WP,pg1: New Day for Maryland Democrats: D.C. Suburbs Assert Themselves

[DeepModem Mom]

A New Day for Democrats
D.C. Suburbs Assert Themselves in Party Primaries
By Robert Barnes and John Wagner
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 14, 2006; Page A01

Maryland voters on Tuesday endorsed a generational change of political leaders, setting up the most competitive statewide campaigns in decades and defining a new role for the Washington suburbs in the state's politics.

Maryland Democrats for the first time nominated two Montgomery County politicians for statewide office -- State's Attorney Douglas F. Gansler for attorney general and Del. Peter Franchot for comptroller. No one from Montgomery has been elected on his own to statewide office since 1919.

On a day when 84-year-old Comptroller William Donald Schaefer acknowledged his exit from the public stage, the Democrats' new team assembled in Baltimore. Franchot and Gansler held a "unity" rally with Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, the party's nominee for governor; O'Malley's running mate, Del. Anthony G. Brown of Prince George's; and U.S. Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin of Baltimore County, who won the U.S. Senate nomination over former NAACP president Kweisi Mfume.

They immediately went to work characterizing their ticket as aligned with working families and trying to associate their opponents with an unpopular president not on the ballot.

"This campaign is about holding George Bush accountable," Cardin said, listing issues on which he and the president differ, including the Iraq war and stem cell research....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/13/AR2006091300439.html