Long Shot Josh Rales Trying to Get Noticed

By Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 11, 2006

Josh Rales strolled down a pier in Accokeek, leaned on a rail and pointed to Mount Vernon across the Potomac River as a gentle breeze brushed the water. A man never short of words, Rales offered a lesson.

"There's a lot we can learn from this guy," Rales said of the man who called Mount Vernon home. "If our leaders had studied George Washington and understood the values that were born with our nation, we wouldn't have made the same mistakes."

Marylanders who watch television may know the mistakes to which Rales was referring: the war in Iraq, dependence on foreign oil and educational shortfalls. Rales has launched a statewide barrage of television spots that he plans to continue through September's primary in his quest for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate. A millionaire real estate investor and philanthropist from Potomac, Rales has said he will spend as much as $5 million of his money.

Rales, 48, a political neophyte, promises to bring fresh ideas to Congress. He wants to see an end to the war in Iraq and to the "enormous complacency" among elected officials. He compares himself to Ned Lamont, who defeated three-term Democratic Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman this week in a Connecticut primary. But unlike Lamont, Rales has yet to connect with voters.

Rales received the support of 1 percent of registered Maryland voters in a Washington Post poll in June. His standing probably has improved since he launched an advertising campaign last month, but with barely four weeks to go before the primary, it's a tall order to overcome longtime Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin and former congressman Kweisi Mfume, who are leading the Democratic field.

Rales and a veteran staff drawn from past Democratic presidential campaigns are trying to build momentum, starting today with a 10-day statewide bus tour. "I'm in this to win," Rales said in a recent interview.

At the Prince George's County African American Heritage Festival on Saturday, Rales moved briskly through the crowd, homing in on a woman and her two daughters eating cheeseburgers and fried fish at a shaded picnic bench.

"Have you seen my ads?" he asked, as he shook the woman's hand.

"I have. I try not to get too political, but they're pretty good," replied Tonya Charleston, 46, of Accokeek. "It shouldn't matter, the Zip code. . . . The whole state is hurting," she added, referring to Rales' latest spot about discrepancies in school quality on the basis of school locations.

"I can't guarantee you that I can change everything," Rales told her, in a line he would repeat again and again that day. "But what I can guarantee you is that I'll fight the good fight."

As Rales walked away from Charleston, he told aides, "It never ceases to amaze me how sophisticated people are."

Rales campaigns with a sunny disposition; the toothy smile rarely disappears from his long face. His conversations are peppered with strings of statistical information, historical references and quotations from the likes of Harry S. Truman, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Robert F. Kennedy.

At the pier across from Mount Vernon, he told a couple of children about Washington's journey from land surveyor to aristocrat to war hero to the nation's first president.

"You have fun. That's a story for the day," Rales told the children.

Rales doesn't talk as much about his own history-- at least in this Democratic primary. You see, Rales was a Republican not too long ago. He toyed with the idea of challenging Democratic Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski as a Republican in 2004, and he and his wife, Debra, have been major donors to GOP candidates, campaign finance records show. They have given $10,250 to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), most recently in September 2004. They gave $4,000 to President Bush in 2003.

A fiscal conservative and social moderate, Rales said he began to feel uncomfortable in the Republican Party in the 1990s when right-wing religious fundamentalists gained prominence. His main regret, he said, is that it took him until 2004 to change parties. "You don't just flip a switch," he said. "The disillusionment can take a long time."

Rales was born in Pittsburgh to a family of modest means and grew up in Montgomery County. He was a football quarterback and baseball player at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda. Rales developed entrepreneurial zeal as a child; he says his father gave him his MBA at the dinner table.

In college at the University of Virginia, he started a travel agency and used profits to pay tuition bills. He later sold the business for five figures.

Then he was off to law school -- not to become a lawyer but to enhance his career.

For more than a decade, Rales made millions of dollars in real estate development and investments in the Maryland suburbs. In the past few years, he said, he has sold all of his investments in preparation for a run for public office.

As Rales traverses the state this week and next, Democrats are wondering how much of an impact he will have on the Sept. 12 primary. Many political analysts believe that he will not win but that his aggressive ad campaign will draw votes away from Cardin and help propel Mfume to the nomination.

At the Accokeek festival, campaigning for his own reelection just a few yards away from Rales, state Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) dismissed the candidate as a "spoiler."

"He's going to force Cardin to open up his bank account and spend money he needs in the general against [GOP candidate] Michael Steele."

Rales defended himself, saying his "ego is not tied into this."

"I can guarantee you this," he added. "If I don't get the public support, it won't mean they didn't know me."

And voters on the trail do seem to know him. At the festival, Rales scouted for some targets and found two women eating lunch. As he approached the mother and daughter from Fort Washington, Mimi Lim, 66, told Rales that she recognized him from television.

Rales handed the women his campaign business cards and asked, "Do I seem like a phony, or do I seem like I'm real?"