltimore city could be the result.

A mea culpa is in order. In my Aug. 27 column, I erred. Congressman Roscoe Bartlett has endorsed incumbent Sen. Don Munson for reelection in Washington County, not the challenger, Del. Christopher Shank. My flub apparently created a stir in Hagerstown. At least it's good to know The Gazette is being read in that Western Maryland community.

Barry Rascovar is a State House columnist and communications consultant. His e-mail address is brascovar@hotmail.com.