Long-Shot Candidates May Harm Cardin

Kweisi Mfume had a slight lead in a Post poll last month. (Matt Houston - AP)

The other five Democratic U.S. Senate candidates who sat on a riser at the University of Maryland at College Park last week seemed to have the same mission: stick it to Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin.

University professor Allan Lichtman and socialist activist A. Robert Kaufman attacked Cardin for his stand on the Iraq war, while businessman Josh Rales knocked him for being too much of a Capitol Hill insider.

"If we keep electing the same people, we should expect to keep getting the same results," Rales told the audience in the student union.

Cardin shrugged off the criticism, but the jabs and volleys were a reminder of the unique challenge he faces as he seeks the Democratic nomination for an open Senate seat. Even though Cardin remains locked in a tight contest with former NAACP president Kweisi Mfume, the efforts of 16 long-shot Democratic contenders could ultimately determine who wins the Sept. 12 primary.

Political analysts are calling it the "Nader effect" in the Maryland primary, a reference to Ralph Nader, whose third-party bid left some Democrats calling him the spoiler in the 2000 presidential election.

"They may take very small percentages of the vote, but the fact is that Cardin's race with Mfume is so close that they could make the difference," said Matthew Crenson, a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University.

Crenson said the "spoiler candidates" are taking more votes from Cardin because they, like Cardin, are white. Mfume benefits from being the prominent black candidate in a primary in which as many as 40 percent of voters could be African American.

"Clearly, they're subtracting from Cardin's coalition," said Thomas F. Schaller, a political science professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County who is active in Democratic politics and supports Cardin. "The only question is how much."

In a Washington Post poll last month, 13 percent of registered Democrats opted for a candidate other than Cardin or Mfume, including 5 percent who backed former Baltimore county executive Dennis Rasmussen, a candidate whose campaigning has largely been confined to Cardin's home county. Rasmussen's Web site lampoons Cardin as someone who thinks he is entitled to a Senate seat because it's "his turn."

Mike Schaefer, a Baltimore area businessman, has been erecting "Schaefer for Senate" signs across the state, a move that could capitalize on voter confusion over his surname. It's the same as that of William Donald Schaefer, the former four-term Baltimore mayor and two-term governor who is running for reelection as state comptroller. Mike Schaefer, a political neophyte, has a Web site that includes a top 10 list of reasons to vote against Cardin, including: "After 20 years in Congress, America's gotten all his great ideas already. The new term will be ho-hum."

Of greatest concern to Cardin, though, is Rales, political analysts say. A millionaire from Montgomery County who is largely self-financing his campaign, Rales began saturating the airwaves with television ads July 5.

Records compiled by The Post show that Rales, who was backed by 1 percent of voters in the recent poll, has spent at least $2.1 million to run more than 1,800 30-second spots aimed at introducing him to Maryland voters in the Washington and Baltimore media markets. Cardin has yet to air ads.