Showing posts with label Saqib Ali. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saqib Ali. Show all posts
Monday, October 18, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Nancy King Thanks Supporters, Praises Saqib Ali
Senator Nancy King (D-39) has sent the following statement to her supporters thanking them and reaching out to her primary opponent, Delegate Saqib Ali.
Thank You
Dear Friends,
The dust has settled, the votes are in and we made it across the finish line. We could not have done it without you! From the bottom of my heart, I thank you. After running a rigorous campaign over the past several months, I am truly honored to be the Democratic nominee for State Senate in the 39th District.
I can't begin to express my gratitude for all you've done to make our victory possible. Whether you knocked on doors, made phone calls, put up yard signs, or talked about the campaign with your neighbors and friends, every effort counted and we couldn't have done it without you.
I want to offer my best wishes to Delegate Saqib Ali. I admire Saqib's energy and enthusiasm and his passion for engaging people from all walks of life in the democratic process. I appreciate Saqib's support in the November general election and I hope he will continue to play an active role in our community.
I also want to extend congratulatory wishes to my teammates, Delegate Charles Barkley and Delegate Kirill Reznik, who also won the primary election. Additionally, I want to welcome Shane Robinson, the third Democratic nominee for the Maryland House of Delegates, to the District 39 Democratic Team. We look forward to working together to turn out voters in District 39 to secure a victory for the entire Democratic team. Our team would greatly appreciate your support over the next 41 days leading up to Election Day and we hope that we can count on your vote on November 2nd.
Again, thank you for your hard work and support during the primary election. I truly appreciate the chance to again serve the citizens of District 39 as your State Senator.
Sincerely,
-Nancy
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Saqib Ali's Concession Statement
Following is District 39 Senate challenger Saqib Ali's concession statement.
We came up just short... My thanks to you.
Dear Friend,
In April of this year I announced that I would vacate my seat in the House of Delegates to run for the State Senate. On Tuesday we had that Democratic primary election. And even though we ran a great grassroots campaign, our efforts came up just short. Senator Nancy King prevailed 51.63% - 48.37%. The difference was 223 votes (before absentee ballots are counted). My sincerest congratulations to Senator King on her victory. I will support her as she moves on to face a Republican challenger in November's general election.
I owe a huge debt of thanks to thousands of people who supported this campaign by voting, volunteering, donating and assisting in numerous other ways. Together we built an impressive grassroots force. We ran a substantial, issues-oriented campaign. This was a very hard-fought election. But all of us can hold our heads very high for putting forth the honorable and very valiant effort. I'm proud to have worked side-by-side with all these wonderful, idealistic and optimistic people. I can never say "Thank You" enough.
Right now I'm not sure what the future holds for me. I will take some time to pay attention to my (much neglected!) family and personal life. It has been the highest privilege to represent the residents of Maryland for the past 4 years and I look forward to serving out my current term as State Delegate until January. I do wish to stay in touch with all the friends I've met and made along the way.
Sincerely,
Saqib Ali
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Pictures of Senate 39
We were wise to pick the District 39 Senate race between incumbent Nancy King and challenger Saqib Ali as the number one primary to watch in the county. This contest has not disappointed us one bit! Here are the best photos of the politicking going on up there from the two candidates' Facebook pages.
Nancy cuts the ribbon at her campaign headquarters opening with Senator Rob Garagiola (D-15) and teammate Delegate Charles Barkley (D-39).
Saqib and friends on July 4th.
Nancy and friends get ready for a canvass in Montgomery Village in May.
Saqib's campaign office.
Saqib is not the only candidate in this race with young supporters. Check out these volunteers for Nancy.
The Ali Copter!
A jam-packed campaign coffee with Nancy.
A Saqib fundraiser on August 1.
Nancy campaigning at the Shady Grove Metro station with Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown and Delegates Kirill Reznik and Charles Barkley, all of whom have endorsed her.
No, the President is not endorsing Saqib, as Saqib himself pointed out. But it's still a cool pic!
The Meanest MoCo Primary of All Time, Part Two
Montgomery County is a special place. Its enlightened voters and their leaders are dedicated social progressives who work in harmony to promote justice and change. By standing together against reactionary elements, Montgomery County serves as a model for other liberal communities and is leading the way to a better future for all.
Yeah, riiight!
Deprived of competition from the GOP and, for the most part, meaningful policy differences, many of MoCo’s primaries have degenerated into slime-drenched mud wrestling. This blog has chronicled negative attacks in Council District 1, Council District 2, the Council At-Large race, the Senate races in Districts 14, 17, 19 and 39 and the House race in District 16. That’s the majority of contested primaries in this county, folks. Almost every kind of issue, and every means to convey it, has been thrown onto the butcher’s table for split and splatter. Party unity is an old maid’s dream as the daggers are drawn and the Iron Maidens are snapped shut. Somewhere in Dante’s Inferno, Lee Atwater is flapping his wings with glee.
In all the blood-soaked infamy, three events stand out from the rest. These are the three wildest negative attacks of the year, and three of the most unforgettable in MoCo of all time. Start your chainsaws!
The District 19 Reporter
Perhaps no MoCo character assassin has ever had a longer knife than Ginger Ramsey, a former employee of Senator Mike Lenett’s who started a one-person jihad to take him down a year ago. Ramsey’s efforts began as the anonymous “District 19 Reporter,” a venomous Lenett critic who sent out periodic emails skewering him on an endless variety of topics. Frustrated that she had not broken through to the press and fearful that she was viewed as a creation of challenger Roger Manno, Ramsey finally unmasked herself and was covered by the Gazette.
As Lenett’s former legislative aide, Ramsey was certainly in a position to know about his sins. But her year-long practice of using anonymous emails and her mixing in items like Lenett’s hair coloring and references to his children destroyed any credibility she may have had. Ramsey’s bitterly personal rantings actually made Lenett, who has since proven himself as one of the state’s most brutal politicians, appear to be something of a sympathetic figure. But that would not last.
Mike Lenett’s Nuke
Late in the campaign, we believed Lenett had a slight edge over Manno. He had dramatically outspent Manno and shared both a district and an Apple Ballot with former MCEA President Bonnie Cullison – thereby indirectly benefiting from the union’s efforts to elect her. Manno had struggled to concoct a rationale for Lenett’s removal and had sent out a comical negative mailer that looked like it might backfire in Leisure World. And Lenett did nothing to stop the rumors that the “District 19 Reporter” was a part of Manno’s campaign team – a totally unverifiable allegation that nevertheless helped the incumbent.
But Mike Lenett does nothing halfway, a personality trait that is both a blessing and a curse. And so to secure victory, he launched what will forever be known in MoCo as “the Nuke,” a fearsome website listing every single speck of dirt his operatives had dug up on Manno. Some of the points made by the Nuke were legitimate, such as questions about Manno’s ethics form disclosures. But they were peppered with purely personal criticisms of Manno’s original name, his history tending bar and playing blues and his wife’s professional career. The legitimate material was submerged by outrage against the personal attacks. And Lenett lost whatever sympathy he had earned as the victim of the District 19 Reporter. The race has gone from a leaner for Lenett to a toss-up that Manno could conceivably pull out.
Light Saqib, Dark Saqib
The original purpose of Senator Nancy King’s sixth anti-Saqib Ali mailer was to point out that Ali was no longer abiding by his 2006 pledge to not take PAC money. Indeed, Ali said on his website: I have pledged not to accept a single penny from any corporation or special interest Political Action Committee (PAC). It is the only course that will allow me to remain completely independent of special interests and entirely focused on the best interests of District 39 citizens and business owners. I urge my opponents to take a similar pledge.
Going after a politician for abandoning a campaign finance pledge is 100% legitimate. We have done that ourselves, notably when we spanked County Council candidate Ben Kramer HARD for violating his pledge not to take developer money last year. But then someone inside the King campaign made the disastrous decision to flip and darken an image of Ali and leave it on the same mailer page as the original image. That led several commenters, including Kim Propeack, Oscar Ramirez, Guled Kassim, Sam Arora and Council Member Valerie Ervin, to question that action. King’s campaign manager compounded the mistake by denying ANY photo alteration, a claim that no one viewing the pictures could ever believe. And King herself made it even worse by contradicting her manager.
And so an entirely legitimate argument against Ali has been eclipsed by suspicions of ill intent and serious questions about the credibility of King’s campaign. Now that the story has been picked up by the Washington Post, the Huffington Post and Fox 5 News, the image below has been immortalized in MoCo political folklore and as part of Senator King’s political legacy.
What do all three of the negative attacks above share in common? All of them may have had at least a tiny bit of truth buried under the sludge. But all went overboard through illegitimate methods (like anonymous emails or altered photos) or irrelevant personal attacks that looked petty and mean. Let this serve as a lesson for any candidate looking to go negative: make sure your facts are iron-clad and appropriate for consideration by the voters, and NEVER let problems with their mode of conveyance overwhelm the legitimate message they contain.
Four years from now, we’ll find out if the candidates learn anything from the mud-spewing hell pit of 2010. We are not optimistic that they will, but at least it will make for fun blogging!
Monday, September 13, 2010
Ali Releases Canvass Counts
Senator Nancy King’s campaign manager sent out an email claiming momentum for the incumbent, but challenger Saqib Ali has done better: he has released his actual door knock and phone call counts through Saturday. That data shows a VERY busy campaign.
Here are Ali’s door knocks as recorded in MDVAN, the party-supplied voter contact database that most Democratic candidates use.
Knocks
Not Home: 19,286
Refused: 1,604
Moved: 350
Deceased: 10
Canvassed: 7,632
Total: 29,815
Calls
Not Home: 22,440
Refused: 1,901
Deceased: 49
Canvassed: 3,959
Total: 34,608
Our political consultant spies comment that Ali’s contact rate (the percentage of attempts his canvassers actually reach voters) is a bit low, but they say his total number of attempts is excellent. Ali’s ground operation appears to be extremely active and that might make a difference in the election. Of course, we do not know King’s numbers. If her campaign releases them, we will print them for the sake of comparison.
Just one question: when does Saqib get any sleep? Heh… Get it?
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
Saqib Ali Responds to State Teachers
District 39 Senate challenger Saqib Ali has submitted the following comment on the mailer sent by the Maryland State Education Association (MSEA) criticizing his record.
#####
I was a bit surprised to find this mailer in my mailbox. I had been told repeatedly by representatives of the MCEA that the "teachers don't go negative." I guess that rule may have changed.
In any case, what is further off-putting about this email is that its claims are verifiably false. It says that I passed only 3 bills in for years. That is simply false. Below are 4 bills that I have passed. There's more, of course. But I'm just listing 4 to show that this flier is clearly meant to deceive:
Property Tax Credit - Replacement Home Purchased After Acquisition of Dwelling for Public Use
Maryland Department of Transportation - Evaluation of the Telework Partnership with Employers Initiative
Creation of a State Debt - Montgomery County - The Muslim Community Center Medical Clinic
Motor Vehicles - Towing and Towed Vehicles - Procedures and Equipment
Did they omit any supporting citations because they didn't want readers to fact-check? Seems likely.
Furthermore in the 2007 special session, I voted against the slots referendum, but in favor of the bill that delineated how slots would be run in case the referendum passed. Before the vote on the referendum, I got a call from Bonnie Cullison (at the time the head of the Montgomery County Teachers Union, MCEA) earnestly urging me to vote for the referendum. I voted against it anyway. But it seems to be bad form for the Maryland State Teachers Union (MSEA) to be harshly criticizing me for something that I didn't even do, but was being strongly urged to do by MCEA. I can only imagine the tough attack from MSEA if I had done what Bonnie asked me to do.
Unfortunately what we are seeing is truth being sacrificed for the sake of political favoritism. It's fine if the MSEA wants to support my opponent. That's their prerogative. However lying about someone's record in an attempt to sink their candidacy shouldn't be a part of any respectable organization's MO.
