Leaderless Republicans would do well to look to Michael Jackson
CAPE ST. CLAIRE, Maryland — Tucked behind the portable toilets and the booths where kids can do mixed martial arts and crafts, the landscaper who would irrigate the American republic back into solvency sits and gabs in the shade. We’re at the annual Strawberry Festival on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, with the sun gleaming off the water among hundreds of fairgoers.
It is a custom around here for politicians to assault innocent citizens while they are at their most defenceless by flinging candy from convertibles during parades and setting up kiosks at small-town fetes to give away key chains and cardboard fans. This tradition continues at Cape St. Claire, two weeks before a primary election in which maybe one-sixth of voters will bother to take part.
Sitting with me is a man named, for better or worse, Michael Jackson, one of three candidates for the Republican nomination for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from the 3rd District of Maryland. A thrifty and sensible man with two small children, Jackson has only one campaign T-shirt on display, and he’s wearing it himself.
“Why are you running?” I ask the candidate, who is a U.S. Navy veteran, a certified paver and retaining wall installer, and the son and grandson of plumbers. He never has held elected office, unless you count the vice presidency of his homeowners association.
“Mostly because there’s too many Democrats,” he answers.
“How much money has your campaign raised so far?” I ask.
“Zero!” Jackson announces. “I want to win without spending OR taking money. It will make me the most powerful man in Congress, and that is NOT a deluded proposition.”
“It would be a HUGE example across the country,” he goes on. “Suddenly, power in D.C. would be accumulated by the LEAST amount of contributions. Maryland has a HUGE opportunity to set an example for the United States.”
Jackson gives himself a 70 per cent chance of winning the upcoming primary, which would put him into November’s general election against Democrat John Peter Spyros Sarbanes, an incumbent who is as certain to win a fifth term in Congress as the sun is to rise tomorrow. Thus far, Rep. Sarbanes, the son of a longtime U.S. senator, has raised $618,154 US to fend off the Jacksonian challenge, according to the most recent campaign-finance statement that I can find online.
He won’t need it. The 3rd District of Maryland has been gerrymandered so many times to keep it Democratic — and to corral as many African-Americans as possible into the neighbouring 4th District — that its shape now resembles what one legislator calls “a squashed pterodactyl.” In fact, parts of the 3rd District are barely one block wide. The riding has gone Democratic in every election since 1926.
“The 3rd District is designed for white, middleaged men,” the 48-year-old Jackson softly explains. “I try not to say that too loud, because it sounds offensive, but I am a white, middle-aged man with a trillion dollars on my desk.”
By this, he means U.S. President Barack Obama’s annual budget deficit, which he would replace with a new monetary system based on the proposition that, as he puts it in his campaign manifesto, “water and using the restroom are inalienable.”
“A water well is nothing less than a gold mine,” Jackson tells me. “Human beings have an instinctual relationship to water. My system would define the dollar as based on water at a rate of .03 cents per gallon. Every time you flush the toilet, the community benefits.
“The president said last week that he no longer believes in ‘trickle-down economics, so I invented ‘trickle-UP.’”
Michael Jackson describes himself as a “fiscally conservative, moderate Republican,” a species that has become rarer than pterodactyls in the Tea Party epoch. By comparison, a Republican candidate for governor here named David Craig — “The Conservative’s Choice” — lists his policies on a flyer as: will eliminate the Income Tax: Yes; supports concealed carry: Yes; 100 per cent prolife voting record: Yes; will eliminate common core Education: Yes
“Where do you stand on gun control?” I ask Jackson at the Strawberry Festival.
“I’m a bowhunter,” he responds. “People who carry guns are cowards.”
Riven into factions and rudder less as the nation awaits Hillary Clinton’s annunciation, the Republican Party gropes for a man or woman to lead it into the 2020s and beyond. Michael Jackson of Maryland may or may not become that forerunner — my bet is that he won’t — but you can’t beat him for name recognition.
Even Marylanders who never have heard of John Peter Spyros Sarbanes know Michael Jackson. “I’ve been teased about it all my life.”