Kimberly Klacik is Bad for MD-7
Two Baltimores
Fair context for everybody: I’ve lived in Baltimore County and Baltimore City my entire life. I was raised in Dundalk, right along the city/county line, until I was 18. I then moved to Middle River while I went to college (coincidentally enough, Middle River is where Kimberly Klacik lives). Shortly after getting married and having a kid, I moved to Baltimore City. And that’s where I’ve been since 2013.
I give you that context, because I know a lot of the issues with Baltimore first hand. It’s a classic medium sized city, that tells the story of the haves and the have-nots. People in Baltimore refer to it as Swiss Cheese at times, in that you could be on one street adorned with million dollars houses which is only blocks away from dilapidated/abandoned houses. This is a microcosm of a bigger item at play: Baltimore is hyper-segregated. It’s why there are terms for the two Baltimores: “The White L” and “The Black Butterfly”. If you want to get some additional context, Lawrence Brown wrote about this in 2016 in The Baltimore Sun:
He did a great job breaking this down into tabular format:
So, it’s important to note that there are, indeed, two different types of experiences (and potentially: views) you’ll have depending on where you live and, certainly, where you’re from. And it’s also why I think Kimberly Klacik is not just bad for Baltimore, she’s bad for MD-7. Let me explain.
What you’ll see below is a green (and purple) filled map that shows all of what MD-7 encompasses. Yes, it does look like a bit like a dinosaur. Gerrymandering aside for a moment, MD-7 actually includes *more* of Howard County and Baltimore County than it does of Baltimore City. Give it a look.
I put this map up (purple represents an overlay of Baltimore City areas that are represented by MD-7), to show that MD-7 includes mostly (or all) of the following Baltimore City districts: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12. It also (appears, please correct me if I’m wrong) to include tiny slivers of 1, 2 and 10.
The Big Grift — Ignoring Middle River
Kimberly Klacik lives in Middle River, which is a part of MD-2, represented by Dutch Ruppersberger, a somewhat moderate Democrat. For those of you that aren’t familiar with Baltimore (City or County) geography, if you reference the MD-7 map I have above, Middle River is *all the way* on the right…close to Essex. This is a far cry from MD-7, and while Klacik claims that she’ll move to MD-7 if she wins, it does show that she isn’t really invested in Baltimore City. She’s invested in *campaigning against* Baltimore City. I mentioned before that I lived in Middle River. I didn’t mention for how long — a whopping 12 years. Middle River has a lot of the same problems that parts of Baltimore City does (crime, poverty, unemployment). And I find it mighty convenient that not only did Klacik not run for any local office like county council (she could have ran against Cathy Blevins who represents Middle River), she didn’t even run in MD-2 against Dutch. Instead she set her sights on MD-7. A district that voted against her by nearly 50 points in the special election.
Zero Political Experience
One of my biggest digs against Kimberly Klacik is her lack of public service experience. Politicians fight a lot of their way up through the various types of public service. Some start off as interns for campaigns or politicians (Senators, representatives, mayors, governors, etc.). Others start smaller than federal representatives — they run as delegates, city/county council seats, community councils, etc.
Klacik has none of that experience. She’s jumping right into the deep-end of running as a federal representative in the House of Representatives. She has no record to go off of. We don’t know how she’ll vote or won’t vote. As I’ll mention in the “Style Over Substance” area, her policies are virtually non-existent and lack substance. I’ve read through interviews, and there is more information on The Baltimore Sun about her than there is on her own campaign’s site. That is incredibly worrisome, because she isn’t taking the position seriously enough to show how she’s meaningfully different! You can’t run as an opposition figure, especially one that is supposed to be transformative and not have any plans on how to do so! Furthermore, if she’s running for MD-7, how is she going to represent large swaths of Maryland (Baltimore County, Howard County, Baltimore City), when she’s only focusing on national news segments on The View, Fox News, showing up to the RNC and running ads tearing down Baltimore City as a whole (while also throwing out an entire political party down the drain with her vitriol)?
And here’s the other thing: she’s not just representing MD-7. She’ll have a seat at the table regarding foreign policy experience. And her foreign policy viewpoints are woefully ignorant. And while her campaign site lacks any meaningful policy substance, there are some nuggets on the Baltimore Sun voter’s guide page for Klacik:
Business Experience
The general fallback excuse when people are confronted with the “she has zero political experience” line is “well I want business people, not politicians!” I have a lot of problems with that fallback excuse, because I think there is a lot of value in local public servants (city council members, delegates, etc.). That aside, Kimberly’s professional background is rather scant. You could make the business argument with Bob Wallace (an independent candidate running for Baltimore City mayor), but you arguably can’t make that with Kimberly Klacik.
Klacik runs a non-profit called Potential Me. I will say that this organization (at least from an early glance) provides a great service. Here’s a quick write-up of what Potential Me is from PC.com (Port Covington):
Potential Me, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Port Covington, is dedicated to supporting disadvantaged women in Baltimore by providing clothing for job interviews and hosting workshops to help women build confidence, financial independence and self-esteem. By hosting small focus groups, workshops and seminars, networking opportunities, leadership building and literacy courses, as well as programs for “soft skills” training and mock interviews, the organization aims to empower women.
