With Wynn in limbo, Cardin could suffer

Unexpected weakness of seven-term congressman reverberates throughout Prince George’s Democratic power structure

Friday, Sept. 22, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Gazette File Photo U.S. Rep. Albert R. Wynn (shown here rallying Duncan supporters in October) is awaiting the outcome of a surprisingly close primary that has dented his armor and illustrated a growing rift between factions of the Democratic Party in Prince George’s County.

With provisional and absentee ballots still being counted — and his challenger, attorney Donna Edwards, threatening to file a lawsuit — Wynn was clinging to a lead of 50 percent to 46 percent on Tuesday.

Both camps haven’t had much to say since elections officials in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties began counting the outstanding ballots on Monday.

‘‘It would be premature for us to dissect an election that has not been determined,” said Alon Kupferman, a spokesman for Wynn.

Most Maryland political observers believe Wynn will pull it out in the end, even if his 2,900-vote advantage diminishes somewhat.

Still, it has been an astonishing turn of events for the seven-term Congressman, who has never received less than 75 percent of the vote in any of his re-election tries. Just the day before the primary, a top Wynn adviser was boasting that the Congressman would take 70 percent of the vote.

But Edwards, who by design operated largely under the radar, proved to be a surprisingly formidable foe.

Her bid, cast by some analysts as an extension of Ned Lamont’s defeat of Sen. Joe Lieberman in last month’s Democratic primary in Connecticut, was fueled by anti-war activists such as MoveOn.org, nationally and at the local level. This was especially true in the Montgomery County portion of the district, where about one-quarter of the voters reside. There, Edwards trounced Wynn, 60 percent to 34 percent.

But just as significantly, she ran strong because of the antipathy that Wynn has engendered through the years as the self-appointed kingmaker of Prince George’s County politics. Wynn took about 57 percent of the vote there to Edwards’ 40 percent.

‘‘He had two sets of problems,” said a veteran Prince George’s County officeholder. ‘‘He had all of these MoveOn people [working for Edwards]. He then had a lot of revulsion to ‘Boss Albert.’”

Assuming he is formally declared the victor over Edwards, Wynn can almost certainly expect a tough challenge in two years — if not from Edwards herself, then from one of any number of ambitious Prince George’s politicians.

But of more immediate concern to state Democratic leaders are the fissures that the Wynn-Edwards battle revealed in the county party. Majority-black Prince George’s has more enrolled Democrats than any other jurisdiction in Maryland, and Democrats need a stellar turnout there to ensure a statewide victory in November.

Wynn’s showing, and the razor-thin re-election victory by Prince George’s County Executive Jack Johnson (D), a Wynn ally, showed that there are at least two Democratic parties in Prince George’s.

Edwards’ was a classic insurgent campaign. But Johnson’s primary opponent, former state Del. Rushern Baker, gained momentum in the final weeks after he was endorsed by several big players in local politics, including former County Executives Wayne Curry (D) and Parris Glendening (D) — the latter a two-term former governor — and Prince George’s State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey (D).

With Wynn and Johnson more or less on one side of the Democratic divide in Prince George’s County and Baker, Edwards and their allies essentially on the other, it’s not unreasonable to ask who’s going to pull the two sides together to drive a big turnout for the party in November.

Ivey tried to minimize the divisions.

‘‘We’ve had factions in Prince George’s County since the dawn of time, probably,” he said.

Since the Sept. 12 primary, the Democratic nominees for statewide office already have held joint rallies with local party stalwarts in a half-dozen key jurisdictions. But a Prince George’s County unity breakfast, scheduled for last Friday, was canceled, in part because Wynn and Johnson did not agree to attend.

The question of who unifies the party in Prince George’s becomes especially tricky because Cardin’s general election opponent in the Senate race, Lt. Gov. Michael Steele (R), is both black and from Prince George’s. Steele has aggressively courted black voters who may be turned off because the state Democratic establishment has done so little to encourage minority candidates with statewide ambitions through the years.

