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Mfume Trails Top Rivals in Fundraising
Kweisi Mfume chats with former College Park mayor Dervey Lomax and his wife, Thelma, during a campaign event with Prince George's Democrats at Plato's Diner in College Park. Some say the U.S. Senate candidate hasn't been disciplined about fundraising.
(By Susan Biddle -- The Washington Post)
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The dynamics of the Senate contest in Maryland are infused with issues of race. Mfume is the only black candidate in the Democratic primary, in which African Americans could account for about 40 percent of voters.
In past elections, voters have been drawn to Mfume's transformative personal story: Although he ran with gangs as a teenager and fathered five children with four women, he went on to receive a master's degree at Johns Hopkins University and win a seat on Baltimore's City Council.
Mfume's campaign literature features a Thanksgiving photo of the candidate, 57, with his five sons, whom he has actively supported, and their wives and children.
But the NAACP allegations threaten to cloud that portrait.
In a general election matchup between Mfume and Steele -- the first African American elected statewide in Maryland -- Republicans could shift the conversation from race to character, Walters said.
"Most people believe that Steele is a formidable contender," said Rep. Albert R. Wynn, a Prince George's Democrat who has not endorsed a candidate in the primary. "I think that Steele's character and his family are perceived as one of his stronger assets."
Against Cardin, Steele could tap lingering resentment over Democrat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's decision not to pick a black running mate in her 2002 gubernatorial bid.
But Cardin has ties to local black leaders, including state Sen. Delores G. Kelley (D-Baltimore County), who has worked with him through an organization called the Black/Jewish Forum of Baltimore. John Louis Wright, a Guilford pastor and former Maryland NAACP president, backs Cardin in the primary and counts himself as one of "a lot of people who have a strong belief in moral character."
Who would he support in a general election contest between Mfume and Steele?
"I think you got the message already," Wright said.
Mfume sounded more mystified than angry about such impressions. "I don't worry about things that aren't true," he said. "It's not what people throw at you; it's how you fight back."
