Washington Post endorses David Blair for Montgomery County Exec

[Anonymous]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-blair-for-montgomery-county-executive/2018/05/12/fcea66a6-5558-11e8-9c91-7dab596e8252_story.html

The Counsel candidates have not done a good job. Not enough non government job growth in their tenure. They should pay the price. If you want to grow the tax base do not vote for anyone from the Counsel. The record speaks for itself, they do not get that jobs are the key to having funds to do programs.

[Anonymous]

Oh, FFS. He's trying to buy the job. He has zero experience. We don't need another Trump in charge, liberal or not. I need someone who knows how to manage a county.

And it's "Council."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh, FFS. He's trying to buy the job. He has zero experience. We don't need another Trump in charge, liberal or not. I need someone who knows how to manage a county.

And it's "Council."

Blair is a political lightweight. I think he’s a smart guy and he’s likeable. I’ve had a few great conversations with him. But CE of a county that is bigger in population and budget than 5 states isn’t a job for a business guy who fancies himself a politician out of nowhere.

[Anonymous]

He is not at all like Trump. He doesn't think he know everything. Point is county needs new ideas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He is not at all like Trump. He doesn't think he know everything. Point is county needs new ideas.

He doesn’t know how government works. Just like Trump. He thinks he’s entitled to a high office with no experience. Just like Trump. I would have much more respect for him, and would have taken him more seriously, if he’d started off at a lower office like Councilmember. And you can bring new ideas to the Council level. He just wants the power.

[Anonymous]

I see creative ideas on his website, but I don't see that he has any understanding over the fact the County has very limited say over what MCPS does, and has even less influence on State law and legislators in Annapolis. And he's relying on those two entities to make some significant changes. Most of what he proposes has been tried for years. Particularly at the State level. Under O'Malley, a Democratic governor, MoCo lost a lot of State funding for education and capital projects. I don't see any way to reclaim those funding formulas. The State has more than MoCo to worry about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He is not at all like Trump. He doesn't think he know everything. Point is county needs new ideas.

He doesn’t know how government works. Just like Trump. He thinks he’s entitled to a high office with no experience. Just like Trump. I would have much more respect for him, and would have taken him more seriously, if he’d started off at a lower office like Councilmember. And you can bring new ideas to the Council level. He just wants the power.

Completely disagree. County Executive needs leadership skills. Knowing how government works does not make someone effective. I believe he will makes some stumbles in getting ideas implemented from lack of experience in public sector but I will take that a hundreds times over compared to the inability to have new ideas at all.

[Anonymous]

The Post is very bias towards establishment. The fact that they chose Blair says a lot. Either about Blair or about the other candidates!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He is not at all like Trump. He doesn't think he know everything. Point is county needs new ideas.

He doesn’t know how government works. Just like Trump. He thinks he’s entitled to a high office with no experience. Just like Trump. I would have much more respect for him, and would have taken him more seriously, if he’d started off at a lower office like Councilmember. And you can bring new ideas to the Council level. He just wants the power.

Completely disagree. County Executive needs leadership skills. Knowing how government works does not make someone effective. I believe he will makes some stumbles in getting ideas implemented from lack of experience in public sector but I will take that a hundreds times over compared to the inability to have new ideas at all.

Think about that again. How can a leader effective lead something he doesn't understand?

[Anonymous]

I’d be willing to give him a shot. I’d be ok with Blair or Frick and just hope a consensus of the moderate vote for one or the other becomes clear before it’s too late. The absolute worst possible outcome would be Elrich to win because all the non-extremist votes get split. With the economic and demographic headwinds the county is facing, we need to make some changes and stat. Electing Elrich would send all the wrong messages to business and we can kids absolutely any chance of Amazon coming to MoCo goodbye. No matter what you think of them, the harsh reality is that with the grim stats about business growth in MoCo, we desperately need the economic boost that Amazon would bring more than either nova or DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He is not at all like Trump. He doesn't think he know everything. Point is county needs new ideas.

Not quite.

The reality is that there simply isn't a lot of room for new ideas. The majority of the budget goes towards things like schools, cops and firefighters. Then everyone else fights over what are essentially scraps (for human services programs, the courts, etc.).

There's a great deal of time and energy invested in sustaining what we have. It's a tremendous balancing act, and a thankless job quite frankly.

The biggest issue I see is too much growth. Too many buildings (many of which are empty). Too much traffic (my commute went from 1 hour to closer to 2 hours in the course of the last 8 years).

Next issue: poorly performing schools. Yes, I realize our schools are highly ranked and better than most across the state and country. But I also realize that 2.0 was a big, expensive mistake that not only screwed students but also prompted people to pick DC, Howard County, Frederick or NoVa over MoCo. Facts don't lie: we've lost wealthy residents to DC and VA. This was prompted by schools and taxes...and our tax revenue has taken a big hit...and will continue to unless/until something changes.

I'm a liberal BTW. I'm cool with paying taxes as long as I'm seeing a ROI in terms of benefits, services, community improvement, etc. But I'm not seeing it. All I'm seeing is a seemingly downward death spiral in mcps. All I'm seeing is more growth...more big, empty apartment and condo buildings. And more traffic.

But I'm not sure a new guy can fix the problems that the county councilmembers have struggled with. They can't control the BoE or Mcps superintendent (nobody can). A new guy will face a steep (one term) learning curve. It will be a very scary amateur hour for an entire term. Is that what we really want?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d be willing to give him a shot. I’d be ok with Blair or Frick and just hope a consensus of the moderate vote for one or the other becomes clear before it’s too late. The absolute worst possible outcome would be Elrich to win because all the non-extremist votes get split. With the economic and demographic headwinds the county is facing, we need to make some changes and stat. Electing Elrich would send all the wrong messages to business and we can kids absolutely any chance of Amazon coming to MoCo goodbye. No matter what you think of them, the harsh reality is that with the grim stats about business growth in MoCo, we desperately need the economic boost that Amazon would bring more than either nova or DC.

Amazon isn't coming. And even if it did, it wouldn't produce any tangible benefits to the vast majority of us. They'll bend over backwards with tax credits and get very little in return.

[Anonymous]

Are his kids in public school?

[Anonymous]

Anyone but Marc Elrich.

Preferably Blair or Frick.

[Anonymous]

Will the top two candidates advance to a run-off or is it winner-take-all on primary night?