Nationally, we’ve seen a few endangered Republican candidates openly embrace their associations (real and imagined) with Barack Obama. Unstable Isotope recently reported here a story she had heard about Republicans not including their affiliations on their signage and literature or claiming to be Independent as a way to run from the damaged brand. This is particularly true when the Republican is running in blue or lean blue district. Ron Williams, in Sunday’s column, points us to a local instance where a Republican candidate may be trying to hitch himself to some winning momentum:
During a question-and-answer session [ed. at the Harmony Woods Civic Association meeting], Spence said he has a good history of working with both Democrats John Carney and Jack Markell, the two candidates in the Democratic primary. Except that the Markell campaign took exception to Spence’s description. A supporter of Markell and Mike Barbieri, who’s running against Spence in the 18th District, inquired of the Markell camp about the relationship and was told there was no cozy relationship “that we know of.”
Now, I’ll cop to not knowing much about Terry Spence. And I think that being able to genuinely claim bipartisan working relationships (not part of an effort to create a moderate persona where folks don’t look to your real voting record) is a valuable credential. Spence isn’t hiding his R credentials, but I give the Barbieri campaign alot of credit for following up on Spence’s claim and not letting Spence get away with taking credit for a non-existent relationship with the current really good news that is the Markell candidacy.