Bloggers React to Post’s Endorsement of David Blair
David Blair, left, and Marc Elrich
The Washington Post upended the Montgomery County executive’s race with its Saturday endorsement of David Blair, a Potomac businessman who made a fortune starting a health-care company.
Blair is the only one of the six Democrats seeking to succeed incumbent Ike Leggett who has no elected experience. Leggett is term-limited from seeking a fourth term.
Said the Post:
Mr. Blair would make an unorthodox county executive. With his combination of fresh thinking and business savvy, he would also stand the best chance of injecting a dose of vitality into a county that badly needs it.
As Josh Kurtz, writing for the Maryland Matters blog, said Councilmember Marc Elrich was “destined” to be a frontrunner, after years of working community groups and progressive organizations.
But by lifting up Blair – who has had the airwaves to himself in recent weeks and has an ability to spend unlimited resources between now and the June 26 primary – the Post may have cut off the other candidates’ oxygen. Blair may have been able to withstand losing out on the Post endorsement; it’s not clear if the others can.
To Adam Pagnucco, writing at The Seventh State, said, the endorsement makes Elrich the other big winner:
Elrich has been crusading against rival candidates who have been supported by wealthy businessmen for years; now he gets an ACTUAL wealthy businessman as perhaps his chief opponent. Elrich is no doubt rubbing his hands together in glee as his progressive hordes gird for battle against plutocracy. His field coordinator must be dizzy with joy.
Ryan Miner, at A Miner Detail, had a similar thought:
The Post’s endorsement of Blair proverbially killed two birds with one stone, so to speak: It encouraged Montgomery Countians to vote for Blair in the June 26 primary, and it named Marc Elrich as the anti-Blair candidate, setting up a battle between the consummate progressive socialist-leaning term-limited Takoma Park insider versus the moderate, business-friendly political newcomer outsider.
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