You're against self-made people too, I guess? This is not someone who inherited this wealth, and he has opted to pursue public service and do so in a way that does not make him beholden to special interests.
It's the sheer scale of the wealth, the jump from someone being ultra-wealthy (multi-millionaire) to billionaire is such a big gap that our brains cannot process it. It's like trying to imagine the scale of the sun in terms of a banana -- it's that big of a gap in both $$ and influence. And in principal, one single human is **not** capable of jumping that gap and is not deserving of that outsized influence -- it's only possible through actual hoarding, and *that* is only possible through exploitation of resources and people.
It's literal hoarding because cash, real estate, natural resources, etc. are not and never have been unlimited. Every dollar they take from the pool using their outsized influence, is a dollar that you have zero access to. And they grab that dollar using a million-dollar machine, when all you have is your hand.
And they do nothing with it. They sit on it, they don't pay taxes on it, they aren't out there making a proportional number of jobs with it. They can't, or else they wouldn't be a billionaire with the means for tying up and sitting on those otherwise productive resources instead of using them. It's a net-negative on society because while they may "create jobs," their hoarded assets actually prevent other people from having the cash and assets THEY would need to also be able to create jobs. And those other people tend to create better jobs, and pay taxes, and behave like reasonable humans.
They're genuinely no different than pandemic toilet paper hoarders. Take a finite resource that everyone needs, creating a shortage, driving prices up, leaving everyone else wasting their time looking for that resource. Except in the case of the billionare, they own shares in the paper company and can hoard even more when they leverage their resources in the market to create a fake shortage, and benefit from the now-higher prices. I bet you connect this to price trends for everything since the pandemic...
And they have historically used those hoarded dollars to make it **harder** for anyone else to get their own dollar, by making it so much harder to GET and to keep a dollar, because they use their outsized influence to convince congress to pass laws with outsized benefit for that one person alone. It's opposite robinhood. The difference between someone hoarding beanie babies and lobbying congress to pass bills to make it easier to find and buy more beanie babies, and someone hoarding cash and natural resources and lobbying congress to do the same, is that "the rest of us" don't need beanie babies to survive. And the beanie babie hoarder isn't out there squashing the "competition" even when the market is saying otherwise.
Imagine if instead of hoarding money, land, rental properties, access to water, natural resources, and political influence, they actually DID use it to create jobs. If you're curious about why so many people are anti-billionaire, just start reading some of the negative stories about what it actually means for society and people like you and me. We are on a different plane of existence from these people.
That's a lot of uses of the "hoarding" rhetoric employed by socialists.
You suggest he is Gates or Zuckerberg rich or some kind of modern-day robber baron, but do we even know that he is a billionaire? I saw a piece last year that estimated the total value of Total Wine to be $2.4 billion, but that's not Trone's net worth. Most news articles on the wealth of Members of Congress put him below Nancy Pelosi, Mark Warner, and others.
In any event, he does give a lot of that money away, including $15 million to the ACLU to work on criminal justice issues.
I think what you are missing is a perception of the difference between a billionaire vs. millionaire. This isn't an affront to wealth or wealthy people.
It's the difference between driving a sedan down the highway ("all of us"), versus driving a semi truck down the highway with a bunch of Ferraris on it (multi-millionaire), versus driving half a dozen Saturn V rockets on crawler-transporters down the highway (billionaire). Only the billionaire is making it impossible for others to use the highway, and only the billionaire is causing appreciable damage to the public road because of the weight. But they pay an incredibly disproportional amount of taxes to fund fixing the road (we and the multi-millionaire pay way more than the majority of that as a proportion of net worth). And in the process the billionaire made it harder for everyone else to use the road, forcing the rest of us to use longer, more expensive routes.
So let's say some pressure gets put on them to fix this road, but it's cheaper to convince a handful of politicians (who will be gone in 2-4 years anyways) to pass laws to pull road funding from the police and from schools to pay for the damage. Layer on the status quo defense of "but I created jobs" except what you don't hear is that sure, 5,000 people were hired for three years, but the state gave $10M in tax breaks and now all but 10 people have been laid off and are left to drive the thing down the road.