‘‘It’s a real source of concern,” said Ivey, who had been ready to make a public pitch for unity at the county Democratic breakfast that never took place. ‘‘But if we handle the campaign the right way, we ought to be able to hold the [Senate] seat, and Congressman Cardin is an excellent candidate for achieving that.”

The county’s white political leaders are in little position to help promote unity, however. The two most powerful, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and state Senate President Thomas Mike Miller Jr. — neither of whom actually live in Prince George’s anymore, though their districts still contain substantial territory in the county — spent their political capital helping Cardin defeat former NAACP President Kweisi Mfume in last week’s primary (Mfume took 70 percent in Prince George’s to Cardin’s 19 percent). Glendening did endorse Mfume — in part out of antipathy toward Cardin, who contemplated challenging him in the 1998 Democratic gubernatorial primary. But he doesn’t live in Prince George’s anymore, either.

The task of unifying local Democrats could fall to state Del. Anthony Brown, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor who represents a Prince George’s district in the Legislature. But this is the 44-year-old lawmaker’s first time in the limelight, and he may not have the political juice to play enforcer. Brown did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

Wynn’s own relationship with the state Democratic establishment has frequently been strained. Among party leaders, Wynn often is seen as a freelancer who is more interested in building a political stable of loyalists than in being a team player. Perhaps most notably on Capitol Hill, he lent his name and support to a predominantly Republican bill that would have limited the influence of 527 groups that historically have helped fund Democratic campaigns more than Republican ones.

Some party leaders and strategists in Maryland are privately cheering his present discomfiture, in much the same way they were privately cheering on Edwards.

Meanwhile, assuming Wynn returns for another term, he faces the prospect of a 2008 re-election battle that could be even tougher. Already a list of potential challengers is being bandied about.

Edwards has refused to concede until all provisional and absentee ballots have been counted — beleaguered elections officials in the two counties hope to finish that by Friday but are making no promises — and she has left the door open to filing a lawsuit if certain ballots are thrown out.

‘‘Voters need to have confidence that their vote is counted,” she said. ‘‘I will fight for answers and make sure every ballot is counted.”

But while Edwards’ success at the polls caught almost everyone by surprise, she may have company when it comes to taking on Wynn in 2008. State legislators and county elected officials in Maryland will not have to sacrifice their seats to take a crack at Congress next cycle.

‘‘She’s somebody who ran a great grass-roots campaign, but she’s not somebody who all these would-be Members of Congress are going to defer to,” said the veteran official who did not want to be named.

Prince George’s County Councilman David Harrington, a former mayor of Bladensburg, and state Sen.-elect Anthony Muse, senior pastor and founder of one of the county’s biggest churches, are mentioned as possible candidates. Muse, who is considered highly ambitious, briefly pondered challenging Wynn in 2004, according to sources.

Curry, who has never gotten along well with Wynn and is always threatening to return to politics, might consider a Congressional bid. Baker, after two unsuccessful runs for county executive, could also be persuaded to take the Congressional plunge. Brown, if he is not elected lieutenant governor on the ticket headed by Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley (D) this fall, might also be a candidate.

Ivey, a protégé of retiring Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.), is seen as a possible candidate for county executive in 2010, when Johnson will be term-limited. (Johnson and Wynn are said to be already promoting Democratic county Sheriff Michael Jackson for the job.) But Ivey has also made no secret of his desire to serve on Capitol Hill some day.

Right after the Democratic primaries four years ago, Wynn was at the peak of his power. He was an integral part of Johnson’s victory, and he helped elect seven of the nine members of the Prince George’s County Council, often by supplying key advisers and ground troops. Wynn was even openly talking about a future run for Senate.

After considering and rejecting a run for Sarbanes’ open seat this year, he now has to wonder what hit him last week. But Ivey said Wynn would bounce back.

‘‘Albert Wynn is a very savvy politician, and I think he’s going to remain a formidable presence in Prince George’s County politics for a long time to come,” he said.

Reprinted with permission from Roll Call, Sept. 20, 2006. Copyright 2006 Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved.