The election is over and we didn't win.  Or did we?  No Republican candidate running County-wide received more votes than we did.  Not even Bob Ehrlich.  Almost 89,000 people were willing to entrust the future of this County to a candidate the Washington Post called "untested."

The Republican candidates who ran in the last two County Executive races received less than 1/4 of the vote.  We received more than 1/3 of the vote:  35%. 

And we did all of this with less than $10,000 in financial and in-kind contributions.  We did it without seeking the endorsement of any major political group.  A Rosenfeld administration would have been beholden to nobody except the voters.

That's the silver lining.  The bottom line is that politics is a winner-take-all event.  Ike won.  We lost.  He will run the County for another four years. 

I want to thank everyone who helped move our campaign forward and I want to thank the voters who were willing to put their trust in me.  At the same time, I must acknowledge my greatest disappointment:  the media who undertake to inform voters about political races in our County. 

First, there is the Washington Post, which published an editorial way back in June which endorsed Ike without bothering to mention that I was in the race (and without bothering to call to see who I was).  The Post then ignored the Montgomery County Executive race for five months.  The week before the general election, as early voting was underway, the Post misrepresented in an editorial that Ike was running "unopposed". 

My disappointment also extends to the Gazette newspapers, which for four years criticized Ike's administration, often pointedly.  After endorsing me in the primary, the Gazette never covered the Montgomery County Executive race.  Worse still, having endorsed me in the primary, the Gazette's editors did not bother to speak with me again before they endorsed Ike in the general election.  Understandably, in its endorsement, the Gazette had nothing to say about me.  They simply labeled Ike "the clear choice."

Then there was the League of Women Voters, which sponsored a debate between me and my Republican challenger in the primary election.  On the day of that debate I told the League's president that I appreciated their efforts.  I also told her that a Republican-only debate, while nice, would be meaningless unless the League also sponsored a debate between the winner and Ike.  The League never sought to arrange such a debate.

But perhaps my favorite story of all is the conversation I had with Channel 8 political reporter Bruce DePuyt after a pre-primary candidate event at Leisure World.  Ike didn't bother to show up that day.  I asked Mr. DePuyt what it would take to get on his show.  He told me that I should show him a poll that said I could win.  He went on to tell me that it was not his responsibility to provide a "platform" for candidates to reach the electorate. 

Running for political office in Montgomery County as a Republican is a daunting prospect.  The numbers are clearly against Republicans.  We are outnumbered more than 2:1.  But just because Republicans are in the minority party, doesn't mean their candidates shouldn't be heard.  As a former journalist trained at one of the finest journalism schools in this country, I have just one word to describe the media's handling of the County Executive's campaign in this election cycle:  irresponsible.

Clearly there were a lot of people in this County who were dissatisfied with the status quo and were receptive to what I had to say.  Too bad the media chose to pretend that I didn't exist.  Too bad the Post chose to report that I didn't exist.

Nobody likes a whiner, myself included.  But this is such a low point in media coverage of local politics that it cannot go unspoken.  There is too much at stake.  There will be another election in two years, and again in four.  If this is the type of coverage that voters and candidates can expect from the major media outlets in this area, they need to know now so they can plan for the future.