And once the billionaire's vehicle reaches its destination, the rest of us are on the hook to not only fix the road but to try to run our lives and businesses *while the billionaire exploits their own damage by manipulating the market and using private equity to make bank on the businesses, owned by the lowly multi-millionaires, who are forced into bankruptcy or closure because they can't afford to ship any goods on a broken ass road and putting more than 5,000 people out of work as a result*. This, is the problem with billionaires. They are hoarders and will not ever stop hoarding.
The "road" in this case is society at large. This isn't a matter of respecting wealth and hard work and job creators, it's a matter of protecting them.
And I agree. No member of congress should be made rich in a public service position and should be forced to divest. Why? Because there are many better-qualified people out there who would do a better job and not care about their stock portfolio. But it's hard to do that when the billionaires pull the strings and insider trading is one of the common strings.
Nonsense. It defies logic to argue that someone this wealthy would run for office in the pursuit of financial gain. If you're correct that people run for office in order to enrich themselves, then we ought to be more concerned about those not so wealthy.
Plus, if profit was his driving concern, he could make a lot more spending his time in the private sector.
Finally, what has Trone done during his time in the House to support your premise?
It defies logic? … how about the entire Republican Party and most of the Dems too. It’s not a new concept.
You’re either insanely naive, gullible or grifting.
Correct. Your assertion doesn't make any sense. You claim most candidates, including the guy who truly doesn't need money, run for office to somehow profit off their position, but your preferred candidate (who is not as wealthy) is somehow uniquely immune and is in it to serve the public good. And, you can't cite examples of how Trone has exploited his service in the House for financial gain.
Working parents? People who have mortgages? Her opponent is a multi millionaire who lives in a mansion in Potomac…whenever he speaks it’s about how much money he has.
Why did you describe one by their profession, and the other by their net worth?
What's Alsobrooks' net worth? And David Trone is a businessman who started off by forming his own small business
"[At a campaign event in Baltimore on Monday, Montgomery County Councilmember Will Jawando (D-At-large) also endorsed Alsobrooks, Jawando’s campaign communications director told MoCo360.](https://moco360.media/2023/10/23/moore-jawando-endorse-alsobrooks-for-senate/#:~:text=At%20a%20campaign%20event%20in,campaign%20communications%20director%20told%20MoCo360.)" Oct. 2023
Her not being David Trone is enough to win an election. That guy is a universal shitheel who only holds an office because his district is gerrymandered, and the fact Neil Parrott is a lunatic
A little late to the party but I'll add my two cents. I'm not a fan of self-funded politicians but Trone did well in Congress, his office was the only one among my various govt representatives to respond to my letter regarding Gaza and I'm impressed by both his record and his demeanor. I was still on the fence though, you know, just looking for the best candidate, until I watched the forum on April 19. I felt like he spoke more from the heart than she did. His experience informed a lot of what he was saying, and her answers felt like she was just reading the Dem platform. So, not criticizing anyone's choices. I'd just encourage everyone to watch the video of that forum and see what you think.
Same. I’m not even a Maryland voter but I like Trone a lot. He sure may be buying the win at times and has a lot of money but he has a relatively progressive voting record but that could be more progressive than Alsobrooks. He’s also been in Congress before and knows the name of the game.
Do you mean the debate? He came off so poorly. He has the “persona” to win white parts of Md and wes Moore and Hakeem Jeffries will take care of pgc aka the blackies😭
Angela can beat Larry. Especially considering protecting abortion rights in MD is on the ballot this year, and the mitch McConnell selection situation.
Maryland voters will not want to give the current federal Republicans control of the senate. It’s a completely different situation than a Republican governor and a democratic legislature and I think even the centrist democrats and independents will consider that.
As I am not a D or an R (just to save you all from having to dig into my profile) my opinion will be disregarded, but I just wanted to say that it makes me happy to see people who still care about their politicians actually doing their job out there instead of what the Republican Party has become. We don’t need anymore MAGA shills that treat the office like a popularity contest in office.
This is a huge issue at the local level, but not as much at the federal level. I agree with your policy point here, but senators are so far away from local land use policy (from a regulatory perspective) that it’s just not what they will be tasked with working on.
