JUICE: AFSCME Endorses Frosh for AG, MCDCC's Charlotte Crutchfield Running for Arora's D19 Seat, Mizeur = Lefty MD?

Below Maryland Juice provides a few items that may be of interest to Free State politicos:

JUICE #1: CHARLOTTE CRUTCHFIELD TO RUN FOR DISTRICT 19 DELEGATE // MOCO DEMOCRATIC CENTRAL COMMITTEE MEMBER SEEKS TO REPLACE SAM ARORA - Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee (MCDCC) member Charlotte Crutchfield confirmed to Maryland Juice that she is throwing her hat into the ring for District 19 House of Delegates. Crutchfield is running in the June 2014 Democratic Primary, now that D19 Delegate Sam Arora has announced he is retiring at the end of his term. Crutchfield's bio on the MCDCC site states:

Charlotte Crutchfield

MCDCC: Charlotte Crutchfield was elected to MCDCC in 2010. She is the Liaison for District 19. Ms. Crutchfield serves on Rules Committee, Voter Protection Committee, Ballot Question Review Committee and Strategic Planning Committee. Ms. Crutchfield has served on the Executive Board for Women’s Suburban Democratic Club (Women’s Democratic Club and was a member of the District 19 Democratic Club, as well as the Hispanic Democratic Club and the African-American Democratic Club.

She served as Girl Scout leader, President of the Glenallan ES PTA, and the Board of Directors of Tivoli Home Owners Association. Ms. Crutchfield is a member of the Montgomery County Bar Association, N.A.A.C.P, and the Red Hat Society. She has served as Committee Chair for the Howard University Alumni Club of Montgomery County and is a supporter of Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. Ms. Crutchfield is an attorney, having gotten her BA at Howard University and her JD at Boston College Law School. She has two children.

District 19 is currently represented by three Democratic Delegates: Sam Arora, Bonnie Cullison and Ben Kramer. Though Arora is retiring, Cullison and Kramer are both seeking re-election. In addition, two additional candidates have already announced for the D19 House of Delegates: Melodye Berry and Marice Morales.


JUICE #2: SEN. BRIAN FROSH WINS ENDORSEMENTS OF AFSCME FOR JUNE 2014 ATTORNEY GENERAL RACE - Yesterday Maryland Juice received the following press release from State Senator Brian Frosh's Attorney General campaign announcing the endorsement of AFSCME at an event today:

MEDIA ADVISORY

AFSCME Council 3 to Endorse Democratic Candidate
Brian Frosh for Attorney General

Baltimore, MD- The AFSCME Council 3 will give their full support and endorsement to Democratic candidate, State Senator Brian Frosh, who is running to be the next Attorney General of Maryland.

WHO: AFSCME Council 3, representing 25,000 workers in the state of Maryland.

WHAT: AFSCME Council 3 President Patrick Moran and AFSCME members will formally endorse State Senator Brian Frosh for Maryland Attorney General at a rally in Baltimore.

WHERE: AFSCME International Union Office
1410 Bush Street, 1st Floor
Baltimore, Maryland 21230

WHEN: Saturday, November 16, 2013 at 10:00 AM

###

JUICE #3: BALTIMORE SUN SAYS HEATHER MIZEUR'S CAMPAIGN REFLECTS LEFTWARD SHIFT IN MARYLAND - A Maryland Juice reader pointed us in the direction of a fascinating piece from The Baltimore Sun's editorial board titled "Our view: Underdog gubernatorial campaign follows the state's leftward shift." In the piece below, The Sun's ed board argues that Maryland voters are now ideological and more prone to support leftward politics than engage in regional battles (excerpt below):

BALTIMORE SUN: The conventional political wisdom about Del. Heather Mizeur's pick of the Rev. Delman Coates as her running mate is that it shows her campaign for governor is more about making a point than winning the Democratic primary.... But the more interesting question is not what the selection says about the Mizeur campaign than what the Mizeur campaign says about the state of Maryland politics....

The fact that Mr. Coates does not balance the ticket other than racially — de rigueur at this point in Maryland Democratic politics — could be read as a further sign that Ms. Mizeur is not doing what it takes to win. Like her, he is from the Washington suburbs, and like her, he is well to the liberal side of the spectrum.

But what that analysis misses is the extent to which we have shifted from a tribal to an ideological stage in our politics.... Now, though, it's less a matter of family and community tradition and more a question of political philosophy. To a great extent, machine politics has given way to people organizing through affinity groups on Facebook and Twitter that make old geographic boundaries irrelevant.

