Maryland Senate Race Heats Up

Hmmm. Interesting developments in the Maryland Senate race...

Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele accused a leading Democratic congressman yesterday of racial insensitivity for saying the Republican candidate has "slavishly" followed the GOP.

Steele, an African American running for the U.S. Senate, was reacting to remarks by House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, who characterized Steele this week as having had "a career of slavishly supporting the Republican Party."

After speaking to members of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce gathered in Ocean City, Steele called the description "the height of arrogance."

"It goes to just the sheer craziness of some in the Democratic Party who think they can use racist terms and infer things about me just because I'm an African American Republican," he said.

Steele added that he expects his Democratic opponent, Benjamin L. Cardin, to "stand up and tell his team to sit down and shut up, stop the noise and apologize."

Hoyer's comments, first reported by MSNBC, came Sunday as he was introducing Cardin to a group of black business owners in Upper Marlboro, and his choice of words did not cause a visible reaction from the crowd.

"There was absolutely no offense taken or noticed," said event organizer Melvin Forbes, chief executive of Cool Wave Water. "It was obvious that Steny was simply talking about Steele's constant support for the Republican agenda."

The Rev. Anthony Evans, who heads a group called the National Black Church Initiative, released a statement last night calling Hoyer's comment "outrageous and destructive." "If I did not know Rep. Steny Hoyer, I would say that he is a racist," Evans said.

"I shouldn't have used those words," Hoyer said yesterday, through a spokesman. "If Mr. Steele did in fact take offense let me assure him that none was intended."

Okay -- let me start by noting that the Post published this story on p.2 of the Metro section. If George Allen had said it, it would be on p.1 of the lead section of the paper... for the next week.

With that being said, I don't think Steny Hoyer is a racist, any more than George Allen. To me, this is just an exceedingly poor choice of words and bad judgment. Of course, Hopyer may be dipping into something else. I think most Democrats are stunned that African-American Republicans exist, let alone run for public office. And since the other two running for office this year are going to lose badly in governor's races (Ken Blackwell in Ohio and Lynn Swann in Pennsylvania), Steele is a highly visible African-American candidate who could be a symbol the Dems don't want -- an elected African-American Republican Senator.

Steele's opponent, Rep. Ben Cardin, has experienced problems with getting African-American voters excited about his campaign. This isn't going to help. Then again, maybe Cardin's having enough problems getting anyone excited about his campaign, since he's using campaign workers in his ads to imitate real people. Of course, it might help if Cardin himself was excited about his campaign... but that's hard to believe, since he makes Al Gore look charismatic.