SUNDAY, JUNE 12 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE C5
BY ERIN COX
AND OVETTA WIGGINSRushern L. Baker III, a former
Prince George’s County executive
with a blunt-talking campaign,
paused his bid to be Maryland’s
next governor Friday, the first
candidate in the 10-man Demo-
cratic field to step back from the
race.
Baker gambled on public fi-
nancing, limiting his donations to
$250 apiece to obtain matching
state funds and craft a grass-roots
narrative.
But in a hypercompetitive race
with opponents raising millions
and voters still largely disen-
gaged, Baker is mulling whether
he has ignited enough support to
make his second bid for the gover-
nor’s mansion viable.
He said in an interview that
he’ll take one week to determine
whether he should permanently
suspend his campaign and en-
dorse a rival, during which time
he hopes campaign donations
pour in.
“To be brutally honest with
you: Rumors circulate that we are
going to drop out, and then our
fundraising numbers go up,” Bak-
er said. The one-week pause “does
give us a chance to see if anything
can change dramatically.”
Baker, 63, said he faced the
reality of having to ask staff to go
unpaid or accumulate additional
campaign debt, neither of which
he would do — even though he
thought he could still win a con-
test in which polling shows a
plurality of voters are undecided.
“I think it’s the right decision to
realistically look at our chances of
winning without the financial re-
sources,” he said of his campaign
with running mate Nancy Navar-
ro, a Montgomery County Council
member.
“I don’t think it’s the message, Idon’t think it’s the ticket.... I do
feel like with so many undecided
voters, it’s a jump ball, and cer-
tainly we could pull it off.”
Baker said regardless of wheth-
er he permanently suspends his
run, voters will see him on the
campaign trail either for himself
or whoever he throws his support
behind.“I want to see a Democrat win,”
he said, adding that outside of
campaigning, he will broadly ad-
vocate to take corporate dona-
tions out of Maryland politics and
address the rampant crime in
Baltimore that has bedeviled
leaders for years.
Baker forcefully raised the is-
sue of unyielding murder rates inthe state’s largest city, calling it a
slaughter of Black men that has
gone largely unaddressed be-
cause they were not White.
“The issues to which we have
spoken on — most notably, the
existential crises of murder and
lawlessness in the city of Balti-
more, and the corrosive effect of
corporate and dark money upon
our political system — have
soundly resonated with voters
and our fellow candidates,” Baker
said in a statement released by
the campaign.
“Furthermore, despite being
dramatically outspent by our
competitors, we have consistently
polled near the top of the Demo-
cratic primary field — a reflection
of the efficient way we have man-
aged our campaign, and a valida-
tion of the ideas we have present-
ed to the people of our great state.”
Baker has been in politics for
decades, becoming a delegate in
1994 and winning his first of two
county executive terms in 2010.
After a bruising loss in the 2018
gubernatorial primary, Baker had
no intention of running for public
office again. But then the pan-
demic hit, crime rose and he
launched a bid in which he prom-
ised to be a “more authentic”
version of himself.
But the same forces that pro-
pelled him to run have also dis-
tracted voters, who candidates
say are not paying attention to the
race.
“They’re concerned about their
own lives,” Baker said. “There aregood and bad parts of public fi-
nancing. One of the good parts is
that you have to talk to a lot of
people. And people haven’t been
paying attention for a while.
They’re just worried about their
lives, not thinking about politics.”
Court battles over redistricting
also pushed the primary into the
height of summer vacation sea-
son, on July 19.
Maryland Democrats are eager
to recapture the governor’s man-
sion after losing to Republicans
three times in the past five elec-
tions, despite a 2-to-1 voter regis-
tration advantage and an elector-
ate that swings deeply blue in
national elections. Candidates
have elevated crime as a chief
issue, along with closing educa-
tional and mental health gaps
widened by the pandemic and
addressing the economy. Term-
limited Republican Gov. Larry
Hogan is not on the ballot.
The crowded Democratic field
features impressive résumés and
decades of political experience.
The candidates are Comptroller
Peter Franchot; former U.S. labor
secretary Tom Perez; best-selling
author and former nonprofit
chief Wes Moore; former U.S. edu-
cation secretary John B. King Jr.;
former state attorney general
Doug Gansler; former Obama ad-
ministration official Ashwani
Jain; public policy expert and phi-
lanthropist Jon Baron; former
philosophy and public policy pro-
fessor Jerome Segal; and peren-
nial candidate Ralph Jaffe.MARYLAND
Former Pr. George’s executive suspends governor bid
AMANDA ANDRADE-RHOADES FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Former Prince George’s County executive Rushern L. Baker III on Friday paused his gubernatorial bid.
The Democrat said he will take a week to decide whether to permanently suspend the campaign.nonprofit called Love100 and a
company called Love1. “Gun
violence is a symptom of a broken
nation.... Love is going to
address ‘Why did I pick up this
gun?’ Love is going to address
‘Why have Black people been
suffering from violence again and
again?’ Love is going to hold and
heal people through their
brokenness.”
