Get-out-the-vote rally for gubernatorial candidate Anthony Brown with Elijah Cummings.
First lady Michelle Obama was the show at a get-out-the-vote rally for gubernatorial candidate Anthony Brown on Election Day eve in Baltimore. Brown promised to be a partner to the city, then let Obama take over the stage to what was, hands down, the evening’s most deafening roar.
U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings opened the event, describing Obama as someone who “speaks truth to power.” He then described what he felt this election was about, making an implicit contrast between Democrats and Republicans.
“Today, I’m not so much concentrating on who to fight against, I’m concentrating on what we’re fighting for,” said the Baltimore representative, who included education, affordable health care, and seeing children do better in life than their parents among those issues.
Every one of the event’s 10 speakers emphasized the importance of getting to the polls.
Get-out-the-vote rally for gubernatorial candidate Anthony Brown with Baltimore City Mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.
“No one can speak for you,” said Baltimore City Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. “You have to stand up and have your voices heard. I can’t tell you how many people in the Republican Party are counting on us to forget that tomorrow’s election day.”
Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown would later set the table for Obama, feigning no pretense that the rally might actually be about him, but briefly speaking about the sort of governor he would be for the city hosting the rally.
“I’m running for governor because I know that Baltimore City needs a partner in Annapolis, and I’m going to be that partner,” said Brown.
Stump necessities out of the way, Brown introduced Obama, who was greeted by the evening’s loudest cheers, sustained for 23 seconds (if that does not sound like much, try screaming for that long). The first lady cited a number of issues at stake in this election such as schools, wages, equal pay for equal work—stock democratic talking points broadly applicable to just about any locality in the country.
Get-out-the-vote rally for gubernatorial candidate Anthony Brown with First Lady Michelle Obama.
But Obama would make the most substantive point of the evening—and the one most relevant to Maryland’s current gubernatorial contest—when she asked the crowd to think back to Brown’s first race for Lt. Gov. in 2006.
“Take this in,” said Obama, “because this is important. The outcome of that election was decided by about 60,000 votes. . . . And while that may sound like a lot, when you break that number down, that’s just 30 votes per precinct. . . . So if there is anyone in the state who thinks their vote doesn’t matter, if anyone is thinking of sitting this election out, I just want you to think of those margins.”
The first lady then told the sort of story that is hardly uncommon in a place like Baltimore City, of a young woman whose father was murdered when she was still an infant, and whose family struggled with homelessness, yet who managed to graduate high school with a 4.0 GPA and received a full scholarship to Georgetown.
“These kids have every reason to give up,” said Obama, “but they don’t because they are so hungry to succeed, they are so desperate to lift themselves up. See and that’s why, me and Barack, we do what we do every day, because those kids never give up and neither can we. So let me tell you something Maryland, Baltimore we need to be energized for them.”
ralejandro@afro.com