By Adam Pagnucco.
Mailboxes across MoCo are reeling from fatigue as they are crushed daily by tidal waves of political mail. On Friday, your author received mailers from Action Committee for Transit, the sitting judges, Council At-Large candidate Will Jawando, District 18 Senate candidate Dana Beyer and District 18 House candidate Emily Shetty. The next day your author received mailers from County Executive candidates David Blair and Roger Berliner, Council At-Large candidates Bill Conway and Evan Glass, District 18 House candidates Leslie Milano, Joel Rubin and Jared Solomon and the Maryland Realtors on behalf of District 18 Senate candidate Jeff Waldstreicher. That’s thirteen political mailers in two days.
District 18 is an unusually busy place. It has at least six General Assembly candidates with six-figure campaign budgets, or close to it. But lots of places around MoCo have serious competition, including Congress District 6, Council Districts 1 and 3 and all the state legislative districts except 14. In addition, there are strongly contested races for Governor, County Executive and Council At-Large.
Candidates line up to door knock at a Super Democrat’s house.
In the old days, the rule of thumb was that early mail was a waste of money. Now we wonder about that. There was a time not so long ago when Congress District 6 candidate David Trone, County Executive candidate David Blair and District 18 Senate candidate Dana Beyer – all self-funders – had the mailboxes largely to themselves. Now the mailboxes may not be big enough to hold each day’s batch. Everyone’s mail is getting lost in the shuffle. And when so much of it looks the same – almost everyone is a “progressive leader” who promises to fund schools, fix congestion and resist Trump – it’s unclear that anyone can win through mail. It’s going to take something else to get across the line.
The best of the mailers: District 18 House candidate Emily Shetty and her adorable son.
Lately, your author has been performing a cruel experiment. Our son just turned nine. He much prefers Star Wars, nerf guns and video games to politics, but he understands that he has an eccentric Dada whose strange wishes must be occasionally tolerated. So when the new batches of mail come, your author gives them to him and asks which ones are his favorites. At first, the oppressed son dutifully complied and gave curt opinions. (He likes Will Jawando because he met him and David Blair because he owns Badlands Playspace.) But now, the requests for review are met with eye rolls and crankiness. “Do I really have to look at this stuff?” he groans.
We suspect more than a few MoCo voters might agree!