State Teachers Attack Saqib Ali
The Maryland State Education Association (MSEA) has authorized the following District 39 mailer praising Senator Nancy King, one of its endorsees, and attacking challenger Saqib Ali.
The teachers are justified in endorsing King. She is a former two-term School Board Member, occupies a critical seat on the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee and has almost always supported them. (Her 2008 co-sponsorship and vote for the private-school-financing BOAST bill was a rare exception.) But Ali was a 2006 teachers’ endorsee and, to our knowledge, has never voted against public education. If he had, such a vote would surely be listed in their literature. Is Ali really an appropriate target for an attack mailer?
Furthermore, one of MSEA’s criticisms of Ali in the mailer is that he voted for slots in 2007. (They inaccurately claim that he voted for the slots referendum when he actually voted only for the implementation bill.) Ali has been taken to task for that by an anti-slots lobbyist on this blog, but MSEA is in no position to do that. Under heavy pressure from Senator King’s slate teammate, Senate President Mike “Big Daddy” Miller, MSEA decided to support slots. They still have a lengthy page on their website devoted to defending slot machines. So in this mailer, they are actually blasting Ali for voting with them.
Here is the message that the state teachers are sending politicians across the state. You can be great on our issues but we will still go negative on you. And if you give us a tough vote, we will criticize you for that in a mailer to your constituents.
What a way to deal with politicians!
You Can’t Make This Up
We promise to someday drop the “Light Saqib, Dark Saqib” story, but it just won’t die. That’s because it was resurrected this morning in the Washington Post by none other than… Senator Nancy King.
When asked by the Huffington Post and WAMU about Dark Saqib, King’s campaign manager, Amy Yockus Hartman, said this:First off, at no time, in any way whatsoever, did we, or would we, alter photos or attempt to insinuate anything about Delegate Saqib Ali other than the verified facts we have consistently laid out through this campaign -- the fact that he fell asleep and missed a crucial vote on education funding, and the fact that he broke his promise to reject special interest funding and then accepted $50,000 in corporate and PAC money.
That was an obvious falsehood as anyone looking at Light Saqib and Dark Saqib below can see.
Asked by the Washington Post about Dark Saqib, Senator King herself said this:King said there was “absolutely no offense meant by it.”
Now Senator King could be right, but she is directly contradicting her own campaign manager, who denied ANY alteration.
“I’m not sure what happened with it. It could have been an error in our proofing. It could have been a printing error,” King said. “He infers that I did that to make his skin look dark. That’s not what this campaign has been about from the get-go. We live in a very diverse district and we don’t even need to go in that direction.”
Hartman has been prone to ranting outbursts in the past and has even mischaracterized our work. Now her statements to the press have been disavowed by her own client.
Absolutely. Bizarre.
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Sleepy Saqib Strikes Again
You have to give Senator Nancy King (D-39) credit for picking a message and sticking with it.
Do You Believe Your Own Eyes? (Updated)
Our “Light Saqib, Dark Saqib” story has now been covered by both the Huffington Post and WAMU. Nancy King’s campaign manager, Amy Yockus Hartman, sent both outlets this statement:
First off, at no time, in any way whatsoever, did we, or would we, alter photos or attempt to insinuate anything about Delegate Saqib Ali other than the verified facts we have consistently laid out through this campaign -- the fact that he fell asleep and missed a crucial vote on education funding, and the fact that he broke his promise to reject special interest funding and then accepted $50,000 in corporate and PAC money.The statement is obviously preposterous.
Light Saqib and Dark Saqib both appear on the same page of King’s mailer. They do not appear on different pages that could have been subject to variations in print quality.
Here is a close-up of the two Saqibs side-by-side.
King’s campaign manager could have claimed that the print shop screwed up, or a staffer screwed up, or there was a miscommunication. Vanessa Atterbeary used a similar excuse when explaining her misleading mailer to the Gazette. Atterbeary’s explanation was lame and hard to believe, but it was not demonstrably false. Hartman’s statement is.