In the process, the character of Democratic politics has changed. Traditionally, the party's office holders were often moderate or even conservative on social and cultural issues. But the last four years saw a real shift to the left in Annapolis.... There's not much electoral room for a candidate to run to the right of the field in next year's Democratic primary — Comptroller Peter Franchot, an astute reader of the political landscape, kicked the tires on that proposition rather thoroughly and decided to stay put....

This is a provocative (but perhaps now obvious) take on the state of Maryland politics. But Maryland Juice has been trying to make this point for a couple years now!  At least some of our state's Democrats are beginning to act on these new opportunities. Indeed, progressive politics are the new normal in Maryland.

OH BOY: Sun Posts Photo of Doug Gansler at Beach Week Underage Drinking Party // Another Wild News Cycle Brewing?

The Baltimore Sun's Erin Cox & Michael Dresser just posted a crazy new story about Doug Gansler that threatens to create another mayhem-filled news cycle for Maryland's Attorney General. The mainstream media previously went wild with news that Gansler may have ordered his detail of state troopers to break traffic rules. But the story was beginning to die down, and Gansler tried to put things to rest this week by paying a speeding ticket he was alleged to have ignored.

Now The Sun is out with a new story highlighting Doug Gansler's visit to his son's beach week party last June, where underage drinking was apparently rampant (excerpt below):

BALTIMORE SUN: When Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler arrived at a house party of teenagers in June, he pushed through the crowd, past youngsters dancing on a table and a smattering of red plastic cups. One of the revelers snapped a photo. As the night wore on, teens at the South Bethany rental home posted tweets, photos and videos of a bash labeled the "eviction party" for its intensity — a celebration where underage participants later confirmed many were drinking alcohol....

"Assume for purposes of discussion that there was widespread drinking at this party," Gansler said. "How is that relevant to me? … The question is, do I have any moral authority over other people's children at beach week in another state? I say no...."

During his brief stay at the teens' party, he was captured in both a video and a photo posted online. He did not dispute the authenticity of those images....  Gansler was part of a group of parents who paid for a weeklong stay at a six-bedroom beach house after their sons' graduation from the private Landon School in Bethesda....

"I don't remember much, but it was one of the best parties I've been to, hands down," said one attendee....

ANALYSIS: Put aside for a second whether you think Gansler's apathy about the beach week drinking is a big deal or not. Either way, you must admit that the optics of this are just horrible coming off of the wave of negative press regarding the State Trooper story. Unfortunately for Gansler, there is video footage and photos of him in the presence of the drunken revelers, though The Sun only published one photo example (see image below and note that I circled Gansler in yellow).  A few Maryland Juice sources suggested that the barrage of negative stories in the press must have been leaked by one of Gansler's rivals (or his rivals' allies). But they provided various explanations and conclusions for the timing of these stories. One source wondered whether all of these hits were coming too early in the 2014 election cycle and would be better released closer to the election. But another source suggested that a rival campaign might be trying to define Gansler (who may be unknown to much of the electorate) early in the cycle or encourage him out of the race. And yet a third source suggested that there could just be an endless folder of opposition research being trickled out throughout the course of the campaign. Either way, Maryland Juice's previous prediction that we were headed into a negative gubernatorial race may be quickly proving true. Just look at the photo that The Baltimore Sun released:

More on the heated Maryland Governor's race soon!

MARYLAND JUICE MILESTONE: Over 900,000 PageViews // Thanks for Reading & Helping Me Hack Maryland Politics

Maryland Juice is thrilled to celebrate a new milestone: last night our upstart blog earned over 900,000 pageviews, and we've only been at this for just under two years:

More below the fold.....

Editorial Juice // Blaine Young for Gov?, Prince of Darkness Endorses Marriage Equality, The Sun Disses English Laws

UPDATE: A Maryland Juice reader calls into question whether Blaine Young is actually planning a run for Governor. They point out that his name was also incorrectly floated for CD6. The allegation originally comes from Frederick politico Joe Volz's Gazette column (noted below).

Maryland Juice presents two tidbits of editorial commentary from the Free State's politico pipeline.

Editorial Juice #1: Prince of Darkness Endorses Marriage Equality - Former Gov. Bob Ehrlich's hatchet-man Joe Steffen (aka the Prince of Darkness) recently endorsed marriage equality in Maryland. He also weighed in on Cowardgate (aka the GOP's cover story for hate) and defends First Lady Katie O'Malley's remarks:

Look, no matter where you stand on the marriage equality issue – and for the record, and despite the fact it’s going to light up about half of my friends, I favor passage of the bill – I think the question should be “Why did she apologize?”