Brown said he believes that
this time is different and that
people will come together, but he
also knows that real change often
takes time.
“Even after this march,” he
said, “I’m still going to be afraid
for my life in this country, in my
hood and theirs.”
In the days since the Uvalde
shooting, schools across the
country have experienced a wave
of violent threats. One of those
threats occurred at my children’s
elementary school and directly
involved my fourth-grader’s class.
The incident left me
concerned, and not just for my
kids. It left me concerned for the
young person who made the
threat and for a country where
the threat of gun violence has
become an accepted part of
childhood.
It also left me thinking about
fourth-graders — the ones we’ve
lost and the ones we will lose if
this time isn’t different.those who would abuse our gun
laws to slaughter the people we
care about. This time, we have to
demand more of our lawmakers
than lazy sound bites.
This time needs to be different
because we know too well what
will happen if it’s not.
Surrounding that march,
throughout Washington, are
plenty of reminders of that:
Murals of the lost. Grief-gutted
parents. Traumatized children.
People paralyzed by bullets. And
constant threats of school
violence, some that make the
news and many that don’t.
RuQuan Brown, a 20-year-old
Harvard University student who
attended Benjamin Banneker
Academic High in D.C., was
among the scheduled speakers for
the march. He has been
personally affected by gun
violence. It took from him a
football teammate in 2017 and his
stepfather in 2018.
“We, in this city, experience this
baloney every day,” Brown said of
District residents.
“Do you feel safe?” I asked him.
“Hell no,” he said. “Hell no. Not
in D.C. Not really anywhere.”
Brown said he planned to
speak about “love” at the march.
“The truth of the matter is that
it isn’t going to get better until
Americans care more about love,”
said Brown, who created athem and the Washington
Monument stood more than
45,000 flowers, creating a visual
reminder of the number of
Americans who die annually from
gun violence. I later talked to my
sons about what they saw and
realized the only truthful
assurance I could offer them was
this: There are people right now
who are trying to reduce that
number.
On Saturday, thousands of
people gathered in D.C. to march
in support of ending gun violence.
The event, which was put
together by leaders of March for
Our Lives, the organization
founded by student survivors of
the 2018 mass shooting at a high
school in Parkland, Fla., comes
weeks after the Uvalde school
shooting and the Buffalo grocery
store shooting that left 10 dead.
“This time will be different,”
March for Our Lives leader David
Hogg, who was 17 when a gunman
killed 14 of his fellow students
and three staff members, tweeted
the day after the Uvalde shooting
and again, in a slightly different
form, on Friday in response to Fox
News publishing his op-ed.
This time needs to be different.
This time, gun owners have to be
part of the solution. This time,
Republicans and Democrats have
to agree that our fight is not
against one another but againstand feeling uneasy at the sight of
police cars that are suddenly
parked outside. We have talked to
them about what happened in
Texas, trying to divulge brutal
facts in gentle ways, before they
find out elsewhere.
Recently, my family was
walking along the National Mall
when we came to a display of
flowers representing lives cut
short by gun violence in the
country. I started to lead my sons
past it quickly, but they pulled me
toward it, and I let them. Betweensaid, “there’s a mom listening to
our testimony, thinking, ‘I can’t
even imagine their pain,’ not
knowing that our reality will one
day be hers unless we act now.”
I am a mom of a fourth-grader
and a second-grader, and she’s
right — I can’t imagine her pain.
But I have spent the days since
the Uvalde shooting knowing that
her reality could easily be mine.
Many parents I know have. We
have been wrapping our arms
around our kids tighter. We have
been dropping them off at schoolTooth Fairy or Santa Claus.
Fourth-graders are old enough
to present reasoned arguments
and young enough to wear
cartoons on their pajamas.
Fourth-graders still get excited
about Happy Meals even as their
appetites outgrow those kid-size
portions.
Fourth-graders, unlike babies,
don’t leave you wondering who
they might become; they offer
constant glimpses.
“If given the opportunity, Lexi
would have made a positive
change in this world,” Kimberly
Rubio said Wednesday during
emotional testimony about her
daughter, who was one of the
children killed by a gunman who
terrorized two fourth-grade
classrooms in Uvalde, Tex., killing
19 students and two teachers.
“She wanted to attend St. Mary’s
University in San Antonio, Texas,
on a softball scholarship. She
wanted to major in math and go
on to attend law school. That
opportunity was taken from her.
She was taken from us.”
Rubio spoke to members of the
House Oversight and Reform
Committee as her husband sat
next to her, and at one point, she
acknowledged parents who were
watching.
“Somewhere out there,” she
VARGAS FROM C1
THERESA VARGAS
This time needs to be different. We know too well what will happen if it’s not.
THERESA VARGAS /THE WASHINGTON POST
The author’s son at a display of flowers on the Mall marking the
more than 45,000 Americans who die each year from gun violence.With Kitchen Saver you receive the quality of a
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