The DeMarco Factor: Transforming Public Will into Political Power

5. Politics without Partisanship

66 5 Politics without Partisanship As the November general elections approached, DeMarco’s challenge was to inflict electoral damage on those candidates who refused to sign the pledge and enhance the electoral chances of those who did.This was no mean task, as MCI was constrained by both its nonprofit tax-exempt status and its nonpartisan credibility, and most of the candidates who did not sign the pledge turned out to be Republicans (although a good number of Republicans did sign it and some Democrats did not). DeMarco had to devise indirect or alternative means for delivering what needed to be, in effect, a partisan message : Do not vote for this candidate; vote for this one. What made this possible without violating the campaign’s restriction on partisan activity was that many candidates, primarily Democrats who signed the pledge, made MCI a campaign issue on their own. Tod Sher, a Democrat, was challenging an incumbent Republican delegate, Patricia Faulkner, a moderate on many issues but who rigidly opposed tobacco tax increases.With advice from Horn and Lucchi, Sher devised a campaign ad picturing a troubled teenage girl smoking a cigarette against a dark background,with the headline, “Don’t let her life go up in smoke.” Underneath her picture stretched an open cigarette pack on its side,with the (fictitious) label on the box,“warning: The Tobacco Industry Is Not Your Friend.”And at the bottom:“Neither Is Delegate Faulkner.” No Maryland race was more important to the MCI campaign that year than the governor’s—and it was intense and close. “If Ellen Sauerbrey had won,” DeMarco says, “there would have been no chance for a tobacco tax increase.” So without endorsing Governor Glendening, MCI had to do all it could to highlight Sauerbrey’s position on the tobacco tax. One artful tactic was rewarded with this headline in the October 1 Columbia Flier: “‘Buttman’ Shadows Sauerbrey.” Buttman, it turned out, was Carole Fisher,“a 63 year old cancer survivor and Democratic activist, already well known as chairwoman Politics without Partisanship 67 of the Howard County Democratic Party.” Beside the headline a photo shows Fisher in a cigarette costume, holding a large heart that reads,“Big Tobacco Loves Ellen.” Readers learn that Buttman has appeared at every Sauerbrey rally, asking to meet the candidate. This time, she was waiting in the hotel lobby of a rally, eager only to urge the candidate to sign the pledge:“I’m being her conscience,” she told the Flier’s reporter. The article recounts that one of Sauerbrey’s aides turned Buttman’s sign over “so that the words were covered.” Then “Vincent DeMarco, Fisher’s friend and a major player in the push to make Maryland’s cigarette tax the highest in the nation,turned the sign over again.” At this stage of the campaign, the most trusted voices once again were the faith leaders.As a result of Bishop Miles’s forceful advocacy, the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance sponsored a sixty-second radio commercial so controversial that MCI lost some members when it aired, and some people, DeMarco acknowledges,“really chafed”at it but“bit their lips.”Strategic Campaign Initiatives, a local consulting firm run by Bernie Horn, Len Lucchi, and Len’s wife, Brenda Beitzell, created the radio spot and an accompanying brochure . The commercial’s simplicity was elegant, its rhetoric biting, its sound effects devastating.It never mentioned Governor Parris Glendening. [A voice that could have come from the heavens speaks:] A message from the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance. Guns.[SFX: Bang] Tobacco.[SFX: Cough] Gambling.[SFX: Ka-ching] The rich special interest groups have a candidate who does whatever they want. Guns.[SFX: Bang] Tobacco.[SFX: Cough] Gambling.[SFX: Ka-ching] It’s Ellen Sauerbrey. The gun lobby.[SFX: Bang] They wanted Sauerbrey to vote against every reasonable gun law,including restrictions on semiautomatic assault weapons.And she did. The big tobacco companies.[SFX: Cough] They want Sauerbrey to oppose 68 The DeMarco Factor effective measures to curb teen smoking,such as the Maryland Children’s Initiative.And she does. And the casino gambling interests.[SFX: Ka-ching] They want Sauerbrey to stand aside while they fill our state with ten thousand slot machines.And she would. The rich special interests may control Sauerbrey,but they don’t control you. So vote on Tuesday,November 3rd. [SFX: Bang] [SFX: Cough] [SFX: Ka-ching] Because Maryland is our state...