Yesterday I detailed Thursday night’s NAACP forum and bemoaned the lack of participation by challengers. However, several different sources have chimed in to comment that these same candidates were unaware of the event.
It’s noteworthy to mention that, aside from the various Central Committee posts, there are 13 incumbents running for county office and I believe all but one was in attendance. (I honestly don’t recall seeing Karen Lemon, who is running unopposed for Register of Wills – but she may have been there.) On the other hand, only 8 of 16 challengers were there and none of them were what you would consider “Tea Party” candidates. (For the purpose of this discussion, these would be County Executive candidate John Wayne Baker, County Council at-large candidates Mike Brewington and Chris Lewis, and District 2 challenger Mike Calpino. In the group you have two Democrats, a Republican, and a Libertarian, so it’s not exclusionary by party.)
Allow me to contribute my two cents to the story. I only heard about the event because I peruse candidate calendars to create my weekly Election Calendar, and it was on Joe Ollinger’s website that I saw the note about the NAACP forum being held. In fact, my original mention of the event had it beginning at 6 p.m. and not 7:00 because there was no time listed and I was going from memory of similar forums in 2006.
I received my personal invitation from the e-mail account of Orville Penn (who was the moderator) on Monday last – it was sent late Sunday night. The addressee was NAACP Wicomico (a common tactic to verify the e-mail got out) and it was cc’d to 20 candidates, mostly Central Committee members but also aspirants for State’s Attorney, Judge of the Orphans’ Court, Register of Wills, Clerk of Courts, amd Sheriff. It also appears that Penn received the information from the Board of Elections website, so if a candidate did not list an e-mail he or she was skipped.
Read more here.
U.S. Constitutional Free Press 