Fundraising Skills a Blessing and a Burden

This is the last in a series of articles profiling candidates for Montgomery county executive.

Nearly a quarter-century ago, a fast-talking, politically ambitious young lawyer named Steven A. Silverman got his entree into Montgomery politics by running the county executive campaign of his mentor, Luiz R.S. Simmons. Underfunded and opposed by the business community, Simmons lost in the primary.

"Steve saw you cannot be successful on behalf of progressive causes if you put yourself in a position where you are not trusted by one of the essential players," Simmons said in a recent interview.

In 1994, Silverman launched his own campaign, this one for the 20th District seat in Maryland's House of Delegates. He and his wife, Stefanie Weiss, invested nearly $60,000 of their money in the campaign. He lost.

"If I run again," his father, Howard Silverman, recalls his son saying after the defeat, "I'm going to be raising money -- not spending my own."

Steve Silverman has internalized the twin lessons of those defeats: Get the business community on your side, and raise plenty of money, preferably not your own. This year, as he campaigns to become the next county executive, Silverman has amassed a record $1.9 million, much of it from the development industry, and won endorsements from business groups as well as from two unions.

But Silverman's fundraising advantage has also become a liability. His critics have pointed to his campaign coffers as a sign that he is aligned with developers, a perception that haunts him in the Sept. 12 primary race against former County Council member Isiah Leggett and Robert Raymond Fustero.

Silverman, who has been on the council since 1998, has shown that he can raise money like a Republican and spend it like a liberal -- an effective combination in Montgomery, a heavily Democratic jurisdiction where many voters expect an array of services, including social programs that pick up where state and federal efforts leave off.

His campaign emphasizes the light-rail link known as the Purple Line, which he hopes will one day connect Bethesda and New Carrollton. Silverman wants voters to see his advocacy of the Purple Line and of using county money to build roads as evidence that he will deliver on a central promise of his campaign: "Sick of Traffic? Vote Silverman."

Short and stocky, a blazer-wearing, tousled-hair dynamo, Silverman, 52, is promoting himself as a decisive leader who can build roads and transit, create affordable housing and expand the job base. He works hard at his campaign, zooming around the county in his much-dinged Ford Taurus, sometimes getting through the intersection just as the light goes red or pulling an illegal U-turn to save time.

Early Political Inclinations

Silverman spent most of his childhood in Portsmouth, N.H. He is the only child of a Republican father and his late mother, Lolly, a Canadian who never voted in the United States. Silverman credits her with instilling in him the liberal values that have made him an advocate for affordable housing, smaller classes and other initiatives aimed at Montgomery's have-nots. "All that stuff comes from my mom," he said.