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For Md.'s Cardin, the Delight Is in the Details
U.S. Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin and his wife of more than 40 years, Myrna, met as children growing up "in a neighborhood where families knew everybody."
(By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post)
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A high school playground in his Baltimore district lacked a baseball backstop. Neighborhood youngsters wanted to play there, but the balls kept rolling into the street.
Cardin, who had been elected largely on the strength of his family's name, boldly telephoned the mayor, Thomas J. D'Alesandro III. He was amazed when D'Alesandro took the call, and within weeks the playground had a backstop.
Cardin, who lives in Pikesville, in Baltimore County, and has been a member of the U.S. House of Representatives since 1987, tells the story to show how he first learned politics' potential for good.
But the tale also suggests his faith in process and mechanics.
"If you don't have process," he said, "the people who depend upon the government working for them are going to get hurt."
As for charisma, "it doesn't concern me because it doesn't affect my ability to get things done," he said.
"He's an adult," said U.S. Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), a friend and longtime colleague. "He's a common-sense, hardworking, focused . . . individual."
"He works very hard at mastering policy issues," said Matthew A. Crenson, professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University. "Especially the ones that everybody else finds boring."
But after 20 years in Congress, Cardin is 62. During a televised debate last week with his chief opponent, former congressman and NAACP president Kweisi Mfume, 57, the graying Cardin appeared much the older man.
Cardin also has a strong Baltimore accent, which does not lend itself to oratory and marks him as a son of the city in a state that stretches from the Eastern Shore to the Allegheny Mountains.
Indeed, although Cardin was inspired by the eloquence of John F. Kennedy, he was reared on old-fashioned urban politics and schooled in backroom strategy sessions at the feet of his father and uncle, who were pros.
The Cardin family, descendants of Eastern European immigrants, hailed from the old Jewish neighborhood of East Baltimore around Lombard and Baltimore streets.
