Brown, Franchot in; Mfume stepping up; more MoCo politics

[OnBackground]

Everyone is focused on the biggest races, so word that Kweisi Mfume is stepping up his fundraising by hiring a big gun consultant to help him get some traction in the Senate race should probably be the first note. No predictions or endorsement, just info that he's shifting up not down.

Second, Del. Anthony Brown (D-PG) is jumping into the AG race, hiring staff to get him in place for a race against MoCo Council Pres. Tom Perez, MoCo State's Atty Doug Gansler, and possibly a Baltimore candidate. Same goes for Del. Peter Franchot (D-MoCo) who is hiring field and finance staff for his prospective run for Comptroller against Willie Don.

Of course, with Tom Perez talking about moving on people are starting to jockey to run for his safely Democratic 5th district council seat. Names like previous candidate Donnell Peterman and TP City Councilman Marc Elrich, as well as the names of less well known folks are being bandied about. And Gansler has already drawn at least one challenger in lawyer Dan Fox.

Franchot's clear interest in statewide office, the virtual invisibility of Del. Gareth Murray in the district, and the ages and performance of Sen. Ida Ruben and Del. Sheila Hixson means that the 20th will be busy next year. Already TP City Councilwoman Joy Austin-Lane is raising money, Heather Mizeur is actively talking to people, fmr County Councilman Blair Ewing mentioned his own interest in the Post a couple of months back, and others like Progressive Maryland Executive Director Tom Hucker, lawyer and professor Jamie Raskin, Democratic activist and Silver Spring Citizens Advisory Board leader Jose Vazquez, and others are mentioned as being interested.

The recently completed 18th legislative district replacement process (for retired Del. John Hurson) that featured nine declared candidates produced a new delegate, but may well have encouraged a number of competitors to get into the race next year for a full four year term. Of the several young candidates who were never seriously in competition for the seat at least a couple can be assumed to have been planning for the future, and one expects to see them gearing up for 2006 any day. They join a bumper crop of young democrats running for the legislature in Maryland.