Editorial

Elect’een ’06: The Night They Came Knocking

We’re not exactly making this up, as Dave Barry might say. The other dark and stormy night, a scary parade of early trick-or-treaters came knocking on our door.

First at our door was Senate president Mike Miller, recently exonerated of poking a Republican developer, dressed up as former heavy-weight champion Mike Tyson. “I’ve seen the light,” said the phantom puncher. “Forget Ben Cardin for U.S. Senate. I’m supporting Tyson’s ex-brother-in-law, Michael Steele.”

Then there was a commotion that scared even our black cat when arch-rival Dist. 30 Senate candidates, incumbent John Astle (a Marine helicopter pilot in Vietnam) and Del. Herb McMillan (who piloted an EC-130 intelligence reconnaissance plane during the Cold War), started buzzing about our porch in World War II bomber jackets.

Things calmed down when Dist. 31 Del. Don Dwyer, who’s devoted his four-year legislative career to fighting gay marriage, wobbled up in stiletto heels, lipstick and a C-cup bra borrowed from the Cup of the Month exhibit at South County Senior Center (see this week’s exhibit review.) Rather than chocolate, he asked for a pair of black fishnet stockings.

Then in the corner of our yard, behind a hay bale, we spotted Calvert County Del. Sue Kullen, endorsed by the National Rifle Association, pointing a popgun at a shadowy figure lurking beneath a tree. It turned out to be none other than her GOP challenger, Calvert County Commission President David Hale, an FBI consultant prancing about in his J. Edgar Hoover costume.

Thankfully, before she locked and loaded, Hale, who campaigns under the slogan Hale Yes!, was collared by Bible-thomping David Whitney, Constitution Party candidate in District 30, who scolded him for making light of profanity.

Amid the confusion, Democratic lieutenant governor candidate Del. Anthony Brown, dressed up as Harvard Law School classmate Barack Obama, knocked to say Of course my ticket-header Martin O’Malley has no ambitions to be president. Nor does he. Nor Hillary Clinton. But I might!

Behind him, curiously, was O’Malley, dressed up as The Wire’s newly victorious Baltimore mayor Tommy Carcetti, pondering new tricks to play now that he is victorious on HBO.

Suddenly, O’Malley hit the deck at the prospect of more gun play when Anne Arundel County executive hopeful George Johnson, dressed in his Wild West sheriff’s costume, drew his twin six-guns at the Republican candidate, John Leopold. You knew it was Leopold by the Abe Lincoln stove pipe hat and beard that he always wears.

“Whoa, fella, this ain’t Ford’s Theatre,” he said.

We were just about out of Halloween candy when Sen. Janet Greenip, who confused wells and septics in a recent public forum, showed up dressed as a rocket scientist.

Nobody was fooled.