This is not an exclusive endorsement. Crablaw has not had an opportunity to examine all of the Delegate candidates in District 18 in a fair and impartial way, nor provided each candidate an electronic questionnaire regarding their views. Crablaw has provided questionnaires or an opportunity to receive one to several of the candidates for the Democratic nominations, but only according to my ability to find them on the Internet in a short amount of time, and under the pressures of a difficult schedule myself. District 18 is also a three-delegate district, making multiple endorsements procedurally appropriate as well. Crablaw does not follow the reasoning that incumbency is grounds for returning someone to office, so no inference should be drawn concerning any other candidate in the 18th, incumbent or not. Nor should any inference be drawn whatsoever concerning any other race.

Crablaw is focusing on this race because its editor in chief lives in District 11 in NW Baltimore County, where the politics are "dull blue." Blue, because Democrats do predominate. Dull, because Democrats predominate, and therefore may get a little bit of a sense of entitlement. No boat-rockers here, nice liberal people but no guts. I am sick of their style, more because I have swallowed too much of it and have developed a little bit of an allergy.

District 18 and nearby District 20 give me hope not just of a more liberal social policy but of a new model of politics and civic life, where courage is more common than central casting polish. It is quite likely that the Senators from those two districts will be an openly gay man and an aggressive campaigner for same-sex marriage equality. Up here, long-term ambitions and a remarkably conservative institutional outlook would preclude many such courageous candidates.

Only one candidate to whom a questionnaire was sent has returned it to date from District 18: Dr. Dana Beyer. She doesn't know me from Adam, doesn't know that I am not a plant for one of her competitors (I am not, but she cannot know that for sure), and my questions hit some sensitive topics such as the alignment, track grade and rolling stock of the proposed Purple Line. Yet she answered them - very quickly and confidently, though she was taking a risk in doing so. I found her answers blunt and to the point, which means that Dr. Beyer is probably my kind of people. Her Purple Line response was logical, though Crablaw, with its editor-in-chief suffering a nearly 120-minute one-way commute every night and every morning, is very opinionated itself about the priority of high-quality rail transit to the subordination of many other important public values.

As her website indicates, she is a transgendered citizen, but that fact does define the totality of her or her potential value to the community. The General Assembly has many lawyers; maybe over half are attorneys this current Assembly. Dr. Beyer is a physician who has provided care in a multitude of environments, areas far different from her current District 18. She has raised children, which experiences as any parent knows leaves an indelible mark upon your identity, under any circumstances.

Politics is frequently the art not of "the possible" but rather the art of tolerating permanent disappointment, but with serenity. Leaders are never as humane, wise or forthright as you might hope or talk yourself into believing they are. But Crablaw has the hunch that a candidate with the guts to compete for public office as an openly transgendered citizen - even in a rather progressive district - has the guts to be honest on matters of the public trust. Dr. Beyer's blunt style in answering Crablaw's questionnaire gives air, light and water to this hunch. You have to take risks and show courage in this world to get a meaningful return: it's true on Wall Street, in friendships, love and raising children and true in public life as well. Furthermore, it is safe to say that her perspective and life experiences are approximately unique and would certainly be unique in the Maryland House of Delegates among the navy-suited waves of criminal and real estate attorneys otherwise filling that august hall. It is likely that the benefits of her service in office would inure to the people of Maryland at large and not just to the 18th District.

Crablaw endorses Dr. Dana Beyer for one of three Democratic nominations for Delegate in Maryland's 18th District.