Mike Pantelides for Mayor of Annapolis
Much as we chose to make endorsements in the Frederick Municipal Elections, we will also make an endorsement in the Annapolis Municipal Elections as well. Since (as we have previously documented) there is only one contested primary in Annapolis, our focus will be solely on the Mayoral election.
Annapolis has suffered from a total lack of leadership in the Mayors office for 12 years, since the election of Ellen Moyer in November 2001. Moyer had a proud history of left-wing radicalism in leadership, including high taxes and such out-to-lunch ideas as refusing to kill ants in City Hall to collect them in a city ant farm. While the incumbent Mayor Josh Cohen isn’t quite as much in outer space as Moyer is, Cohen has continued to tradition of wasteful spending, higher taxes, and ineffective leadership. The Market House in Annapolis, for example, just saw stores open in it for the first time in years recently as a decade-long “redevelopment” of the Market House property saw a series of debacles covering both Moyer and Cohen’s administration. Annapolis Democrats aren’t in love with Cohen either, drawing a primary challenger this year; hardly surprising since Cohen actually lost the Democratic primary in 2009 and only got the nod when Zina Pierre withdrew after some strongarming from senior Democrats due to her financial problems.
Needless to say this is a tremendous opportunity for a solid Republican with solid local credentials.
There are three candidates who are running for Mayor; Frank Bradley, Bob O’Shea and Mike Pantelides. Bradley, who filed at the last minute and has raised no money, is running more of a protest campaign than an actual race. Bob O’Shea has an interesting background but very limited civic involvement, almost nothing about issues on his website, and then of course there is the curious case of his withdrawal from the planned Red Maryland sponsored Mayoral debate that was to have taken place.
Mike Pantelides has been involved in city politics and affairs for a longtime, a familiar face both to the political and the business community. He has served on the Republican Central Committee, was Dave Cordle’s campaign manager in the 2009 election, and has been an active Young Republican. His discussion of issues facing the community has been relevant and ideological consistent with the kind of conservative fiscal stewardship and limited government that provides an appropriate contrast to the years of reckless leadership of Moyer, Cohen, and the Annapolis City Democrats.
Pantelides has also been running an aggressive and visible campaign, and it doesn’t hurt that Pantelides has outraised O’Shea 10-1 according to the last available campaign finance reports.
We’ll be happy to support any of the three candidates for Mayor in the General Election, but Annapolis voters need a strong alternative for Mayor who both understands the city and provides the strong conservative principles needed to contrast with the Democratic regime. For those reasons Red Maryland endorses Mike Pantelides for Mayor of Annapolis.
