Skip to the list

WTOP’s Mark Plotkin socked it to the five candidates in the Prince George's County executive race in a debate this morning, deliberately repeating the worst things said about them and asking for their response. The criticism ranged from the personal (“you’re too much a loner”) to the damning (your department is “poorly run with numerous shootings of household pets”). The candidates, former Del. Rushern Baker, County Councilman Sam Dean, Sheriff Michael Jackson, Del. Gerron Levi, and Henry Turner, responded to Plotkin's charges with a mixture of grace, clumsiness, and hilarity.

1. To Rushern Baker: “You’re a two-time loser. You just keep running for office.”

   Baker: “They’re right. I mean I see the problems of Prince George’s County. Our education system, our inability to attract businesses to the county, our inability over the last few years to develop around our metro stops, our inability to just get along. … If you look at all of those things and the experience, I can’t sit on the sidelines.”

2. To Henry Turner: “Your personality and your business have not done very well, and more and more that they don’t understand why you’re running.”

   Turner: “First of all, I was a businessman, still am.”

3. To Henry Turner: “[inaudible] called you a ‘failed business person.’”

   Turner: “Because I, like the majority of the developers and the contractors, have had serious problems with the economy.”

4. To Michael Jackson: Your department is “poorly run with two deputies involved in embezzlement.”

   Jackson: “The incidents you cited, the two deputies, well, you know what, those are union funds that I have nothing to do with till the courts got involved. Once the courts got involved, then I made the correct decision in suspending those two individuals.”

5. To Sam Dean: “You’re just too nice a guy. You’re courtly and courteous…you’re too accommodating.”

   Dean: “Thank you for sharing my kindness. I think people who know me will know better. I’m an easy-going person, but I don’t take any mess.”

6. To Gerron Levi: “You’re really a Chicagoan…You just don’t know the lay of the land. You’re an interloper.”

   Levi: “I’ve been in the area over 20 years, and the important thing is to bring the right ideas to bear on the pressing issues we face right now. People have a choice in this race: whether they want politics as usual…or if they want new ideas, new solutions to address our old problems.”

7. To Henry Turner: “You’re such an outsider you can’t deal inside.”

   Turner: “I tell people, that’s the beauty of who I am, because I’m not linked to anything that has lead us to where we are in Prince George’s County. My track record is sterling.”

8. To Michael Jackson: Your department is “poorly run with numerous shootings of household pets by members of his department.”

   Jackson: “The fact about shooting of dogs, you know, split-second decisions in someone’s home, you know, dogs are domestic animals. Dogs protect their domain, and deputies have to make split-second decisions in order to effectively rid our county of the scourge of drugs.”