A competitor and public servant worthy of our votes
By Brian E. Frydenborg (Twitter @bfry1981, Threads @bfchugginalong, LinkedIn, Facebook, Substack with exclusive informal content) May 22, 2024; see all of Brian’s Maryland U.S. Senate race coverage here; because of YOU, Real Context News surpassed one million content views on January 1, 2023, but I still need your help, please keep sharing my work and consider also donating! Real Context News produces commissioned content for clients upon request at its discretion. Note: all poll numbers and poll margins are rounded to nearest whole numbers unless otherwise indicated
SILVER SPRING—While votes are still being counted and, after detailed research, I fully expect my current sixth-place tally to shift into at least fifth out of ten overall candidates in the Maryland Democratic U.S. Senate primary (and I will be writing more about why I am proud my bare-bones campaign was able to outperform likely half the other candidates soon, once all votes are counted), there is absolutely no question as to who is the clear, resounding winner in this race: and that is Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks.
She “Veni vidi vici”-ed this primary like a black female Julius Caesar.
As in sports and war, there is doubt about who will triumph in political contests. Whoever is up at halftime or in the middle of battle is not guaranteed to win. What matters in the end is hanging tough, competing, and how you finish, how many points you put up when the clock has stopped, where you are when the fighting, battle, and war ends. And in this undercovered-by-the-media Democratic primary, with no statewide official or celebrity running, when few people paid much attention until close to the end, it is now clear to me from the admittedly limited polling data and the crystal-clear election results that when people did start paying attention, they went bigtime for Angela and she won over so many undecided voters rapidly towards the end of the race, far more than any other candidate. And thus, her double-digit victory announced to doubters (including myself,), Maryland, and America that, yes, she can win.
In this race, I always intended to compete seriously, and that I did, standing on stage with Angela and debating her five times. During the debates (“forums”), in our discussions before and after these events, and at two events in which I was not participating as a candidate, she was always respectful and polite in her personal interactions to me, even when we had a disagreement, even though I never broke out past 1% in the polling. She even surprised me with an unexpected hug at one point.
I’ve seen this woman up close and in person, sat next to her and even shared a mic that we had to keep passing back-and-forth between us while debating, heard her answers and opinions, witnessed her quiet fierceness exhibiting her composed passion for the issues, for justice, for Maryland, for people. I’ve seen her improve over time as a candidate as well, and all I can say is, she finished strong, closed out like a pro, and I am proud to have lost to such a worthy competitor. Now I see much of what her biggest champions—our governor, Wes Moore; our U.S. Senator, Chris Van Hollen; and my U.S. Representative, Jamie Raskin—have seen when they endorsed her well before the race had ended.
Angela is a lifelong Marylander who has been leading where she was and been active politically since her days on the student government in her high school. By now, she has dedicated nearly three decades to public service in Prince George’s County Maryland, first in 1997 as the first Assistant State’s Attorney tasked specifically with dealing with domestic violence, then as the first woman elected to be Prince Goerge’s County State’s Attorney 2010, then in 2018 as the first woman elected to be Prince George’s County Executive and the first black woman to be elected as a county executive anywhere in Maryland. And if you are a person with even an ounce of wisdom, you know that black women on average face more discrimination, have less support, are underrepresented in leadership, and have to work far harder than white men, white women, and even black men to get where they are professionally and politically. And she has the chance to become only the third elected and fourth overall African-American woman U.S. Senator (after Carol Moseley Braun, now-Vice President Kamala Harris—a longtime supporter of Angela’s, whom Angela considers a “quintessential big sister”—and the appointed Laphonza Butler).
At this point, I can say that Angela Alsobrooks has earned our respect and our support, and I say that as a former competitor and as someone with nearly two-and-half decades of experience engaging in national-level and international-level political, public policy, and geopolitical issues. Another thing I am going to say is don’t underestimate black women who organize: Angela is a Delta Sigma Theta Sorority (founded at nearby Howard University in Washington) sister and, as we are talking about the state outside of the South with the largest African-American population, we can expect her sorority sisters in Maryland—and also at Howard, in Washington, and across the nation—to be a potent force working on the ground and online to helping to propel Angela into the U.S. Senate. She has deep roots in the state’s second-most-populous county and the support of the vast majority of the major statewide Democratic politicians known and loved by the Marylanders they represent and govern. She has shown she can generate passion, defy expectations, and finish dominatingly yet with grace and dignity in hotly a contested race under a national spotlight.
I had my concerns during the race, but Angela Alsobrooks has shown me and many others in Maryland she is a force of nature to be reckoned with, a formidable candidate able to overcome stiff competition, an even-keeled, thoughtful, deliberative candidate and public servant who is capable yet humble, a fighter yet respectful, compassionate yet a prosecutor, one who can help lead our nation on the U.S. Senate floor as we fight for truth in an age of disinformation and preserving our democracy against the extremism of insurrectionist Trump’s MAGA fascism.
Even though Larry Hogan is a decent man, was a popular two-term governor here in Maryland, and may oppose Trump, insurrectionism, and fascism, he will still be voting far, far too often with Trump’s disgusting cultists who form the core of House and, yes, Senate Republicans, whose ranks Hogan seeks to bolster. Angela will protect a woman’s right to choose and voting rights, she will vote for more funding for the people of Maryland not to cut the budgets of much needed-programs, and she will encourage economic development while holding crooked CEOs accountable and pushing for profits to be shared with workers not just CEOs.
The choice is clear: to replace Ben Cardin, we need Angela Alsobrooks, not Larry Hogan, not any Republican, but we need Angela Alsbrooks not just because she is a Democrat but because she really is great for all of the reasons I have outlined above. Don’t just vote against Hogan, vote for Angela Alsobrooks.
I’m all in for Angela. Are you? You should be.
Now is the time to get behind Angela!
© 2024 Brian E. Frydenborg all rights reserved, permission required for republication, attributed quotations welcome
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