By Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Scott L. Rolle's introduction to the class on Maryland politics began with academic blasphemy.
"You don't have to be an A student, you don't have to be on the honor roll -- I was none of those -- to be a success in life," Rolle, the Republican candidate for Maryland attorney general, told teacher Zach Messitte and his students during a visit to St. Mary's College. "In the classes I liked, I got A's. In the classes I didn't like, I got less than A's."
It was a heartfelt bit of advice from Rolle, the Frederick County state's attorney and the kind of politician who plays campaign trail hooky for a few hours each Sunday to watch football. He's a lawyer in the Army Reserve, a churchgoing Catholic who seems surprised when someone has heard of Ohio Northern University, where he went to law school. He shows up at rock concerts more often than news conferences and has a MySpace account. And his least favorite part of politics is begging other people for contributions.
"I hate that part of it," Rolle said during the visit to St. Mary's College earlier this month. "I despise it."
The way he tells it, if Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) hadn't asked him to enter the race, he probably wouldn't be in the game at all. After running unopposed in the Republican primary, he is now a David facing the Goliath of the Maryland legal world: Douglas F. Gansler, the Montgomery County state's attorney.
Gansler, 43, is everything Rolle, 45, is not. He's Yale-educated, the head prosecutor in one of Maryland's most populous and prosperous counties, famous for bringing the Beltway snipers to trial in Maryland and a politician who isn't shy about raising money. According to a campaign finance report issued in early September, Gansler had more than $1 million in his war chest. Rolle had $69,000.
But the most vital difference is that Rolle is a Republican and Gansler is a Democrat. In a state where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans 2 to 1, unknown GOP candidates start with a major handicap.
Over lunch at St. Mary's, Jae Lim, a student who had worked in Gansler's campaign, cut right to the political reality. "A Baltimore Sun poll came out a few weeks ago showing you 29 points behind Doug Gansler . . ." -- "Twenty-eight," Rolle interrupted. (The Sun poll, taken in mid-September, showed that 54 percent of 815 likely voters would vote for Gansler and 26 percent would vote for Rolle. Rolle said that even his internal poll showed that he was 15 to 16 points behind.) Lim asked how he would surmount those odds.
"Two words: shoe leather," Rolle said.
So his shoes carried him to St. Mary's in Southern Maryland, where Messitte's class has become a kind of mecca for Maryland politicians. After lunch, Rolle, a trim man who runs regularly, stood in front of the 25 students in a cramped classroom, ready to make his pitch.
"Anybody who doesn't know what a state's attorney is raise your hand," Rolle said. Nobody did.
"Nobody will admit it," he said.
"It's like a district attorney," a student said.
Right, Rolle said. And the attorney general is essentially the state government's chief legal officer. The office has 390 lawyers and is responsible for overseeing the juvenile justice system, representing the state in appellate court cases and providing legal advice to the state government.
The students peppered him with questions about his political views and priorities. He vowed to crack down on child sex offenders by changing the system of good behavior credits that allow them to get out of prison early. He would like to strengthen protections against identity theft. And he said he would like to assign more lawyers to focus on enforcing environmental protection laws -- a point of view unusual for a Republican candidate, he noted.
Messitte asked a natural follow-up question: "Why are you a Republican?"
"My parents were," Rolle said. "This race is, in a sense, nonpartisan. I will run that office in a nonpartisan way." He acknowledged some frustration with other Republican candidates who did not reach out to traditionally Democratic groups.
"I went to an NAACP forum in Prince George's County," he said. "I was the only Republican who showed up. That's ridiculous."
The outreach has worked, to some extent. Rolle got the endorsement of the Prince George's police union last month.
Rolle, who is married and has three children, has called on younger voters as well. He advertises his campaign on his page on MySpace, an online networking site, where 256 people have listed themselves as his friends. Under an entry listing his heroes, there is a picture of him speaking at a rally, with the rap-inspired title "Fo' Shizzle!"
Some found that persuasive: "just for being on myspace i'll vote for u," one of Rolle's online fans wrote in the comments section of the Web page. Another reported that he had spotted Rolle at a reunion of Kix, a rock band popular in the 1980s.
Rolle, whose name is pronounced "rawley," grew up in Montgomery County, attending Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda before going to the University of Dayton in Ohio. He majored in communication and said that he thought he would become a sports agent but that an exposure to trial law pulled him into the legal profession. He was in private practice before becoming an assistant state's attorney and narcotics prosecutor in Frederick. He was elected state's attorney in 1994 and won reelection twice.
Rolle also works for the 154th Legal Support Organization, the Army Reserve unit to which he is attached as a captain. He said one of his most interesting experiences with the Army was working as part of the legal team that defended Sgt. Michael J. Smith, one of the dog handlers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Smith was sentenced to six months in prison for allowing his dog to lunge within inches of an Iraqi prisoner. Rolle defended Smith vociferously, saying guards had to behave aggressively to keep control.
Rolle compared his 12 years of experience as a state's attorney favorably with that of Gansler, who has been state's attorney in Montgomery since 1999. He pointedly observed that Gansler was reprimanded by the Maryland Court of Appeals in 2003 for talking to the media about a case. (Gansler has said the decision was politically motivated.) And Rolle disapproved of the decision to try the sniper case in Montgomery County, saying that if it had gone badly, it could have undermined the snipers' convictions in Virginia.
"A lot of people believe he tried the sniper case in Montgomery County not to give the victims their day in court but to get his day on TV," Rolle said of Gansler.
Rolle summed up his legal philosophy this way: "I look at a case, I look at the law, I add a dash of common sense and that's usually what I do."
His answers seemed to charm Messitte's students.
"I grew up in an astoundingly Democratic house," said Brittany Toscano, a junior. "I went into it not knowing about him, but I leave wanting to know more."
So it was a small victory on the campaign trail. "I had to give up my seat to do this, so I'm either up or I'm out," Rolle said. "I'm a big believer in fate. Whatever happens, there's a reason I'm doing this."
And if he doesn't make it?
"I gotta be honest with you, that's kind of exciting," he said. "I really don't have a plan. If one door closes, another will open."
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