OPINION:
Kimberly Klacik, who grew up in Prince George’s County, doesn’t paint herself as a pushover, and she can’t afford to be one now that Republican voters in Maryland’s 7th Congressional District have chosen her to flip the script.
The 7th District has never elected a woman for Congress.
The 7th District has never elected a Republican.
The 7th District does, though, vote for African-Americans. The first was Democrat Parren Mitchell, who began the streak from 1971 to 1987. Voters handed Kweisi Mfume the blue baton for five terms until 1996. Elijah E. Cummings then grabbed it. A vocal critic of President Trump, Cummings was the Lion King of the Maryland congressional delegation until his death in October.
His widow, Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, was among the two dozen Democrats seeking to be seated in his stead. But on Tuesday, Democratic voters in the 7th chose a more familiar face and voice — those of Kweisi Mfume.
Mr. Mfume is no pushover, to be sure. Born Frizzell Gray, he was weaned on the mean streets of Baltimore and helped to raise his sisters after their dad had left and their mom had died. He graduated college, won a seat on the city council, became a congressman and then the head of the NAACP.
His politics are as progressive as Mrs. Klacik’s are pro-Trump, which helps to explain why the 7th, which includes parts of the city of Baltimore and parts of Baltimore and Howard counties, likes her, too. And did you know that Mr. Mfume was among the House Democrats who OK’d President Bill Clinton’s 1994 crime bill, which included the three-strikes law?
So, back to the future with Mr. Mfume, a potential seat-filler for a city that’s being ravaged by bloodletting and poverty, versus a Second Amendment Republican diehard and woman who said “we need answers to ’The Squad.’” And did you know you that it was Mrs. Klacik who introduced Mr. Trump to the trashy, rat-infested streets of Baltimore and enraged Mr. Cummings?
The Democratic Party does not want to lose its majority in the House, and that means that in the 7th, where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans 4-1, Republicans will need to raise funds as fast as they can and fight as hard as they can to break the blue streak.
There are no free rides this election season.
⦁ Deborah Simmons can be contacted at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.
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