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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Dogged by critics, Baltimore mayor drops re-election bid
By JULIET LINDERMAN | September 12, 2015 | 5:15 PM EDT
BALTIMORE (AP) — Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is abandoning her
re-election bid, dogged by critics who questioned whether she was fit to
lead a city still reeling from a black man's mysterious death from injuries
received while in police custody.
The mayor of this majority black city, still 15 months away from election
day, said at a news conference Friday that she wanted to focus on governing,
not campaigning. Rawlings-Blake said she wanted to guide the city through a
difficult time and pointed to her achievements: ethics reforms to combat
fraud, reducing the city's $100 million budget deficit by half, adding 12,
000 jobs and demolishing more than 3,000 vacant structures.
Her five years in office have been marred in the months since Freddie Gray's
death, however. In April, the day of Gray's funeral, rioters smashed
windows, set fires and caused millions of dollars in damage. In the
aftermath, the head of an already troubled police department was fired, with
one of his deputies tapped to restore trust in the community.
Systemic issues, including racial inequality and economic disparity, became
all the more stark after festering for decades. And now, after reaching a $6
.4 million settlement with Gray's family, the prosecution of six officers
charged in his death must continue.
"Many important decisions lie ahead, both from recovering from April's
unrest and managing our city through the multiple trials we have coming up,"
said Rawlings-Blake, referring to the prosecution of the six officers
charged in Gray's death.
"The last thing I want is for every one of the decisions I make moving
forward at a time when the city needs me the most to be questioned in the
context of a political campaign."
Rawlings-Blake has been a steady figure in Baltimore politics, serving on
the City Council for 15 years before replacing former mayor Sheila Dixon,
who was forced to resign in 2010 after pleading guilty to fraud. Dixon has
announced that she will run next year.
During a news conference Friday, Rawlings-Blake acknowledged her approval
ratings had "dipped" since April.
Some political analysts say she may have been able to pull off a win next
year, especially because her numerous challengers would have likely split
the vote among those who dislike her.
"She was still a favorite even though her performance, or the perception of
her performance, had tarnished her," said Donald Norris, a political science
professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. "In a four-way
race, a person only needs 26 percent of the vote to win. This was her race
to lose."
However, abandoning her re-election bid precludes a potentially embarrassing
loss to her predecessor, Dixon.
And the city's problems have existed since long before Rawlings-Blake was in
office and will take much longer than 15 months to fix, said Walter Ludwig,
a Democratic political consultant who has worked on campaigns in Baltimore.
Curing those ills will require a political regime willing to "sacrifice
political capital to fix the things that need to be fixed," he said.
"There are a whole lot of externalities in Baltimore that have to do with
race, that have to do with economics, that haven't gone away," Ludwig said,
noting that investments in places like the tourist-popular Inner Harbor
never made it to the surrounding neighborhoods. "Baltimore was always going
to explode. It's still going to explode."
The Rev. Ron Owens, a community leader in West Baltimore who planned Gray's
funeral, said the unrest, its aftermath and the political shake-up it has
inspired is indicative of a sea change in Baltimore. Citizens, he said, are
becoming more empowered, and elected officials are beginning to realize that
they must face head-on the underlying issues that have divided Baltimore
for generations.
"Freddie Gray has exposed a tale of two cities," Owens said. "The City
Fathers, who drive through an abandoned city to their glass towers, who were
not impacted but enjoyed the tax dollars and developments of downtown; and
Freddie Gray's community, full of holes and deceit and poverty. People are
now saying they're not going to let downtown dictate uptown anymore."
Owens said that although he would not have voted for Rawlings-Blake, she "
showed dignity, class and commitment to the city's future by stepping out."
"She did the most selfless act done by any politician," he added. "She would
have won, but she wouldn't have been able to govern in the meantime." |
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