Baltimore's waterfront a political battleground

Few competitive races in Baltimore this year

Dodging raindrops Thursday night, the incumbent senator sped from door to door in a South Baltimore neighborhood.

"I'm George Della," he said at one door. "Keep me in mind on election day." Then he was off to the next.

A few miles south in Westport his young upstart of an opponent, Bill Ferguson, was leading a group of supporters in the same activity.

"We've had the same senator for 27 years," he said. "I don't think he's pushing hard enough."

In a city where most incumbents face little or no opposition at the polls, the contest in Baltimore's 46th district is shaping up to be the most dynamic legislative race. Della and Ferguson each embody a different force tugging at the gentrifying district, an area that encompasses the entire waterfront from Curtis Bay to Dundalk.

Della, 67, is the old-school pol who started his public career as a Baltimore City councilman, winning a Senate seat the year Ferguson was born. When he knocks on a door, Della often knows the current occupants — and sometimes the families that lived there before.

Ferguson, 27, is a Teach for America import from Rockville with bundles of energy who is using social media to spread his message of school reform. He moved to Baltimore five years ago, though his campaign stresses that he's a "fifth-generation Marylander."

Only one other of the city's six senators faces any opposition in the Sept. 14 primary — the meaningful Election Day in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans 9 to 1.

In that other race, former city Fire Department spokesman Hector Torres is challenging feisty Sen. Joan Carter Conway, the chair of the Senate Health, Education and Environmental Affairs Committee.

Conway irked some of her colleagues in the last legislative session for bottling up a bill that would have allowed Marylanders to order wine over the Internet. She denies that she killed the legislation, saying it perished in the House. But Torres has brought up the issue on the campaign trail.

"It smacks of the liquor lobby having undue influence on a legislator," he said.

Conway rejects the charge, and says the issue fails to resonate in her Northwest Baltimore district.

"They don't care about wine," she said. "Most of the time they say 'Huh? What are you talking about?' " She says the bill will likely pass, eventually.

Two of the city's 18 House members are retiring this year, leaving openings that have attracted crowded races. But in each case, the Democratic establishment has coalesced around a candidate, putting the new names on yard signs with incumbents.

The only House race where an incumbent appears vulnerable is in West Baltimore's 44th District, where former City Councilman Keiffer Mitchell is running for a seat in a district that some member of his family has represented for 34 years.

"Everyone claims that this is a year where incumbents are in trouble, but at least in the state legislature it does not seem that way," said retired Johns Hopkins political scientist Matthew Crenson, a longtime observer of local politics. "Many are completely unopposed."

The Della-Ferguson race is the big exception: "Two different political eras fighting it out with one another," is how Crenson described it. The candidates even live on opposite sides of the district: Della has a home in Federal Hill; Ferguson lives in Canton.

Ferguson runs a sophisticated and aggressive operation with a well-organized band of supporters.

"We measure everything we do," he said while walking in Westport, clutching a list of registered Democrats who vote in primary elections.

He says he knocks on 100 to 120 doors a night, and the campaign has so far hit 9,000. People who are not home or don't answer can expect a phone call. When contact is made, each potential voter is rated on a scale of one to five. Those with a rating of "one" are identified as strong Ferguson supporters, to be targeted for early voting efforts.

Ferguson's website showcases his Twitter feed and YouTube videos. His Facebook page has attracted more than 500 fans.

Della, in contrast, has no online presence. But Ferguson's camp took no chances about that: online records show that Friends of Bill Ferguson purchased the domain name http://www.georgedella.com the end of May.

"This view from the catbird's seat is really interesting," said Del. Carolyn Krysiak, who has declined to seek reelection after representing the area for 19 years. "We are seeing what changes have come about socially and how have those changes affected politics."

Krysiak listed factors in play: Will the young Obama voters come out? Will early voting make a difference?

"Are we going to see a shift to include the 30- and 40-years-olds voting?" she asked. "Or is the voting going to continue to be dominated by the 50-, 60- and 70-year-olds?"

Della says social media doesn't suit his style. "I'm accessible in person," he said. "People do not hesitate having a conversation with me and explaining their problems."