See: https://pc.city/potential-helps-dress-50-women-professional-attire-giveaway-event/
This is an admirable organization. But, the totality of her professional or public experience is this organization. And as of today (10/19/2020), the website for Potential Me is offline. I don’t know if the company is defunct. And I’m not sure how large or successful it is. There’s very little information out there about the organization.
My point isn’t to downplay an admirable non-profit, but to point out that we should expect more out of our elected leaders if they don’t come from a public service background. There just isn’t a history there.
Baltimore City Uber Alles
Klacik has focused overwhelming on Baltimore City in her advertisements and social media posts, and even more so on just parts of The Black Butterfly. She’s also overwhelmingly ignored any plans for Baltimore County or Howard County, both of which are much more represented in MD-7.
Baltimore City has long been a punching bag for Republicans. Donald Trump routinely punches at Baltimore, Oakland, St. Louis. With it being a Republican talking point, we can see why Klacik is using it as her crux. By attacking the visage, you get notoriety. But, the problem with just being on the attack is when it lacks any meaningful substance.
Style Over Substance
If you visit Kimberly Klacik’s campaign website, you’ll find an Issues page. But, if you dig into it…there’s little to no policy there. As of 10/19/2020, a mere 2 weeks before the election, look how scant the details are:
Her transformative approach to crime is to…”provide additional mental health services to our most vulnerable families”? This is an incredibly myopic and inadequate approach and policy.
And each of these items are that scant. Just look at the “Reduce Healthcare Costs” section:
How? She’s running for a *federal* seat. And she’s running on little to no information. After digging around a bit, she (once again) has no plan. But, she does want to scrap the ACA. Do you want to send another Trump clone that wants to scrap something, but doesn’t have a plan to replace it? She appears to not even want to replace it with anything (From the Baltimore Sun voting profile):
HEALTH CARE
What should Congress do with respect to the Affordable Care Act, how and why? If you believe it should be scrapped, what, if anything, should replace it?
KK: Scrap it. More government equals more problems.
And this is the same story for all of her policies. We’ve heard time and time again that once the election season got further in, we’d have policy positions from her (believe it or not, her policies were actually *less* than they are now). But we are two weeks from the election, and what’s on her site is unacceptable. Especially from somebody that is supposed to be running a transformative campaign. Give me a break.
Furthermore, to have no plans on how to fight addiction is deplorable. To just label (inaccurately) that “almost all of the city’s methadone clinics sit in West & East Baltimore” as some sort of policy position or answer to a very important issue for Baltimoreans are a joke. Just for reference:
Her stances are ignorantly informed and her policies aren’t even fleshed out. They’re just national Republican talking points, and it shouldn’t shock anybody why she’s going to lose come November 3rd. It’s because she doesn’t have any plans and she’s hyper-divisive choosing to spend more and more time on national TV than in the communities or actually building out her policies.
You can read more about some of her “positions” on the Baltimore Sun, because her campaign site is a dearth of information:
What’s Her Angle?
As mentioned prior, Klacik lost the special election for MD-7 earlier this year against her current opponent, Kweisi Mfume. And she lost big: by 48.7 points (73,853 votes). See full results here:
I don’t know how else to put this, but Klacik is still going to lose and she’s still going to lose big. She may have raised $6.4m in 3 months (Mfume only raised about $185k during that same time period), but overwhelmingly most of the donations came from outside of Maryland (see: https://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/elections/bs-md-pol-klacik-fundraising-20201016-g4td5mmbkjhpdpgooywx4wtmgq-story.html).
MD-7 is a +26D district (according to Cook’s Partisan Voting Index). It’s nearly 60% African American, 35% White and it’s made up mostly of white-collar workers (67%). These types of demographics coupled with a previous blowout (by nearly 50 points) show that it is nearly impossible for Klacik to carry MD-7, especially running a hyper-divided campaign lock-step with Donald Trump.
Klacik will lose again in 2020, but with a huge war-chest of donations and (now) a big national name, she’s set herself up for a future campaign…or at the very least a Fox News spot.
Finishing Up
Klacik is not only bad for Baltimore, she’s bad for MD-7. By running a national campaign, she’s completely ignored major areas of her constituency and also has created a huge rift of division even before stepping one foot into office. We’ve seen what division can do when extended to an entire country under the thumb of Donald Trump. And Klacik has not only 100% aligned with Donald Trump, she’s followed his entire playbook.
We need leaders that don’t divide us, but bring us together. Ones that recognize a lot of Baltimore’s problems aren’t entirely a Democrat vs. Republican thing, but rooted in major, systemic problems: hyper-segregation, redlining, a corrupt police department, a terrible AG, corrupt and inept politicians, a lack of transparency and ethics, as well as a governor that doesn’t govern for Baltimore City!
Hopefully we’ll never have to see what a Donald Trump clone would do if she was to win MD-7.
If you haven’t voted already, please do. Do it by mail, in person via early voting or on November 3rd!
