Maryland Democratic Party Talking Points

Posted byharforddemocratsPosted inMDP Talking Points

For Oct. 24, 2022

What’s MDP saying this week?

We’re excited to make history here in Maryland in two weeks. We’re going to lead the way for the rest of the country. They’ll be able to look at us, and say ‘wow, that’s how things should be.’ Diversity, inclusion, joy. A slate of representatives that look like, and carry themselves like, the people they represent. 

The other side? Well they’ve had a week, haven’t they? Video surfaced of Dan Cox – our gubernatorial opponent and the standard-bearer of Maryland’s Republican Party – accepting a gift from the Proud Boys during his Primary Night Party a few months ago. The man elected as the leader of the GOP in Maryland eagerly accepting a gift from a group that proudly spews anti-semetic, racist, and hateful rhetoric. A white nationalist group that proudly stormed the Capitol during last year’s insurrection. And Dan Cox smiles, shakes his hand, accepts the gift and asks his name. We’re not shocked, we’re not surprised. We’re disappointed … as usual. And his claim that he couldn’t hear the greeting and gift presentation from the racist insurrectionist is pathetic because he left it up on his campaign site for months. He knew exactly what he was doing. 

And for an encore performance, Cox no-showed an event his campaign had been promoting without bothering to notify supporters. Sounds like a bit of … disarray. 

Even the Baltimore Banner had this to say about Cox: “It’s not entirely clear what Cox’s path to victory is. His campaign has been disorganized, not responding to reporters’ questions, not publicizing the candidate’s events and pulling out from scheduled appearances.”

When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. He’s showing that he doesn’t care about Marylanders. He’s shown he doesn’t care about women’s rights. He doesn’t care about you, your family, your neighbors, or any community in Maryland other than his QAnon bubble. He only cares about making daddy Trump happy, and happily celebrating with racist hate groups. That is who he is. He’s showing you. So believe him. And on November 8th, we’ll make sure he has no chance of coming anywhere near a victory.

We don’t want to just win. We want a landslide. We want a mandate. And we’re going to earn it.

So let’s go win this week.

What happened last week?

Dan Cox made a fool of himself, again. See above.

On the campaign trail:

Our outstanding comms advisor, Ernest Bailey, has put together weekly talking points on our gubernatorial opponent – Dan Cox. A few key ones are below: 

  • The Washington Post highlighted a video showing that on the night of his primary victory, Dan Cox accepted “a present from Maryland Proud Boys” given to him by a man wearing a black polo shirt with a Proud Boys insignia. Cox not only accepted the gift but chose weeks later to upload footage of him receiving the gift to a campaign account, only deleting the video after being contacted by the Washington Post.
  • The Proud Boys are a well-known white supremacist group that led major breaches of the Capitol on January 6th, playing a leading role in the effort to block Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election. More than 40 members of the group were indicted in connection with the insurrection.
  • The post-primary gift is not Cox’s only connection to the Proud Boys. The day before the insurrection, Cox made a statement in support of Proud Boys’ Leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio. Tarrio was indicted and arrested for his role in planning the attack in March 2022 and, in June, he and four associates were charged with seditious conspiracy. 
  • Cox claimed he did not hear that the comb was “a present from Maryland Proud Boys.” The video of the encounter, however, was a part of a batch of nine short videos uploaded in August, weeks after Cox’s primary victory. Of the eight which remain undeleted, five feature interactions with supporters, averaging under a minute in length. The clip was not plucked from hours of footage. It defies all logic to claim that the Cox campaign was unaware of the contents of the video. 
  • After skipping out on community leaders to fly to Florida for a fundraiser at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, Cox was conspicuously silent about the event, refusing to answer questions from the press and opting not to promote the event at all on his social media pages.
  • Cox claimed weeks ago that Trump was helping his campaign “without anything back to him.” Maryland law states that “A person may contribute directly or indirectly no more than $6,000 to one political committee during the election cycle,” raising questions as to how Cox has benefitted from the photos with he and Trump, advertised at $25,000. 
  • While Cox kept quiet about his time with the unpopular former president, he ended the week promoting meeting Ted Cruz and an endorsement from Rep. Matt Gaetz.
  • With many questions remaining regarding Cox’s time with the former president, a week after the fundraiser a new report details Trump having convened a series of in-person meetings and conference calls to lay the groundwork to challenge the 2022 midterm election results, as Cox has been doing in Maryland.

Also:

  • Marylanders and the press are taking notice that Barry Glassman’s voting record is out of step with the mainstream of Maryland. He is out of step on abortion, marriage equality, guns, schools, supporting working families, the environment and much more. 
  • We called him out on social this week, and he’s posted photos of himself and Trump together while pretending like he’s not part of the MAGA wing. When asked by the press about it, he refused to distance himself from Donald Trump: “Glassman did not answer specific questions about where and when the photo with Trump was taken or if the men exchanged any words.” 
  • The Washington Post did a great profile of Anthony Brown, check it out here.
  • And, Politico highlighted Wes’ candidacy—saying he is “on the rise.”