By Adam Pagnucco.
It’s time once again for my sources’ list of MoCo’s most influential people! Every time I print one of these, I get a whole bunch of cheers, jeers, hysteria and – of course – eyeballs. (Why else would I print them?)
I got this idea back in 2008, when the Gazette (which sadly no longer exists) used to release lists of this kind for Annapolis. Check out this example. The problem I had with what they did is that I had no idea how they came up with their list. Was it just a bunch of journalists hanging out in a bar? Was it a handful of Annapolis know-it-alls? How were people ranked? It was impossible to tell.
I wanted to do a list for Montgomery County, but how? I knew I was not qualified to do this by myself, but I knew who was qualified: my source network. Even back then, I had a group of folks who tutored me in what goes on in this county. (They still do!) So I asked them, put together the responses and – voila! – I printed their picks. I did it again in 2009 and 2020.
Four years have passed and a lot of faces have changed, so it’s time for another one. Last month, I sent the following email to my source network seeking their participation.
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Subject Line: MoCo’s Most Influential
For the first time in four years, I am assembling lists of the most influential people in MoCo. But I’m not doing it alone – I am depending on my sources to do it for me. That means YOU!
Here are the rules.
- You may nominate up to 10 current elected officials who you believe most influence state or county politics and represent all or part of Montgomery County. This includes officials who represent other jurisdictions in addition to MoCo (like members of Congress).
- You may also nominate up to 10 non-elected people who you believe most influence state or county politics in Montgomery County. That’s right, there are two lists: elected and non-elected. You get up to 10 nominations for each of them.
- You don’t have to agree with the views of your nominees, you just have to believe that they are influential.
- You may nominate yourself – if you judge it necessary!
- You may provide comments justifying your picks but you don’t have to.
- No nominations or comments will be attributed. No one besides you and me will know how you voted or what you said. I PROMISE.
- Responses are due by July 31.
At the end of the response period, I will tabulate all nominations and publish the lists on Montgomery Perspective.
I haven’t done this kind of thing since 2020 so there should be a bunch of new names in the mix. I am eager to find out who makes the cut!
Thank you,
Adam Pagnucco
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This was not an open voting exercise. If you are not one of my sources, you were not invited to vote! There are two reasons for this.
First, I am confident that my sources know the county and therefore know who is influential here. I do not share that confidence regarding folks I have never heard of, or worse, anonymous people voting in an online poll.
Second, this is a safeguard (though an imperfect one) against ballot box stuffing. During this process, two individuals rounded up groups of supporters who had previously not communicated with me to send in impassioned “nominations” specifically and often solely on their behalf. (I know who you are and I won’t forget what you did!) It didn’t work because it was easy enough to detect, but it might have worked in an open vote. And that would have made a mockery of this whole exercise.
As I said in the email, all responses were confidential. But here are a few aggregated descriptors for those who voted.
Total voters: 66. (This is just a fraction of my network since a lot of people I asked did not participate.)
Elected officials: 18
Former elected officials: 7
Current county government officials and employees: 15
Current state government officials and employees: 13
Former county government officials and employees: 12
Many of these sources have been active in state and local affairs longer than me. They still call me the new guy.
What you are about to see is a tabulation of how they voted along with some comments. Interpret it as you will!
We will start with elected officials next.