Brian Griffiths: Jealous breaks the mold for Maryland Democrats, but ultimately will fail

Maryland voters are about to experience a once in a generation election this fall.

When the Maryland Democratic Party nominated Ben Jealous for governor during the Primary Election on June 26, the Democrats made a break from the past in a number of different ways.

First, the Democratic tradition of choosing the establishment candidate was not followed. For 40 years, the Democratic machine in Maryland made sure that their candidate was the one that survived the primary and the outside candidate lost.

It didn’t matter how they made it happen, from begging William Donald Schaefer to run in 1986 to stop Stephen Sachs to Doug Duncan’s withdrawal from the 2006 race, the machine made it happen. The establishment did what they could to pull Rushern Baker across the line, but Ben Jealous still won.

Second, Democrats eschewed the traditional profile of a Democratic nominee. Over the last 40 years, the Democrats have nominated so-called “good government” liberals. These have been machine politicians that have extensive experience in elected office with pushing typical Maryland Democratic policies that raise your taxes, increase the size of government, and reduce liberty at the margins. From Schaefer to Anthony Brown, this has been their playbook.

Ben Jealous breaks that mold in quite a few ways.

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