Hartman told HuffPost, “…at no time, in any way whatsoever, did we, or would we, alter photos” of Ali. But look at the two Saqibs. The one on the right is an obvious mirror image of the one on the left. Just look at the stripes on Ali’s tie! So she wants us to believe that these two images are utterly unrelated because she would never, ever alter a photo “in any way whatsoever.” And that leaves aside the issue of darkening.
This race has seen its fair share of truth stretching from both sides. MPW founder David Lublin called out Ali for misusing a blog quote in one of his mailers, and your author called out both candidates for mischaracterizing our work. But Hartman’s blanket denial of photo alteration is on a completely different level because it contradicts our own eyes.
Some care about the darkening and others don’t. Some believe it’s a big deal, others believe it’s minor and some believe it’s not an issue at all. But a campaign’s truthfulness is ALWAYS an issue. Voters don’t have the time to fact-check everything they see in campaign materials. They either trust the source or they don’t. King’s campaign has invested tremendous time and energy in documenting Ali’s faults on their negative website and their negative blog. Most of the information there appears to be fair game since they are talking about votes, bill sponsorships and attendance. But to waste all that research and the credibility required to make it stick by making an obviously false statement to the media is a serious mistake. Even for a casual observer, it can call into question everything King’s campaign says about Ali – especially their allegation that the now-famous Sleeping Saqib pictures were actually taken during a General Assembly vote.
On September 3, I wrote that Senator King was “responsive, forthright and unpretentious – an unusual combination for a politician.” I stand by those words. But King’s staff is running amok and they are creating serious problems for their client. Every candidate needs to remember that when the campaign is over, the staff will disappear, the allied operatives and consultants will go back to Annapolis or wherever else they came from, and everything that has happened will be laid directly at the feet of... the candidate.
Update: The Washington Post Maryland Politics blog picked up the story as well.
Update 2: Think Progress has picked up the story too.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Light Saqib, Dark Saqib
Campaign consultants love to get creative with mailers. That’s why they’re paid! And sometimes they use Photoshop to make their point. But when an image of a light-skinned candidate is altered to look like a dark-skinned person, does that cross the line? That question is now being asked about Senator Nancy King’s most recent negative mailer targeting her challenger, Saqib Ali.
Check out the Sleazy Saqib mailer sent out by King criticizing Ali for taking PAC money. Note the two images of Ali on the first page.
The top image of Ali seems to be a real shot. The bottom image has been altered in two ways: it has been flipped and darkened. Every aspect of Ali in the bottom image – his hair, his skin, his five-o’clock shadow, his tie and his suit – is darker.
Dark Saqib is then enlarged later in the mailer.
Here are Light Saqib and Dark Saqib side by side. The alteration can’t be missed.
What is the point of Dark Saqib? Is it to show him being corrupted by PAC money? Is it to show him as some sort of sinister figure?
District 39 resident Liz McKenna emailed us her reaction to the mailer:I was shocked and offended when I saw the latest anti-Ali flyer in my mailbox today. I know Saqib, and it was immediately obvious to me that the photo of him had been altered using something like Photoshop to make his skin look darker.
This is the second time something like this has happened during this campaign. When Senator King sent out an education issue mailer showing students of color goofing off and reading comic books in class, Council Member Valerie Ervin asked, “Is there an explanation for why all the kids in the photos are black and latino?” No one replied.
I don’t even know where to begin -- this kind of dirty trick not only misrepresents Saqib, but plays on offensive negative stereotypes regarding skin tone. The ugly trope at work here is “darker skin = unsavory” and that in itself is wrong. Many of us remember when O.J. Simpson’s mug shot was similarly darkened for the cover of Time Magazine back in 1994. I had hoped that I had seen the last of such racist editorial decisions in this century. Apparently I was wrong.
Saqib Ali deserves an apology. All people of color, and people of conscience, deserve an apology.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth M. McKenna
North Potomac, MD
We are not – repeat – NOT making a judgment on this. But we can’t ignore it either, because people are talking.
Monday, September 06, 2010
Sleazy Saqib
This is Senator Nancy King's sixth(!) negative mailer in nine days. At least this time, Sleepy Saqib is replaced by Sleazy Saqib. Hey, isn't Sleazy one of the Seven Dwarfs?
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