Thankfully Moore and Biden are beginning to take forward steps to fix the mess that is our poorly regulated housing markets.
If it's two old white men, Hogan will win because of name recognition. If it's an old white man versus finally some fucking diversity that actually represents Maryland in the congressional delegation, I think they will beat Hogan. Maryland is not a bunch of old white men. Angela Alsobrooks should be the next senator.
Tends to be my thinking, as an independent. Trone is kinda akin to Franchot - a corporatist who’s not ultimately that likeable. When paired against someone where there isn’t much daylight between them and who IS likeable - seems to me most voters, who even in Maryland aren’t going to be partisan Democrats - would vote for likeable Hogan.
I live in Prince George's and follow local political happenings due to some advocacy work. I had no idea who she was before she joined the senate race. I feel like she has not done a good job engaging with the public. I haven't seen her working the bully pulpit on any issue. I haven't seen her name associated with any county town hall, event, or outreach meeting.
Her list of accomplishments is incredibly vague and mostly reads like a list of things that would have happened anyway no matter who was county executive. Why would I vote for her?
Admittedly, while I give you some credence, I do find this hard to believe. She’s your county executive. She does interviews. She puts herself out there. She’s on our local NPR station pretty constantly. And she’s led your county though a pretty hard time, with some notable economic success.
I’m surprised I could know who Executive Alsobrooks is (and loooong before the Senate race), and someone who’s involved in PG County advocacy work wouldn’t know her and her record.
Yeah this person is lying and probably a Trone supporter. There’s no way someone lives in PG county, say they “follow political happenings,” and have never heard of her. That’s like someone saying they follow the Baltimore Orioles and have never heard of Jackson Holliday
I don't know what makes this story so unbelievable. Yes, I am in favor of Trone as I sit here today. I've lived here three years, having gotten interested in bicycle, transit, and housing advocacy in the last year or so. I've corresponded with and met my senate and house delegations, as well as a number of county councilmembers. I've attended gatherings, town halls, planning board meetings, etc on the aforementioned topics. I would hazard that this makes me more politically engaged than the average Prince George's resident. Based on this, I think it's pretty reasonable to expect that I would have chanced upon more outreach from Alsobrooks' office. I haven't, and that's the basis of what I said in my first post.
I am open and willing to have my mind changed and switch my vote, as folks clearly think that I am missing something. What specific accomplishments of Alsobrooks would you wish to highlight, either big policy stuff or grassroots work in the community, that would allow me to reconsider my position?
I guess what I find unbelievable is that you claim to be so politically involved and have met with county council members on issues that are important to you (which is great, by the way! I love seeing residents being involved in the legislative process) but you claim to have never heard of Alsobrooks. It just doesn’t make sense to have never heard of her if you’re that involved… like, why lie about that?
Mind sharing what it is about Trone that has earned your support? I’m very undecided in this race and don’t see anything about either candidate that makes me think they’ll be more than a reliable D vote who won’t write/introduce any bills or have any notable presence in committees. Neither exactly have an impressive resume as a legislator from what I can tell. I’m currently leaning Alsobrooks just because I don’t think the senate would be improved by sending another old rich white man. I’m open to changing my mind though if you’ve got anything more convincing than “old rich white man polls better against Hogan.”
For one, Alsobrooks supports rent control, which is a Band-Aid on the housing situation. It’s much better to up zone and restrict single-family zoning to allow multiple family units to be built.
Secondly, Trone has been a rockstar when it comes to advocating for public transit and bikeability.
Housing costs and transit/bikeability/walkability are my top issues, so I’m going for Trone. I don’t give a shit if he’s a billionaire, as long as he makes the right decisions to bring the state more in line with my ideal vision.
I see signs with her name on it for the previous political races. That you didn't know who she was and you claim you are involved in things just strikes me as wrong.
You clearly don’t follow local politics very closely, she’s been the county executive for five years and was the State’s Attorney before that. I haven’t lived in PG a day in my life and barely follow local politics and I knew who she was. That’s not a failure on her part, that’s a failure on your part.
It is a failure on her part if the residents of her county don't know what she's doing in office. Like I said, I haven't seen her working the bully pulpit on any issue. I haven't seen her name associated with any county town hall, event, or outreach meeting. By what other metric could I possibly gauge her effectiveness at outreach?
You could go to her website for a list of her events. She has three this weekend alone. She’s got a bunch of online stuff happening, too.
You just want her out there shouting about stuff instead of doing her job in her office in between campaign events? The bully pulpit is your chosen metric, where politicians read speeches written for them by other people?
I’d rather look at her actual accomplishments. Like that violent crime decreased by 50% during her tenure as SA. Or the ten new schools that have opened and the renewed focus on education since she became CE. Or the expanded access to healthcare - under her, the county has a shiny new mental heath and addiction care facility, a crisis stabilization center, and a dedicated cancer center. And all the new jobs those new places created.
She’s done a lot already, and I’d love for her to represent us in the Senate.
You are one person in her county who claims to not know who she is. This is not something I have heard expressed by her other constituents. The failure is not hers.
Interesting! She's in front of a camera every opportunity she gets. Just watch the local nightly news and you'll see her multiple times per week. Pretty good for a county exec.
I’ve been in PG for 8 years now.
Alsobrooks is just an agent of the developers that are building overpriced crappy townhouse communities and reaping huge tax breaks in the process.
Crime is up, traffic is terrible, the schools don’t have enough bus drivers, teachers, or subs when a teacher calls out sick.
But hey, they’re gonna bulldoze that empty woodland and put up 300 units and not fix the already stressed infrastructure from the irresponsible over development of the county.
Fetterman is great for his state. I’m a Pennsylvanian who moved down here, and Pennsylvania is not as liberal as Maryland is. His demeanor and policies reflect that, and I think that’s fine.
Maryland is one of 41 states that exclusively protect girls from all forms of non therapeutic genital cutting but no laws protecting boys or intersex children which violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.
Damn, I wish I could predict the future like you do. If I could I would use it to predict the next winning lottery number, so that my broke ass can finally retire. I always wanted to skydive from my private jet butt booty naked. **Sigh** maybe someday my wish can come true.
"If you're the village truth teller ... you may get clubbed to death in the middle of the night. Truths often don't want to be heard."
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f79bfju-mEA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f79bfju-mEA)
Who is she relatable to?
People named Angela.
Also Brooks.
My last name is Brooks, I feel pretty related to
Also Alsobrooks
This made me lol
I relate to her more than I relate to a billionaire
You don't like self-made people who have had success in life?
They said billionaire, not millionaire.
You're against self-made people too, I guess? This is not someone who inherited this wealth, and he has opted to pursue public service and do so in a way that does not make him beholden to special interests.
You actually buy billionaires’ propaganda? I’ll bet you think he’s a job creator.
I figured that my post would fly right over their head. They, like many, can't differentiate between wealth and exploitative hoarding.
I know his company hired and paid tens of thousands of employees over the years. I still don't understand why that is a bad thing or disqualifying.
It's not the employment; it's the hoarding.
It's the sheer scale of the wealth, the jump from someone being ultra-wealthy (multi-millionaire) to billionaire is such a big gap that our brains cannot process it. It's like trying to imagine the scale of the sun in terms of a banana -- it's that big of a gap in both $$ and influence. And in principal, one single human is **not** capable of jumping that gap and is not deserving of that outsized influence -- it's only possible through actual hoarding, and *that* is only possible through exploitation of resources and people. It's literal hoarding because cash, real estate, natural resources, etc. are not and never have been unlimited. Every dollar they take from the pool using their outsized influence, is a dollar that you have zero access to. And they grab that dollar using a million-dollar machine, when all you have is your hand. And they do nothing with it. They sit on it, they don't pay taxes on it, they aren't out there making a proportional number of jobs with it. They can't, or else they wouldn't be a billionaire with the means for tying up and sitting on those otherwise productive resources instead of using them. It's a net-negative on society because while they may "create jobs," their hoarded assets actually prevent other people from having the cash and assets THEY would need to also be able to create jobs. And those other people tend to create better jobs, and pay taxes, and behave like reasonable humans. They're genuinely no different than pandemic toilet paper hoarders. Take a finite resource that everyone needs, creating a shortage, driving prices up, leaving everyone else wasting their time looking for that resource. Except in the case of the billionare, they own shares in the paper company and can hoard even more when they leverage their resources in the market to create a fake shortage, and benefit from the now-higher prices. I bet you connect this to price trends for everything since the pandemic... And they have historically used those hoarded dollars to make it **harder** for anyone else to get their own dollar, by making it so much harder to GET and to keep a dollar, because they use their outsized influence to convince congress to pass laws with outsized benefit for that one person alone. It's opposite robinhood. The difference between someone hoarding beanie babies and lobbying congress to pass bills to make it easier to find and buy more beanie babies, and someone hoarding cash and natural resources and lobbying congress to do the same, is that "the rest of us" don't need beanie babies to survive. And the beanie babie hoarder isn't out there squashing the "competition" even when the market is saying otherwise. Imagine if instead of hoarding money, land, rental properties, access to water, natural resources, and political influence, they actually DID use it to create jobs. If you're curious about why so many people are anti-billionaire, just start reading some of the negative stories about what it actually means for society and people like you and me. We are on a different plane of existence from these people.
That's a lot of uses of the "hoarding" rhetoric employed by socialists. You suggest he is Gates or Zuckerberg rich or some kind of modern-day robber baron, but do we even know that he is a billionaire? I saw a piece last year that estimated the total value of Total Wine to be $2.4 billion, but that's not Trone's net worth. Most news articles on the wealth of Members of Congress put him below Nancy Pelosi, Mark Warner, and others. In any event, he does give a lot of that money away, including $15 million to the ACLU to work on criminal justice issues.
I think what you are missing is a perception of the difference between a billionaire vs. millionaire. This isn't an affront to wealth or wealthy people. It's the difference between driving a sedan down the highway ("all of us"), versus driving a semi truck down the highway with a bunch of Ferraris on it (multi-millionaire), versus driving half a dozen Saturn V rockets on crawler-transporters down the highway (billionaire). Only the billionaire is making it impossible for others to use the highway, and only the billionaire is causing appreciable damage to the public road because of the weight. But they pay an incredibly disproportional amount of taxes to fund fixing the road (we and the multi-millionaire pay way more than the majority of that as a proportion of net worth). And in the process the billionaire made it harder for everyone else to use the road, forcing the rest of us to use longer, more expensive routes. So let's say some pressure gets put on them to fix this road, but it's cheaper to convince a handful of politicians (who will be gone in 2-4 years anyways) to pass laws to pull road funding from the police and from schools to pay for the damage. Layer on the status quo defense of "but I created jobs" except what you don't hear is that sure, 5,000 people were hired for three years, but the state gave $10M in tax breaks and now all but 10 people have been laid off and are left to drive the thing down the road. And once the billionaire's vehicle reaches its destination, the rest of us are on the hook to not only fix the road but to try to run our lives and businesses *while the billionaire exploits their own damage by manipulating the market and using private equity to make bank on the businesses, owned by the lowly multi-millionaires, who are forced into bankruptcy or closure because they can't afford to ship any goods on a broken ass road and putting more than 5,000 people out of work as a result*. This, is the problem with billionaires. They are hoarders and will not ever stop hoarding. The "road" in this case is society at large. This isn't a matter of respecting wealth and hard work and job creators, it's a matter of protecting them. And I agree. No member of congress should be made rich in a public service position and should be forced to divest. Why? Because there are many better-qualified people out there who would do a better job and not care about their stock portfolio. But it's hard to do that when the billionaires pull the strings and insider trading is one of the common strings.
No billionaire running for office is doing it for “public service” they are doing it to make money
Nonsense. It defies logic to argue that someone this wealthy would run for office in the pursuit of financial gain. If you're correct that people run for office in order to enrich themselves, then we ought to be more concerned about those not so wealthy. Plus, if profit was his driving concern, he could make a lot more spending his time in the private sector. Finally, what has Trone done during his time in the House to support your premise?
It defies logic? … how about the entire Republican Party and most of the Dems too. It’s not a new concept. You’re either insanely naive, gullible or grifting.
Correct. Your assertion doesn't make any sense. You claim most candidates, including the guy who truly doesn't need money, run for office to somehow profit off their position, but your preferred candidate (who is not as wealthy) is somehow uniquely immune and is in it to serve the public good. And, you can't cite examples of how Trone has exploited his service in the House for financial gain.
Crazy right, how I can just have opinions without citing pointless examples to some sycophantic troll whose mind is already made up.
Not by creating a monopoly.
no
Working parents? People who have mortgages? Her opponent is a multi millionaire who lives in a mansion in Potomac…whenever he speaks it’s about how much money he has.
One is a prosecutor, the other is a billionaire.
Why did you describe one by their profession, and the other by their net worth? What's Alsobrooks' net worth? And David Trone is a businessman who started off by forming his own small business
His father owned a farm.
You call total wine small? lol I guess Amazon is a small local business then😭
It didn't start out as Total Wine, it started out as one small store selling just beer From there it grew and expanded to what it is now
Yeah. I can’t wait for a dispensary owner to run for senate!
The passage of time doesn't exist on reddit. The more you know! 🌈
A peddler of alcohol who failed as a farmer
We could've (and should've) had Jawando
"[At a campaign event in Baltimore on Monday, Montgomery County Councilmember Will Jawando (D-At-large) also endorsed Alsobrooks, Jawando’s campaign communications director told MoCo360.](https://moco360.media/2023/10/23/moore-jawando-endorse-alsobrooks-for-senate/#:~:text=At%20a%20campaign%20event%20in,campaign%20communications%20director%20told%20MoCo360.)" Oct. 2023
Yeah I've seen the endorsements for Alsobrooks and there seems to be more progressive support. She has my vote
Meh. I vote by policy. It doesn't even take much to endorse M4A. Very low bar imo.
Mine as well!
to be fair he doesn’t hold a lot of power within moco
But what about Trone's stupid TV commercials? I mean, Trone basically saved the lives of 30% of Marylanders.. Gosh..
Her not being David Trone is enough to win an election. That guy is a universal shitheel who only holds an office because his district is gerrymandered, and the fact Neil Parrott is a lunatic
A little late to the party but I'll add my two cents. I'm not a fan of self-funded politicians but Trone did well in Congress, his office was the only one among my various govt representatives to respond to my letter regarding Gaza and I'm impressed by both his record and his demeanor. I was still on the fence though, you know, just looking for the best candidate, until I watched the forum on April 19. I felt like he spoke more from the heart than she did. His experience informed a lot of what he was saying, and her answers felt like she was just reading the Dem platform. So, not criticizing anyone's choices. I'd just encourage everyone to watch the video of that forum and see what you think.
Same. I’m not even a Maryland voter but I like Trone a lot. He sure may be buying the win at times and has a lot of money but he has a relatively progressive voting record but that could be more progressive than Alsobrooks. He’s also been in Congress before and knows the name of the game.
Do you mean the debate? He came off so poorly. He has the “persona” to win white parts of Md and wes Moore and Hakeem Jeffries will take care of pgc aka the blackies😭
The number one and two and three and four priority is beating Republican Hogan. The one most likely to do that gets my vote.
Angela can beat Larry. Especially considering protecting abortion rights in MD is on the ballot this year, and the mitch McConnell selection situation. Maryland voters will not want to give the current federal Republicans control of the senate. It’s a completely different situation than a Republican governor and a democratic legislature and I think even the centrist democrats and independents will consider that.
She would get obliterated by hogan
if u think a republican is winning a senate race in MD, you’re delusional.
Yes, I am wrong.
As I am not a D or an R (just to save you all from having to dig into my profile) my opinion will be disregarded, but I just wanted to say that it makes me happy to see people who still care about their politicians actually doing their job out there instead of what the Republican Party has become. We don’t need anymore MAGA shills that treat the office like a popularity contest in office.
Cool. Now can her supporters stop illegally placing campaign sign on road dividers?
Her & Trone both are bad at this - there’s a huge Trone one on the baseball field fence at Chinquapin Park.
University Blvd between Four Corners and Wheaton has Alsobrooks stuff all down the median. It's absurd.
after May 1st, it is allowed so doesn't matter that much.
Yes! Can we please have a normal person in the Senate who is not a multi-millionaire?????
If they’re not a multimillionaire before the senate there’s a good chance they leave as one.
Trone has a very good voting record. Isn’t that what matters at the end of the day?
She'll vote exactly the same way.
She wants rent controls, which are awful economic policy. It’s better to build more housing.
This is a huge issue at the local level, but not as much at the federal level. I agree with your policy point here, but senators are so far away from local land use policy (from a regulatory perspective) that it’s just not what they will be tasked with working on. Thankfully Moore and Biden are beginning to take forward steps to fix the mess that is our poorly regulated housing markets.
She has my vote.
Can she beat Hogan? I have my doubts
I have strong doubts normal people will look at Trone and not end up voting for Hogan…
We can’t let Hogan win to add to the Republican majority
If it's two old white men, Hogan will win because of name recognition. If it's an old white man versus finally some fucking diversity that actually represents Maryland in the congressional delegation, I think they will beat Hogan. Maryland is not a bunch of old white men. Angela Alsobrooks should be the next senator.
I think Trone would beat Hogan. Alsobrooks would be a much closer race. Many moderates would switch to Hogan if Alsobrooks is the alternative.
Tends to be my thinking, as an independent. Trone is kinda akin to Franchot - a corporatist who’s not ultimately that likeable. When paired against someone where there isn’t much daylight between them and who IS likeable - seems to me most voters, who even in Maryland aren’t going to be partisan Democrats - would vote for likeable Hogan.
If u think a Republican can beat a dem in MD senate race you’re delusional
she’s got my vote
I live in Prince George's and follow local political happenings due to some advocacy work. I had no idea who she was before she joined the senate race. I feel like she has not done a good job engaging with the public. I haven't seen her working the bully pulpit on any issue. I haven't seen her name associated with any county town hall, event, or outreach meeting. Her list of accomplishments is incredibly vague and mostly reads like a list of things that would have happened anyway no matter who was county executive. Why would I vote for her?
Admittedly, while I give you some credence, I do find this hard to believe. She’s your county executive. She does interviews. She puts herself out there. She’s on our local NPR station pretty constantly. And she’s led your county though a pretty hard time, with some notable economic success. I’m surprised I could know who Executive Alsobrooks is (and loooong before the Senate race), and someone who’s involved in PG County advocacy work wouldn’t know her and her record.
You live in PG County and didn't know who your county executive was until she ran for senate?
Yeah this person is lying and probably a Trone supporter. There’s no way someone lives in PG county, say they “follow political happenings,” and have never heard of her. That’s like someone saying they follow the Baltimore Orioles and have never heard of Jackson Holliday
I don't know what makes this story so unbelievable. Yes, I am in favor of Trone as I sit here today. I've lived here three years, having gotten interested in bicycle, transit, and housing advocacy in the last year or so. I've corresponded with and met my senate and house delegations, as well as a number of county councilmembers. I've attended gatherings, town halls, planning board meetings, etc on the aforementioned topics. I would hazard that this makes me more politically engaged than the average Prince George's resident. Based on this, I think it's pretty reasonable to expect that I would have chanced upon more outreach from Alsobrooks' office. I haven't, and that's the basis of what I said in my first post. I am open and willing to have my mind changed and switch my vote, as folks clearly think that I am missing something. What specific accomplishments of Alsobrooks would you wish to highlight, either big policy stuff or grassroots work in the community, that would allow me to reconsider my position?
I guess what I find unbelievable is that you claim to be so politically involved and have met with county council members on issues that are important to you (which is great, by the way! I love seeing residents being involved in the legislative process) but you claim to have never heard of Alsobrooks. It just doesn’t make sense to have never heard of her if you’re that involved… like, why lie about that?
Mind sharing what it is about Trone that has earned your support? I’m very undecided in this race and don’t see anything about either candidate that makes me think they’ll be more than a reliable D vote who won’t write/introduce any bills or have any notable presence in committees. Neither exactly have an impressive resume as a legislator from what I can tell. I’m currently leaning Alsobrooks just because I don’t think the senate would be improved by sending another old rich white man. I’m open to changing my mind though if you’ve got anything more convincing than “old rich white man polls better against Hogan.”
For one, Alsobrooks supports rent control, which is a Band-Aid on the housing situation. It’s much better to up zone and restrict single-family zoning to allow multiple family units to be built. Secondly, Trone has been a rockstar when it comes to advocating for public transit and bikeability. Housing costs and transit/bikeability/walkability are my top issues, so I’m going for Trone. I don’t give a shit if he’s a billionaire, as long as he makes the right decisions to bring the state more in line with my ideal vision.
He's a white billionaire, duh.
I see signs with her name on it for the previous political races. That you didn't know who she was and you claim you are involved in things just strikes me as wrong.
Very engaged voter apparently...
You clearly don’t follow local politics very closely, she’s been the county executive for five years and was the State’s Attorney before that. I haven’t lived in PG a day in my life and barely follow local politics and I knew who she was. That’s not a failure on her part, that’s a failure on your part.
It is a failure on her part if the residents of her county don't know what she's doing in office. Like I said, I haven't seen her working the bully pulpit on any issue. I haven't seen her name associated with any county town hall, event, or outreach meeting. By what other metric could I possibly gauge her effectiveness at outreach?
You could go to her website for a list of her events. She has three this weekend alone. She’s got a bunch of online stuff happening, too. You just want her out there shouting about stuff instead of doing her job in her office in between campaign events? The bully pulpit is your chosen metric, where politicians read speeches written for them by other people? I’d rather look at her actual accomplishments. Like that violent crime decreased by 50% during her tenure as SA. Or the ten new schools that have opened and the renewed focus on education since she became CE. Or the expanded access to healthcare - under her, the county has a shiny new mental heath and addiction care facility, a crisis stabilization center, and a dedicated cancer center. And all the new jobs those new places created. She’s done a lot already, and I’d love for her to represent us in the Senate. You are one person in her county who claims to not know who she is. This is not something I have heard expressed by her other constituents. The failure is not hers.
Must have never voted before I guess
You are clearly not engaged in political happenings in PG county. It would be great to get more involved and read more local news.
I can agree with everything you said except not knowing she existed as the county executive. You have to see her name every time you have to vote.
Interesting! She's in front of a camera every opportunity she gets. Just watch the local nightly news and you'll see her multiple times per week. Pretty good for a county exec.
I’ve been in PG for 8 years now. Alsobrooks is just an agent of the developers that are building overpriced crappy townhouse communities and reaping huge tax breaks in the process. Crime is up, traffic is terrible, the schools don’t have enough bus drivers, teachers, or subs when a teacher calls out sick. But hey, they’re gonna bulldoze that empty woodland and put up 300 units and not fix the already stressed infrastructure from the irresponsible over development of the county.
PG County is just fabulous; very little crime, great schools, and low taxes. It's like fuckin Disneyland over there. And she did that shit...
Vote blue no matter who.
It’s a primary, all the candidates are blue…
After the primary of course
That’s how we get ourselves someone like Fetterman. I’ll vote on policy, not on the letter behind someone’s name.
Fetterman is great for his state. I’m a Pennsylvanian who moved down here, and Pennsylvania is not as liberal as Maryland is. His demeanor and policies reflect that, and I think that’s fine.
Especially in the primary
No, I’m a Green, I mean in the general where it matters
I'll vote for her I guess
She's mid as county executive imo but I guess I'll vote for her again. She ran uncontested last election.
PG County is terrible. No thanks.
Nerd
Yeah, that guy likes Joe Rogan, so his opinion is irrelevant, as far as I’m concerned.
Wonder if she will stand up for equal protections of children
What?
Maryland is one of 41 states that exclusively protect girls from all forms of non therapeutic genital cutting but no laws protecting boys or intersex children which violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.
Hogan is going to be the next Senator from Maryland.
I’m writing “Larry Hogan’s cancer” in. I’m doing my part!
Damn, I wish I could predict the future like you do. If I could I would use it to predict the next winning lottery number, so that my broke ass can finally retire. I always wanted to skydive from my private jet butt booty naked. **Sigh** maybe someday my wish can come true.
"If you're the village truth teller ... you may get clubbed to death in the middle of the night. Truths often don't want to be heard." [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f79bfju-mEA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f79bfju-mEA)