Taking his most negative approach yet in this year's mayoral election, City Councilman Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr. launched a new television advertisement yesterday that blamed the city's high homicide count on Mayor Sheila Dixon's budget priorities.
Mitchell's campaign also confirmed that it has authorized a recorded telephone call to about 30,000 city voters that deals with the mayor's decision to employ her sister, Janice Dixon, on her campaign. In the past, the mayor has been criticized for hiring and steering city contracts to her sister.
"We're going to show that there's a clear difference between the interim mayor and Councilman Mitchell in this election," said Mitchell's campaign manager, Jayson Williams. "We want to make sure that every voter with a phone gets the message that there is a culture of cronyism and using City Hall to give out personal favors."
Candidates often "go negative" against a leading opponent when they are down in the polls, but this year's mayoral race has been tricky, because Mitchell is running against Baltimore's first black female mayor. Several experts have suggested that, in criticizing Dixon, Mitchell must be careful not to turn off the city's powerful female voting demographic.
Dixon's campaign questioned the recent shift in tenor from the Mitchell campaign.
"Mayor Dixon sets high expectations for the people of Baltimore City, including her opponents," Dixon's campaign manager, Martha McKenna, said in a statement. "Keiffer Mitchell's decisions this week, including his controversial hirings and inaccurate attacks, show that he is devoid of ideas for moving Baltimore forward."
Mitchell's more negative tone comes days after campaign finance reports showed that the mayor has raised nearly twice as much money as he has since January. According to those reports, Dixon had about $720,000 left to spend before the Sept. 11 Democratic primary, compared with $163,000 in the bank for Mitchell.
Williams denied any connection between the shift in tactics and the campaign's recent decision to hire political strategist Julius C. Henson, an aggressive campaigner who once called former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. "a Nazi."
Mitchell had scheduled a news conference yesterday afternoon to address economic development in neighborhoods. The event was canceled because of poor weather and is expected to be rescheduled for today.