The way I’m hearing it, there were a few legislators who switched sides at the last minute out of fear of reprisals if they voted for the bill. To those legislators who have strong beliefs either in favor of or in opposition to the bill, that’s fine. Vote your conscience. BUT, if you’re going to jump at the last moment out of fear of what may happen if you don’t – you’re a coward.  And no apologies will be forthcoming from this end.

Maryland Juice agrees with Mr. Steffen and doesn't think there was need for an apology. Either way, I'm glad that The Prince of Darkness is no coward!

Editorial Juice #2: Blaine Young for Governor? Plus, The Baltimore Sun Disses "English Language" Stunts - The Sun's editorial board yesterday called out the stupidity of Frederick and Anne Arundel County proposals to designate English as the official language of County government (excerpt below, full article at The Sun):

Arundel English-only bill: A hostile, empty gesture
Our view: Proposals to make English the 'official language' are code for demonizing immigrants

County Councilman Jerry Walker wants to make English the official language of Anne Arundel County. That would make perfect sense if English weren't already, for all practical purposes, the county's official language. When was the last time you heard someone complain they couldn't read a county parking ticket or other official document because it was written in Urdu or Farsi?

The fact that this never occurs ought to be a clue: This is not serious legislation but rather a piece of political theater that would achieve nothing more than puffing up the councilman's reputation among the anti-immigrant crowd....

Advocating such laws is, as Mr. Walker openly admits, code for "you're not welcome here," and politicians embrace the tactic because it's a way of giving the appearance of responding to voters' concerns about illegal immigration without actually doing anything about it....

Local News 2.0: Gazette Begins Groupon-style "Deal of the Day" Service

CORRECTION: The Gazette has contacted Maryland Juice to make a few significant corrections to this article. It turns out the Gazette opened the "Daily Deal" revenue stream in 2010 -- not recently. Perhaps they even precede the Washington Posts "Capital Deal" program. I guess local papers were innovating earlier than we thought. Oops!

1. We started the Daily deal on 11/17/2010, just about a year ago.  Not just recently as your article states. 
2. No idea was migrated from The Washington Post to The Gazette, including The Daily Deal.  We chose to do that on our own because we could see from Groupon, Living Social, and other such groups that there were revenue opportunities that looked promising. 
3. We are not the local news arm of The Washington Post….we run independently of The Post Newspaper.  We do provide some content to their Local Living section of The Washington Post Newspaper, but our newspapers are independent companies within The Washington Post Company, and not a part of The Washington Post Newspaper

UPDATE: An area journalist has pointed out that even Kaplan is now failing to prop up the Washington Post's revenue. See this article: "Washington Post third quarter newspaper losses exacerbated by Kaplan declines."

As newspapers increasingly struggle to find revenue models in the digital era, we are seeing novel new activities from area papers. Some, like the Baltimore Sun, seem slow to think beyond the traditional combo of subscription-fee and advertiser-driven revenue models. In fact, the Sun has begun doubling down on this model by charging readers to see articles. Note: it takes a few seconds for the "Sun Block" to kick in, so if you quickly hit Ctrl-A, then Ctrl-C, you can copy the article content into a word processor to read it without any annoying obstructions. :)

I think charging readers for news content is a long-term losing proposition (unless you are a trade publication), but I will write more about that later. For now, let me just say that portions of the newspaper industry seem to be following the path of the record companies and film/tv industry in being very slow to adjust their business models to the new world order of the Internet. In fact, if you count on advertising revenue for much of your financing, it seems difficult to reconcile that with the lower number of pageviews you will get when you start charging readers for your content.

As Maryland Politics Watch often mentioned, The Washington Post has the ability to subsidize its news coverage through profits from its Kaplan test prep company. Now WaPo and its local news arm, The Gazette, are kicking in yet another novel revenue stream -- by competing with "deal-of-the-day" websites like Groupon and Living Social. The Post had already been doing this for months, under the name Capitol Deal, and I am guessing that is a successful model since they've migrated the idea to The Gazette. See the image to the right.

Basically, it looks like the Post & Gazette are looking for new ways of monetizing their reader base and email lists. Very interesting. What next, Gazette-branded burger chains? Mmm.

LAME: Baltimore Sun to Charge for Online Content

Baltimore-based news site Charm City Now alerted Maryland Juice to the lame news that the Baltimore Sun has decided to start charging readers for online access. Granted, they have filed for bankruptcy and the newspaper industry is in serious distress, but is this really the right move? The AP had this story: